Talk:Mass Effect 3

Edit Request 21 Oct 2012

The article currently states "On September 18, 2012, Bioware announced that it's Co-founders, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuck, had officially retired and left Bioware to pursue other goals.[185] An Ex-Bioware Developer claimed that the negative fan feedback of Mass Effect 3's ending and Star Wars: The Old Republic were responsible for their retirement"

I believe its worth mentioning on September 28th, Dr. Ray Muzika stated on his twitter the following "I respect/revere fans, because they speak with deep, honest passion. Journalists speculating on ill-founded rumors should reassess approach. Good websites demand clarity and credibility – lesser ones enable ill-informed individuals to make stuff up about other people" in response to the comments made by said Ex-bioware Developer. Leading people to believe the comment about the reason for their retirement being fan backlash to be nothing more than unfounded gossip.

His tweet can be found https://twitter.com/RayMuzyka/status/251808651671642113

As well as an article by Cinema Blend. http://www.cinemablend.com/games/BioWare-Co-Founder-Ray-Muzyka-Defends-Passionate-Fans-Blasts-Gaming-Journalists-47573.html

I believe adding Dr. Muzyca's reply to a comment that spoke for him is an important addition to the controversy section of the Mass Effect 3 entry.

Mass Effect Trilogy

For a significant duration of time, this article opened with something along the lines of "Mass Effect 3 is the final installment of the Mass Effect Trilogy". However, there has been some recent debate as to whether this is an appropriate way to describe the trilogy, which is why the introduction now says "original trilogy" instead of "Mass Effect Trilogy". What are everyone's opinions on this matter? In my opinion, the name of the trilogy seems quite clear. For example, Electronic Arts - the game's publisher - calls it as such on their store (https://www.origin.com/usa/en-us/store/mass-effect/mass-effect-trilogy). Video game publications have also described it as such, such as GameSpot (https://www.gamespot.com/articles/mass-effect-trilogy-remastered-reportedly-coming-next-year/1100-6482629/). I am interested to hear what people think, and if anyone has an objection to me changing back to "Mass Effect Trilogy" from "original trilogy" in the introduction.--Ktmartell (talk) 02:42, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I think the term "original trilogy" came into common use after Andromeda is announced and released, since the presumption according to popular opinion a few years back was that the franchise would probably have another trilogy series of games in the near future starting with Andromeda. I think what you are trying to discuss is the concept, which is not exactly the same as the example you cited. At the time of writing, what I can verify is that the "Mass Effect trilogy" is simply a marketing term by EA to conveniently refer to the bundle of three games on the Origin store. As for the rumored remastered bundle which as of writing is still unconfirmed by either EA or BioWare but somehow generated a lot of hype and coverage, I personally believe that it is in production, and it probably warrants its own standalone article one day...but I digress. My suggestion that we can keep the "original trilogy" term until the the remastered trilogy is formally announced, and once that happens, there should be a standalone article for it, which discusses the in-universe concept, the physical retail bundle released in late 2012, and the remastered bundle which should attract a lot of reviews from both a fresh and retrospective POV. Haleth (talk) 08:13, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

If that's the way we want to go for now, then it makes sense to me. I'm not a huge fan of the term "original trilogy" but it is common enough and there will be an opportunity to revisit in the next sixth months or so.--Ktmartell (talk) 02:01, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

With all honesty, I am surprised that BioWare didn't just call it Mass Effect Trilogy Remastered since they already released an actual Mass Effect Trilogy compilation. I'm curious to see whether the fifth game they mentioned being developed is intended to continue Andromeda's story. Haleth (talk) 02:33, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

I just noticed that in the official remaster announcement, Casey Hudson does refer to the trilogy as the Mass Effect trilogy. Does that move the needle for anyone as far as changing the introduction back to how it was, or do we still want to wait a few more months and see what happens?--Ktmartell (talk) 18:25, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

I opened a similar discussion under Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. With the recent influx of press, many reliable sources have released articles calling it the "Mass Effect trilogy". I was able to find this description in IGN, GameSpot, and Eurogamer articles. It may be worth following the discussion there, but unless anyone has good reason, I'll update the introduction to say either "original Mass Effect trilogy" or "Mass Effect trilogy" in the coming weeks.--Ktmartell (talk) 20:07, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Story sub-section of Development

I wanted to have a short discussion regarding the new Story sub-section of the Development section. While there is interesting information there, I do wonder how much of it is actually necessary to this article. Every game, film, television series, etc. has ideas that are originally discussed but ultimately left on the cutting room floor. In reviewing other Mass Effect articles on Wikipedia and gaming articles on Wikipedia in general, it appears that devoting an entire paragraph/sub-section to story ideas may violate the following Good Article criteria:

"The article should broadly cover the topic without unnecessary digressions. The article may, and sometimes should, go into detail, but it is not required to be comprehensive."

My proposal is to either [1] eliminate the sub-section and its contents entirely or [2] eliminate the sub-section and reduce its contents to one or two sentences, which can be appended elsewhere.--Ktmartell (talk) 15:57, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion, the whole development section needs a minor rewrite. The first paragraph mentions that Walters replaced Karpyshyn as the lead writer. Then, the story subsection, which is placed after the game design one, has information about ending sequences that were considered by Karpyshyn but ultimately abandoned. And finally, the production subsection has information about character and story arcs, as well dialog lines... All that information should be in one or two cohesive paragraphs. Maybe you could put them under a "Writing" subsection. I agree that some of the plot details are excessive, so reducing them to one or two sentences is a good idea. As a rough guide, I'd merge the game design and music into the production subsection (without the story/dialog bits), so I'd try to have something like this:

3 Development

3.1 Writing

3.2 Production

Hope that helps. --Niwi3 (talk) 17:00, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Ktmartell, trimming the prose is fine, but I can't see how the inclusion of a single paragraph about story under the development section would somehow fail the good article criteria as you have suggested. It is true that the inclusion of this kind of information for the article is not mandatory in the interest of being "comprehensive", but I don't agree with your interpretation of the "broadness in its coverage" criteria. I note that the story sub-section is entirely about ideas proposed for its ending which is now discarded, with articles written entirely around that one aspect as opposed to trivial mentions cited as sources; one of the most notable aspects about Mass Effect 3 was its infamous ending controversy, and it has had ample coverage under the reception section. In the interests of broadness of coverage, some insight into the development process of the game's endings is staying focused on the topic in my opinion and not given undue weight, as it ties back into both critical and fandom-driven reception of its endings as being poorly construed further along in the article. I also note that there is no obligation for the MOS of the game to be identical or consistent to that of other articles in the Mass Effect series: take for example, Dragon Age: Inquisition, which has a far more ample section on the developmental aspects of its story, but was passed as GA without much issue by another experienced editor sometime ago.

Niwi3's proposal is fine with me. Haleth (talk) 17:17, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate both of your feedback. I will proceed with a minor rewrite of the Development section based on Niwi3's proposal. I should be able to take a rough stab this evening.

Something to think about on the side - I noticed that the plot summary has been modified to not include explicit detail about the exact ending choices provided by the Catalyst. I'm not saying that this is necessarily right or wrong, but I could see the reader becoming a bit confused as the article references the ending quite a bit (controversy, Extended Cut, etc.) and yet it's not exactly clear what happens in the ending based on the plot summary. I'm wondering if a little bit of detail should be added back into the fold. Perhaps not three bullet points, but at least a couple of words about the three primary choices. Just food for thought while we tend to this Development topic.--Ktmartell (talk) 12:25, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Done! I didn't actually end up removing anything of substance, but rather focused on rearranging. Some paragraphs outside of Writing allude to the story very briefly, but I left them where they are because the main point is not actually the story. More specifically, the bit about dialog is under Production because it's more focused on audio recording, and the bit about cutting a Prothean squad mate is under Production because it's more focused on how BioWare cut content to meet a release deadline. I hope it looks better.--Ktmartell (talk) 00:55, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I like the rewrite. Well done. As for the ending section for the plot summary, I moved it to the Controversies surrounding Mass Effect 3 article, which presents the context and details of the endings in better detail. The endings as they currently exist are a bit convoluted, because there is the 4th ending which was retroactively added by Extended Cut. Putting aside the claims from detractors that they are identical in nature, the reality is that each of the endings themselves are technically open-ended, and going into any further detail I feel would run counter to the recommendations of WP:PLOT and the present consensus to maintain the plot summary's brevity. I think the best we could do is simply explain that the players are presented a number of choices on how to deal with the Reapers, and add wikilink to the Ending of Mass Effect's background section within the Controversies article. Haleth (talk) 02:06, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Much better and more organized. Nice work. --Niwi3 (talk) 11:44, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

With the addition of the Reaper Queen plot idea, I think that the Writing section can now be considered excessive. Niwi3's original proposal was to reduce those plot details to just one or two sentences, which I don't think needs to be matched exactly but the current number of sentences and (perhaps more notably) their detail is probably only important to a small population of enthusiastic fans of the subject in question. I tried to avoid removing anything in my original rewrite and simply rearranged the existing content, but I think it makes sense now to condense the information into a summary as opposed to fully fleshed-out details for each plot idea. I will proceed with some changes in the next week or so unless anyone has any major objections.--Ktmartell (talk) 16:13, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Is new paragraph about same-sex romance options controversy undue weight?

Good afternoon everyone! A full paragraph was added to the Controversies section regarding expanded same-sex romance options in Mass Effect 3. Within the context of this article, this controversy has as much if not more coverage than the ending controversy.

While I understand that the ending has its own separate page, which is why coverage in this article is relatively light, it still feels a bit odd to me that the coverage of a separate controversy - in this case the expanded same-sex romance controversy - has a similar amount of text devoted to it. Meanwhile, other controversies, such as the day one DLC controversy, are only briefly mentioned. I wonder if this is an example of undue weight (https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Template:Undue_weight).

I am interested to hear opinions on this subject. If no one chimes in over the next few weeks, I will remove the full paragraph and merge into the summary paragraph below that captures all of the other controversies. Thanks! Ktmartell (talk) 21:56, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

In reviewing this paragraph, I feel a great deal of work went into it and I found it to be very educational and well-sourced. I don't think it would be right to remove it. However, I do think it needs to be clear that the ending controversy is the main controversy, so I've broken the Controversies section into two sub-sections: One for the ending only, and one for everything else. I'm not sure if this is a great idea or not but it feels like a decent option to me. I'm considering this done, but others please feel free to chime in if you have other ideas!  Done--Ktmartell (talk) 18:38, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Endings inadequately summarized

Hello. Reading the plot synopsis, I can't help but feel that the actual endings are completely glossed over - the synopsis just says that there are endings and forces the reader to navigate to another page, which is just inconvenient. With that in mind, I feel like the page would be better served if the sentences "Accepting that this cycle is no longer viable, the Catalyst presents Shepard a number of options on how to deal with the Reapers. The ultimate fates of Shepard, the Normandy crew, Earth, and the rest of the galaxy depend on the player's final choice in dealing with the Catalyst as well as their final EMS score." were replaced with something like "Shepard can utilize the Crucible to stop the Reaper threat by either destroying all synthetic life in the galaxy, uploading their consciousness to become the new Catalyst, or turning all life into organic-synthetic hybrids and rendering the Reapers obsolete. Shepard can also reject these options; the Reapers destroy the current cycle, but Liara is able to warn the next cycle of the Reaper threat and give them a fighting chance." Does anyone have any objections? Infernape612 (talk) 05:42, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for doing this. Even though there is a separate Wiki regarding the Mass Effect 3 endings, this article and its coverage of the endings should still stand on its own, and it seems wrong to me that the endings weren't at least briefly summarized in the plot. Your finding also led me to review the entire Plot section and I did a fair bit of cleanup to remove information that didn't seem necessary (and was not deemed necessary at the time of the original Good Article review).

One note regarding the ending summary: Since the original version of the game only includes three ending options (and not the additional Refusal ending), I removed mention of the new DLC ending from the summary. Ktmartell (talk) 17:04, 3 January 2024 (UTC)