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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Mass Effect Thread: Leviathan is out, buy it, it's great

zgamer5 on 16 March 2012
lestatdark said:
zgamer5 said:

Select the amount of text that you want to put spoiler tags, go to the Styles option and select Spoiler. It's easy as that. 

As for the endings per se, it's not as much Call of Duty esque as it is Deus Ex esque. I don't remember a Call of Duty that ends in "pick your ending out of these three choices"


ok thanks!

what i mean by call of duty esque doesn't have to do with choices but with the outcome. shepard goes alone on the final mission like if he is a one man army and the outcome is a big explosion with no closure and no emotion.

and since i did not yet finish deus ex lol i guess me3 ruined it for me :P



Being in 3rd place never felt so good

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lestatdark on 16 March 2012
zgamer5 said:
lestatdark said:
zgamer5 said:

Select the amount of text that you want to put spoiler tags, go to the Styles option and select Spoiler. It's easy as that. 

As for the endings per se, it's not as much Call of Duty esque as it is Deus Ex esque. I don't remember a Call of Duty that ends in "pick your ending out of these three choices"


ok thanks!

what i mean by call of duty esque doesn't have to do with choices but with the outcome. shepard goes alone on the final mission like if he is a one man army and the outcome is a big explosion with no closure and no emotion.

 

Hmmm, I didn't get that impression (about shepard being an one man army), mostly because he stays on the sidelines helping the tanks and Hammer team go through. The only moment where Shepard and his/her team does play an "One man army" is when they have to hold out for the Thanix missiles to be primed for launch, and even then, it only happens because the flanking teams fail to contain the situation. 

There have been much more blatant one man army situations in the ME universe than the final mission on ME3. Illos (where he faces the bulk of the Geth heretic army), The Collector's Base (taking on a gigantic station where an entire modified race resides just with 10-12 guys) and even the fight against the Reaper on Rannoch (which he is trully one man against a gigantic 160 m tall badass of a robot)



Current PC Build

CPU - i7 8700K 3.7 GHz (4.7 GHz turbo) 6 cores OC'd to 5.2 GHz with Watercooling (Hydro Series H110i) | MB - Gigabyte Z370 HD3P ATX | Gigabyte GTX 1080ti Gaming OC BLACK 11G (1657 MHz Boost Core / 11010 MHz Memory) | RAM - Corsair DIMM 32GB DDR4, 2400 MHz | PSU - Corsair CX650M (80+ Bronze) 650W | Audio - Asus Essence STX II 7.1 | Monitor - Samsung U28E590D 4K UHD, Freesync, 1 ms, 60 Hz, 28"

zgamer5 on 16 March 2012
lestatdark said:
zgamer5 said:
lestatdark said:
zgamer5 said:

Select the amount of text that you want to put spoiler tags, go to the Styles option and select Spoiler. It's easy as that. 

As for the endings per se, it's not as much Call of Duty esque as it is Deus Ex esque. I don't remember a Call of Duty that ends in "pick your ending out of these three choices"


ok thanks!

what i mean by call of duty esque doesn't have to do with choices but with the outcome. shepard goes alone on the final mission like if he is a one man army and the outcome is a big explosion with no closure and no emotion.

 

Hmmm, I didn't get that impression (about shepard being an one man army), mostly because he stays on the sidelines helping the tanks and Hammer team go through. The only moment where Shepard and his/her team does play an "One man army" is when they have to hold out for the Thanix missiles to be primed for launch, and even then, it only happens because the flanking teams fail to contain the situation. 

There have been much more blatant one man army situations in the ME universe than the final mission on ME3. Illos (where he faces the bulk of the Geth heretic army), The Collector's Base (taking on a gigantic station where an entire modified race resides just with 10-12 guys) and even the fight against the Reaper on Rannoch (which he is trully one man against a gigantic 160 m tall badass of a robot)

I think i need to rephrase my sentence. By one man army i ment that i expected him to be beside his squad mates, and if he died that he would be with them.  A perfect ending would be shepard sacrificing his life to defeat the reapers and as he falls to the ground dead joker catches him, and a tear falls.

Now i have to sleep hopefully i won't be as sad tomorow.



Being in 3rd place never felt so good

lestatdark on 16 March 2012
zgamer5 said:
lestatdark said:
zgamer5 said:
lestatdark said:
zgamer5 said:

Select the amount of text that you want to put spoiler tags, go to the Styles option and select Spoiler. It's easy as that. 

As for the endings per se, it's not as much Call of Duty esque as it is Deus Ex esque. I don't remember a Call of Duty that ends in "pick your ending out of these three choices"


ok thanks!

what i mean by call of duty esque doesn't have to do with choices but with the outcome. shepard goes alone on the final mission like if he is a one man army and the outcome is a big explosion with no closure and no emotion.

 

Hmmm, I didn't get that impression (about shepard being an one man army), mostly because he stays on the sidelines helping the tanks and Hammer team go through. The only moment where Shepard and his/her team does play an "One man army" is when they have to hold out for the Thanix missiles to be primed for launch, and even then, it only happens because the flanking teams fail to contain the situation. 

There have been much more blatant one man army situations in the ME universe than the final mission on ME3. Illos (where he faces the bulk of the Geth heretic army), The Collector's Base (taking on a gigantic station where an entire modified race resides just with 10-12 guys) and even the fight against the Reaper on Rannoch (which he is trully one man against a gigantic 160 m tall badass of a robot)

I think i need to rephrase my sentence. By one man army i ment that i expected him to be beside his squad mates, and if he died that he would be with them.  A perfect ending would be shepard sacrificing his life to defeat the reapers and as he falls to the ground dead joker catches him, and a tear falls.

Now i have to sleep hopefully i won't be as sad tomorow.

Ah yes, that part of the ending didn't make sense. Not much as him not being with his squadmates, but because it's inconsistent with what happens when Harbinger's laser hits. Supposedly no one but Shepard and Anderson survives it (meaning your squadmates die, and indeed, if you have a low enough EMS, they do appear on the ground dead) but then you see them leaving the Normandy after it crashes on that planet, so something is rather "off" there



Current PC Build

CPU - i7 8700K 3.7 GHz (4.7 GHz turbo) 6 cores OC'd to 5.2 GHz with Watercooling (Hydro Series H110i) | MB - Gigabyte Z370 HD3P ATX | Gigabyte GTX 1080ti Gaming OC BLACK 11G (1657 MHz Boost Core / 11010 MHz Memory) | RAM - Corsair DIMM 32GB DDR4, 2400 MHz | PSU - Corsair CX650M (80+ Bronze) 650W | Audio - Asus Essence STX II 7.1 | Monitor - Samsung U28E590D 4K UHD, Freesync, 1 ms, 60 Hz, 28"

SecondWar on 16 March 2012
lestatdark said:
SecondWar said:
Acevil said:
SecondWar said:

Picking up on a point I made earlier about how Bioware did not make best use of choices made in the previous game, I wanted to highlight two more brilliant opportunities to develop the storyline which were completely overlooked, despite the fact when the come up it looked like the impact could be serious.

Both of these decisions occur in Mass Effect 2, in N7: Lost operative and Arrival. In N7: Lost Operative you find a Cerberus operative and have to recover some encrypted data about Cerberus' operations that is very sensitive in nature and could do some real damage to Cerberus if it fell into the wrong hands. Considering you are effectively at war with Cerberus during Mass Effect 3 WHY was this not picked up? And in Arrival, when you are given the choice of whether or not to warn the Batarian colonists I figured this could have major repercusions in Shepard's efforts to gather allies, but again is barely touched on except for two assignments that involve Batarians on the citadel, and even here that decision doesn't really come into play.

Maybe I should take a break from the game, I feel I just torturing myself over thinking about what could have been.

I believe he didn't really get a chance to warn the colonies. 

I think that's why it whent down the path it did, but was hoping for something more inventive rather than  leaving Arrival more or less as a 'filler episode'. Typically came up with my own story for it, in that after Shepard broke Kenson out of the Batarian prison they were pursued by the Batarian navy vessel. Object Rho disabled the vessel (meaning no Batarians could interfere with the station) until they managed to fix the damage and pciked up Shepard's warning and escaped through the Alpha relay before it was destroyed. Thought something like that could have meant the Batarians either contributed to the war effort in Mass Effect 3, or went to war with the alliance by harassing their attempts to stop the Reapers.

Object Rho couldn't do such a thing, since it basically only broadcasts a signal into Dark Space using a method similar to the QEC's. It only responds to threats locally, by the same methods that a dead reaper ship indoctrinate anyone who enters them. 

And since Shepard and Dr. Kenson escape on a Batarian Shuttle, they couldn't be traced via IFF, so they would effectively be lost to the batarians after gaining some distance from Aratoht. 

Let me be inventive, mostly came up with all this (crap) whilst counting down te days until ME3 came out.

IFF aside, the Batarians wouldn't have taken long to notice a significant number of guards were dead and a prisoner was missing, and could well have has ways of tracing the last ship to leave the prison. As for Object Rho, you only assume it could only emit a signal. Besides, when I said it could have disabled the Batarian ship, I more meant that signal knocked out all the crew members or acted as a massive EMp which shut down the ships system, with the effects not wearing off until around the time Shepard woke up.

Anyway, going to stop elaborating on this. Its a best fan-faction, at worst total rubbish.



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lestatdark on 16 March 2012
SecondWar said:
lestatdark said:
SecondWar said:
Acevil said:
SecondWar said:

Picking up on a point I made earlier about how Bioware did not make best use of choices made in the previous game, I wanted to highlight two more brilliant opportunities to develop the storyline which were completely overlooked, despite the fact when the come up it looked like the impact could be serious.

Both of these decisions occur in Mass Effect 2, in N7: Lost operative and Arrival. In N7: Lost Operative you find a Cerberus operative and have to recover some encrypted data about Cerberus' operations that is very sensitive in nature and could do some real damage to Cerberus if it fell into the wrong hands. Considering you are effectively at war with Cerberus during Mass Effect 3 WHY was this not picked up? And in Arrival, when you are given the choice of whether or not to warn the Batarian colonists I figured this could have major repercusions in Shepard's efforts to gather allies, but again is barely touched on except for two assignments that involve Batarians on the citadel, and even here that decision doesn't really come into play.

Maybe I should take a break from the game, I feel I just torturing myself over thinking about what could have been.

I believe he didn't really get a chance to warn the colonies. 

I think that's why it whent down the path it did, but was hoping for something more inventive rather than  leaving Arrival more or less as a 'filler episode'. Typically came up with my own story for it, in that after Shepard broke Kenson out of the Batarian prison they were pursued by the Batarian navy vessel. Object Rho disabled the vessel (meaning no Batarians could interfere with the station) until they managed to fix the damage and pciked up Shepard's warning and escaped through the Alpha relay before it was destroyed. Thought something like that could have meant the Batarians either contributed to the war effort in Mass Effect 3, or went to war with the alliance by harassing their attempts to stop the Reapers.

Object Rho couldn't do such a thing, since it basically only broadcasts a signal into Dark Space using a method similar to the QEC's. It only responds to threats locally, by the same methods that a dead reaper ship indoctrinate anyone who enters them. 

And since Shepard and Dr. Kenson escape on a Batarian Shuttle, they couldn't be traced via IFF, so they would effectively be lost to the batarians after gaining some distance from Aratoht. 

Let me be inventive, mostly came up with all this (crap) whilst counting down te days until ME3 came out.

IFF aside, the Batarians wouldn't have taken long to notice a significant number of guards were dead and a prisoner was missing, and could well have has ways of tracing the last ship to leave the prison. As for Object Rho, you only assume it could only emit a signal. Besides, when I said it could have disabled the Batarian ship, I more meant that signal knocked out all the crew members or acted as a massive EMp which shut down the ships system, with the effects not wearing off until around the time Shepard woke up.

Anyway, going to stop elaborating on this. Its a best fan-faction, at worst total rubbish.

The batarians could have done that, but given the level of protection that the indoctrinated team created on the asteroid base to protect the Object Rho, they could also have easily concealed the final destination of the stolen shuttle. Remember that the batarians never did found out were the base of operations of Dr. Kenson was.

As for Object Rho being just a signalling device, given than it's Reaper technology, you could also be right in it having hidden functions (and Dr. Kenson does state that it releases a large amount of energy, possibly due to Dark Energy interactions within the object, but since it has the same Quantum Shielding that the Relays have, it's impossible to cut out a fragment for analyzing).



Current PC Build

CPU - i7 8700K 3.7 GHz (4.7 GHz turbo) 6 cores OC'd to 5.2 GHz with Watercooling (Hydro Series H110i) | MB - Gigabyte Z370 HD3P ATX | Gigabyte GTX 1080ti Gaming OC BLACK 11G (1657 MHz Boost Core / 11010 MHz Memory) | RAM - Corsair DIMM 32GB DDR4, 2400 MHz | PSU - Corsair CX650M (80+ Bronze) 650W | Audio - Asus Essence STX II 7.1 | Monitor - Samsung U28E590D 4K UHD, Freesync, 1 ms, 60 Hz, 28"

lestatdark on 16 March 2012

Operation Goliath is a go! 1st ME3 Multiplayer weekend challenge.




Operation Goliath
Citadel Allied Command is mounting a galaxy-wide operation to cripple the Reapers’ shock troops: the turian-krogan hybrids known as “brutes.” To flush out Reaper ground forces, N7 teams are deploying to engage the enemy in key theaters. Heavy reinforcements are expected anywhere fighting begins.

Community Goal: Inflict heavy casualties on Reaper “brutes” on March 16th, 17th, and 18th.

Community Unlock: If this goal is met, all N7 squads will be awarded a Victory Pack that can be unlocked the following week.

Squad Goal: Successful extraction from a Reaper-held zone at a Silver threat level or higher.

Squad Unlock: Your squad will be granted a Commendation Pack.

Your allies are counting on you. Now is not the time to let them down.



Welcome to the first N7 Challenge weekend!

Join your friends on line between 5 PM PST Friday, March 16 and 5 AM PST Monday, March 18, and take the fight to the Reapers like never before. 

  • Any player who is part of a squad that beats the Reaper faction on Silver difficulty or better will unlock one Commendation Pack.  This means that at least one member of the squad must be extracted at the end of the mission – this will earn all squad members the reward. Each player can earn a maximum of one pack, and each pack contains a random N7 Arsenal Weapon. Originally only available as single-player weapons via the N7 Collector’s Edition, these multiplayer variants will be exceptionally rare and are NOT obtainable through regular purchasable Reinforcement Packs.   The Commendation Packs will contain one of the following guns at random: N7 Crusader Shotgun, N7 Eagle Pistol, N7 Hurricane SMG, and N7 Valiant Sniper Rifle.

  • Destroy as many brutes as possible – if the multiplayer community kills a combined 1 MILLION brutes within the hours of the challenge, ALL players will receive a Victory Pack as a reward. 


PLEASE NOTE THAT REWARDS WILL UNLOCK ON TUESDAY, MARCH 20 @ 5 PM PST. YOU MUST REDEEM (OPEN) YOUR PACKS IN THE MULTIPLAYER STORE MENU WITHIN 7 DAYS, AT WHICH POINT THE PACKS WILL EXPIRE AND CANNOT BE RESTORED.

THIS CHALLENGE IS ONLY IN EFFECT ON XBOX 360 AND PC. UNFORTUNATELY, DUE TO TECHNICAL LIMITATIONS, WE ARE UNABLE TO EXTEND THIS PROGRAM TO THE PLAYSTATION 3 PLATFORM. 


N7 CHALLENGE - FAQ

How do I participate in the N7 Challenge Weekend “Operation: Goliath”:
To participate, you will need to:

  •  Ensure you have access to Mass Effect 3 multiplayer and can play matches

  • Progress tracking and unlocks are only possible if you have data tracking enabled. To verify this, in the game go to: Options -> Online -> Upload Gameplay Feedback, and make sure it is “ON”.  If this is set to “OFF” your completion and/or contribution to the challenges will not be tracked and you will not receive any unlocks.

When will I receive the unlockable packs, and do I need to input a code to get them?
Unlocks will be granted at 5PM PST, Tuesday March 20.  No codes are required, you will automatically receive your packs in the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer Store.

What is in the Commendation and Victory Packs? Can I choose my unlocks?
The Commendation Pack and Victory Packs contain a number of upgrades and consumables for use in ME3 multiplayer. The Commendation Packs will contain one of the following guns at random: N7 Crusader Shotgun, N7 Eagle Pistol, N7 Hurricane SMG, and N7 Valiant Sniper Rifle.  This unlock cannot be swapped or changed.

I failed to get extracted in a Silver match versus the Reaper faction, but my squad mate was extracted. Will I still receive a Commendation Pack?
Yes.

Is a full squad of 4 required to unlock the Commendation Pack by beating Reaper Faction on Silver?
No – but it is recommended to improve your chances! As long as one person makes it out alive (extraction) all members of the squad will get a Commendation Pack when they are unlocked on Tuesday.



How will the community know if it has killed 1 Million brutes by Monday 5 am PST?
We will announce the results on our facebook page, twitter and forum sometime on Monday.

Do I have to play multiplayer during the challenge to get the Victory Pack unlock?
No – if the community kills 1 Million brutes within the challenge period, ALL players will receive the Victory Pack. However, your contribution to the kill count would be greatly appreciated!

I think I should have received a Commendation Pack and/or a Victory Pack but did not. What should I do?

You should verify the following:

  • You were logged in with the correct Origin ID (linked to your Xbox Gamertag or PSN ID if you are playing on a console)

  • Verify you have data tracking enabled per the first question in this FAQ: in the game, go to Options -> Online -> Upload Gameplay Feedback, and make sure it is “ON”.  If it was “OFF” during the challenge period, you will not be able to receive the unlocks.

  • Please note that you must redeem (open) the packs within 7 days of receiving them. They will disappear from your multiplayer Store menu after that and you will not be able to have them restored. Don’t delay in obtaining/redeeming your packs.






http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/324/index/9993278 

Wow, what are the PS3 technical difficulties for such an event as this? doesn't other MP games on the PS3 also have weekend events? Or is it some kind of trouble only presented in the MP structure created for ME3? Any way, it's a very sucky thing.

Oh well, tommorrow I'mma gonna give it a shot. Silver extractions should be pretty easy with a good team (have done a couple myself).

 



Current PC Build

CPU - i7 8700K 3.7 GHz (4.7 GHz turbo) 6 cores OC'd to 5.2 GHz with Watercooling (Hydro Series H110i) | MB - Gigabyte Z370 HD3P ATX | Gigabyte GTX 1080ti Gaming OC BLACK 11G (1657 MHz Boost Core / 11010 MHz Memory) | RAM - Corsair DIMM 32GB DDR4, 2400 MHz | PSU - Corsair CX650M (80+ Bronze) 650W | Audio - Asus Essence STX II 7.1 | Monitor - Samsung U28E590D 4K UHD, Freesync, 1 ms, 60 Hz, 28"

ishiki on 16 March 2012
mantlepiecek said:
How would you guys compare it to ME 2? Better than or worse??


I found it worse for a number of reasons

-Less dialogue wheel
-More custcenes as a result of this
-No hacking(was replaced with a button hold, it was a bit tedious)
-Scanning was replaced by something less interesting. 
-The level design was still not very good straight which were mostly hallways with random things for cover, not very sensically laid out. Though this was a major problem in 2.
-Less hubs, aside from citadel and normandy they're combat zones.
-Still no mako/hammerhead, the hammerhead was awesome but that was only in cerberus network and DLC
-As far as I've played nothing as interesting, as say the morinth/samara mission in ME2 (which didn't involve combat)

Things it did better, slightly polished combat. More customisation was neat. The multiplayer is pretty neat. Having a lot of ME1 characters back was cool.Too bad, if play the multiplayer some of the sidequests in single player are crappier versions of these missions.

 ME1 and ME2 felt like fresh interesting experiences to while ME3 didn't feel that way to.

ME3 is my least favorite of the trilogy but still really good. I could put more plus's and minus's but I won't.



lestatdark on 16 March 2012
ishiki said:
mantlepiecek said:
How would you guys compare it to ME 2? Better than or worse??


I found it worse for a number of reasons

-Less dialogue wheel
-More custcenes as a result of this
-No hacking(was replaced with a button hold, it was a bit tedious)
-Scanning was replaced by something less interesting. 
-The level design was still not very good straight which were mostly hallways with random things for cover, not very sensically laid out. Though this was a major problem in 2.
-Less hubs, aside from citadel and normandy they're combat zones.
-Still no mako/hammerhead, the hammerhead was awesome but that was only in cerberus network and DLC
-As far as I've played nothing as interesting, as say the morinth/samara mission in ME2 (which didn't involve combat)

Things it did better, slightly polished combat. More customisation was neat. ME1 and ME2 felt like fresh interesting experiences to while ME3 didn't feel that way.

ME3 is my least favorite of the trilogy but still really good.

Anything would be better than the god-awful scanning in ME2. I literally cringed everytime I did a new playthrough on ME2 remembering the amount of scans I had to make to have enough resources. Eventually I gave up and got me the Gibbed save editor (originally for custom hair textures) and just put the resources there. Might be cheating, but after doing all the shitty scanning two times, I said enough.

As for the second bolded, it is indeed a shame that there's a lack of Mako levels starting from ME2. I loved the mako exploration levels on ME1, alas it was one of my favourite things from that game. Having said that, having that kind of exploration device on ME3 wouldn't have made any sense. Not only it would be impossible, story wise, to explore a reaper controlled planet like that, the entire concept of the game is that you're trying to fight a war that's rapidly decaying into an impossible to win scenario. So shepard going lollygagging into a random planet just for the sake of it would have been a really WTF situation



Current PC Build

CPU - i7 8700K 3.7 GHz (4.7 GHz turbo) 6 cores OC'd to 5.2 GHz with Watercooling (Hydro Series H110i) | MB - Gigabyte Z370 HD3P ATX | Gigabyte GTX 1080ti Gaming OC BLACK 11G (1657 MHz Boost Core / 11010 MHz Memory) | RAM - Corsair DIMM 32GB DDR4, 2400 MHz | PSU - Corsair CX650M (80+ Bronze) 650W | Audio - Asus Essence STX II 7.1 | Monitor - Samsung U28E590D 4K UHD, Freesync, 1 ms, 60 Hz, 28"

ishiki on 16 March 2012
lestatdark said:
ishiki said:
mantlepiecek said:
How would you guys compare it to ME 2? Better than or worse??


I found it worse for a number of reasons

-Less dialogue wheel
-More custcenes as a result of this
-No hacking(was replaced with a button hold, it was a bit tedious)
-Scanning was replaced by something less interesting. 
-The level design was still not very good straight which were mostly hallways with random things for cover, not very sensically laid out. Though this was a major problem in 2.
-Less hubs, aside from citadel and normandy they're combat zones.
-Still no mako/hammerhead, the hammerhead was awesome but that was only in cerberus network and DLC
-As far as I've played nothing as interesting, as say the morinth/samara mission in ME2 (which didn't involve combat)

Things it did better, slightly polished combat. More customisation was neat. ME1 and ME2 felt like fresh interesting experiences to while ME3 didn't feel that way.

ME3 is my least favorite of the trilogy but still really good.

Anything would be better than the god-awful scanning in ME2. I literally cringed everytime I did a new playthrough on ME2 remembering the amount of scans I had to make to have enough resources. Eventually I gave up and got me the Gibbed save editor (originally for custom hair textures) and just put the resources there. Might be cheating, but after doing all the shitty scanning two times, I said enough.

As for the second bolded, it is indeed a shame that there's a lack of Mako levels starting from ME2. I loved the mako exploration levels on ME1, alas it was one of my favourite things from that game. Having said that, having that kind of exploration device on ME3 wouldn't have made any sense. Not only it would be impossible, story wise, to explore a reaper controlled planet like that, the entire concept of the game is that you're trying to fight a war that's rapidly decaying into an impossible to win scenario. So shepard going lollygagging into a random planet just for the sake of it would have been a really WTF situation

Yeah, I know a lot of people didn't like the scanning Particularly on console which I is infact dreadful (I know you play on PC though). I didn't like it particularly either, but I thought the resource management to get the upgrades was interesting.I'm probably the outlier on this though.

I agree it wouldn't have made sense in the context of the story. However, I would have prefered they altered the events so it made sense to have that. There are some events of shepard doing things that are probably pushing what would be sensical if they're trying to save earth. And I agree, the mako would be even more silly in this context.

This is an issue, I'm not sure if it's with ME3, ME2,  DLC, or a bioware issue.
The DLC from ME2, (The arrival, shadow broker). Seemed to have just as much to do with the game as ME2 did plotwise. (Maybe I'm exhaggerating, I haven't thought this through enough).