Yeah it's so difficult to know what will help or hurt you. Some stuff very obviously does, other stuff disappears into the background. I was like halfway through ME3 by the time I realised I could actually go LOOK AT all my war assets in detail and found out that stuff like saving the colony way back in ME1 had shown up on my war assets list because I like, idk, I think they were better trained militarily for having survived or something. And okay, I didn't get to see them again but it was nice knowing they were there, adding to my Big Army Score and wouldn't have been otherwise.
I know what you mean about the paragon/renegade options too. One thing I liked about ME3 was that it changed to being more of a "reputation" system, where some things add to paragon and some to renegade but some just add to your overall reputation (which increases your bar with the same ratio of paragon/renegade) and having the special paragon or renegade options generally comes with your reputation rather than your skill in one of the other. I'm also not sure if they gave me renegade points or not, but the overall emotional tone in ME3 did make me choose a fair number of fatalistic, rather than aggressive responses on the "renegade" area of the wheel when talking to my teammates and I was actually really satisfied with the responses I got and didn't feel they were out of character for my heroic Shepard. Stuff like...like acknowledging someone's probably gonna die instead of being perky "keep fighting and we'll win!" or admitting that I would have been willing to kill Person X if I'd really had to rather than insisting I'd always magically find another way?
It's interesting that you talk about the lack of having to think about your choices though, because, well, to jump ahead a bit in your comment - I think that plays a very big role in why some people are disatisfied with the ending. Without spoilers or pressure to eventually agree with me, I actually adored the ending and have...deeply mixed feelings about Bioware's response. My hope is that they are adding to the existing endings with more context rather than adding any alternate endings, which I believe is what their statement implies for...well a whole host of reasons. I'm gonna make a post about it...possibly even later tonight. Or at least try and make some kind of post about it - I'm not sure I could contain all my thoughts in one.
Re: romancing: mwahahahahahahaa! Actually I've never really had trouble getting people to pay attention to me, more I have trouble ever actually following through with romances in the way I at all intended. Becka's Hilarious Mass Effect Romantic Mishaps is...another post I need to make. But first I need to see what new and inventive ways ME3 finds to screw up my GuyShep's playthrough (other than denying me my ORIGINAL thwarted goal of seducing Kaiden because I went and dun killed him when I realised I couldn't in ME1...)
You DO get an achievement for teh sexxing though, so you may wanna go back and hook up with Jacob. ;)
TALI IS MY FAVOURITE but she will forever be my adopted daughter. For some reason - and I admit this has nothing to do with the game - in my head she is forever 12 years old. *facepalm*
Thinking about it now, I think my Renegade Shepard went for Miranda not Jack because I felt less...I don't know, exploitative that way. I though, being in-character, he'd get his Renegade kicks out of err, conquering that challenge, and Jack was broken enough I didn't really feel right entering a relationship with her I had no intention of taking seriously. But I was kind of fine with breaking Miranda's heart. And I wanted the achievement since the game guilt-tripped me into monogamy (well, terrifying-fish-secretary-excepted-monogamy) with my FemShep playthrough and you get no achievement for sticking with Liara in the Shadow Broker DLC.
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Date: 2012-03-22 11:37 pm (UTC)I know what you mean about the paragon/renegade options too. One thing I liked about ME3 was that it changed to being more of a "reputation" system, where some things add to paragon and some to renegade but some just add to your overall reputation (which increases your bar with the same ratio of paragon/renegade) and having the special paragon or renegade options generally comes with your reputation rather than your skill in one of the other. I'm also not sure if they gave me renegade points or not, but the overall emotional tone in ME3 did make me choose a fair number of fatalistic, rather than aggressive responses on the "renegade" area of the wheel when talking to my teammates and I was actually really satisfied with the responses I got and didn't feel they were out of character for my heroic Shepard. Stuff like...like acknowledging someone's probably gonna die instead of being perky "keep fighting and we'll win!" or admitting that I would have been willing to kill Person X if I'd really had to rather than insisting I'd always magically find another way?
It's interesting that you talk about the lack of having to think about your choices though, because, well, to jump ahead a bit in your comment - I think that plays a very big role in why some people are disatisfied with the ending. Without spoilers or pressure to eventually agree with me, I actually adored the ending and have...deeply mixed feelings about Bioware's response. My hope is that they are adding to the existing endings with more context rather than adding any alternate endings, which I believe is what their statement implies for...well a whole host of reasons. I'm gonna make a post about it...possibly even later tonight. Or at least try and make some kind of post about it - I'm not sure I could contain all my thoughts in one.
Re: romancing: mwahahahahahahaa! Actually I've never really had trouble getting people to pay attention to me, more I have trouble ever actually following through with romances in the way I at all intended. Becka's Hilarious Mass Effect Romantic Mishaps is...another post I need to make. But first I need to see what new and inventive ways ME3 finds to screw up my GuyShep's playthrough (other than denying me my ORIGINAL thwarted goal of seducing Kaiden because I went and dun killed him when I realised I couldn't in ME1...)
You DO get an achievement for teh sexxing though, so you may wanna go back and hook up with Jacob. ;)
TALI IS MY FAVOURITE but she will forever be my adopted daughter. For some reason - and I admit this has nothing to do with the game - in my head she is forever 12 years old. *facepalm*
Thinking about it now, I think my Renegade Shepard went for Miranda not Jack because I felt less...I don't know, exploitative that way. I though, being in-character, he'd get his Renegade kicks out of err, conquering that challenge, and Jack was broken enough I didn't really feel right entering a relationship with her I had no intention of taking seriously. But I was kind of fine with breaking Miranda's heart. And I wanted the achievement since the game guilt-tripped me into monogamy (well, terrifying-fish-secretary-excepted-monogamy) with my FemShep playthrough and you get no achievement for sticking with Liara in the Shadow Broker DLC.