It was a great game, with better gameplay than mass effect 2 and 1. The story was a big weaker though but still good enough.

The game is awesome but the end is quite atrocious, both the story itself and because its a choice. See what the Witcher 3 did, you get an ending depending on everything you did and all your choices troughout the game, when you get to the ending itself theres no choice, you have already set yourself on a specific path that will culminate with the ending you got. On ME you get to the ending and can simply delete everything you did troughout all 3 games by picking 1 of 3 very cliche choices.

It's a good game if you don't take it seriously. But if you care about story, freedom and c&c, it's indeed a bad game. Your choices in past ME don't matter because the game will always take you to the exact same path. If you killed Wrex in ME1, he'll be back as another character in ME3. Even the rachni queen has a clone. The ending is also very cheap. And the whole good vs bad duality sucks.

But if you care more about gameplay, sound and that kind of stuff, it's a great game, better than ME2.

I played all three and liked all three, but there were a few issues. The first one had a heavier emphasis on RPG elements, as one would expect from Bioware, but the side quests were shit, as in real, proper shit, and the shooting mechanics were atrocious and clunky. Loading times were another huge issue, this didn't even go away with better hardware (on the PC version that I played).
It had the makings of a fantastic RPG, with its setting and characters, the story was never as hugely amazing as most people claimed though, to me, as a person who reads a lot of fantasy and sci-fi, it was a fairly standard run-of-the mill sci-fi plot without anything special.

The second game came out, the shooting mechanics were greatly improved, but the RPG mechanics were largely removed in favor of action and a lot more gunplay, the combat was also way too easy at times. Personally, I was agitated that Bioware moved more and more away from RPG and more and more into 3rd person shooter territory, like all those 3rd person cover based shooters that plagued the 7th gen.
There was very little to set the gameplay apart in the end, ME3 took it even further and it was now more or less an action game with some smaller RPG elements, the dialogue system also seemed to move backwards somehow and was at times really arbitrary and clunky.

The ME series is good, otherwise I'd never have played them all, but there is so much untapped potential there with the setting and characters. The first one was a RPG but not a good shooter, the two others were decent shooters but not good RPG's.
And that's why I take issue with the series, not the games in and on themselves; but rather the promise of what they would be that was never fulfilled and the amount of insane one-dimensional praise they got in spite of these huge, glaring issues.

I hated the ending and the 'eh' attitude from it. Since then I have not purchased a single EA game. I did the same with Ubisoft after Assassins Creed ending basically saying it's just going to keep on keeping on, screw that.

I didn't like two because it was a on rails action game with just enough elements to call it an RPG and three went a little back to the formula of Mass Effect 1 which I adore but not nearly enough. Two is the worst of the series followed closely by three and one is on a whole other level of awesomeness.

"There is a lot to take in with this. You provide some good and understandable points. I'll get the little things out of the way first. Perhaps I have been hasty with my replies and had some pretty cringe worthy lines. Irrelevant or not. I do have a little side project that I do where I write and create content in an anonymous matter. What started out as a simple concept to prove a point, has surpassed my expectations and milestones. I occasionally interact with the followers and produce more content. I get to reflect on various philosophies, stories, polarity, and contrasts. I play with plethora of ideas of various themes. To say it isn't fun or intriguing would be a lie. Of course this is irrelevant because revealing it would destroy the magic and concept behind the whole façade. Of course on the contrary you will accuse me for a liar and I'm probably wasting my time mentioning this."

You're wasting your time because it's irrelevant to this conversation.  I don't mean that to be rude, but I just don't get how this relates to the topic at all, unless you want to present something you wrote about Mass Effect.  

"On that subject I do find the whole calling someone a liar thing to be a little offensive on the base of suspicion without evidence. Arguably in your defense, I see where your suspension arises. It is true that I talked to at least 7 people from Bioware, but in a sense you are correct. I stated this in a wrongful and irrelevant matter. I have had talks with many of them regarding Mass Effect. I can say that not all of them are in the know of the over all picture. For example two of them worked on the Dragon Age project, along with another unannounced cancelled title. Much like a politician or sales and marketing person. I did dishonestly raise that number to "look good". Not a lie, but not honest. Not something I am particularly proud of as I have a very strong philosophy and belief when it comes to honesty. I can say I am ashamed. As for those I have talked to regarding the matter. They have made the themes and concepts quite clear. You are correct with fact that there are many major plots in the game. Many which are sub-themes. A lot of stories first come into mind with a single concept. In Game Design, due to the amount of staff involved. A major theme that the game resolves around must be picked. From there we have the roots of a story that we expand upon. The tendencies is to create something relatable to the audience. In an RPG game, we traditionally try to create a few major themes with lots of minor themes that are often relevant to the main idea of the game. There are cases where they can be irrelevant if they add a substance to the story or the game itself. This allows for more creativity for the team members. Level designers will often benefit from this."

Come on man.  You just raised the number again.  Before you said "7 to be precise".  Now it's "at least 7".  This is just a bit bizarre at this point.  You are raising the number as you are saying how ashamed you are you changed the number.  Seriously, wtf? And yes, that is evidence you are lying.  If you give four contradictory accounts, at least three, and probably four, of them must be false.  So, you have no right to be offended, because it is demonstrably true that you are lying here and hence a liar at this junction. Plus, you still cannot explain why anyone at Bioware would be in trouble for telling you the theme of the game.  

Even if I did believe that the author is always right, nobody from Bioware said that Synthetics vs organics is the main theme of the story.  YOU said that.  And even if I was stupid enough to believe your story I still have no idea of the context it was said in or the exact wording, so I couldn't possibly take that into consideration.  

Considering all of this, why should I, or anyone else, take your claim seriously, or care in the least about what you claim people at Bioware said?  At this point, you should either drop the point entirely and rely on actual evidence from the game to make your case (which you should be doing anyway), or provide some evidence to show that you were at least telling the truth 1/4 of the time.  

"You may have a English degree and your grammar is quite impressive, but from where I stand. I feel that you attack an author simply because you disagree with them, or misperceived the context of the story. On the other hand. To give you the benefit of the doubt. Video games are made with massive teams and as I have mentioned before. Sub-plots, side-quests, exploration, DLC, and yes, even large plots are created by other teams for the game. To increase the content, while feeling consistent with the game. This doesn't always work out as smoothly as the developers intended. In the end. There was a theme, an idea, perhaps you wish to call it a concept. That very concept in the case of Mass Effect was the contrast of "Organics and Synthetic lifefroms". I do not wish to argue with you any more on this matter, but I will also not change my mind after being told straight from the source of the material. That being said, I also keep my journey, and my interpretation of the story in my mind. Forever and always."

I didn't attack any author.  I just explained that what the author says is completely irrelevant to me as a reader.  As an individual, I may be interested to hear what an author has to say, but as a reader, it does not directly inform my opinion of the book.

To give a, hopefully, clearer example, we'll look at Harry Potter.  JK Rowling said that Dumbledore is gay.  At first, I doubted this, but when I looked at the book, I found reason to believe he was.  Considering his age, him being single, never married, no kids, the lack of any relevant females in his history, and most importantly.  *spoilers* Dumbledore does some things when with Grindewald that are totally contrary to his character in the rest of the book.  This is best explained by the idea that their relationship was romantic, and thus Dumbledore was willing to do things outside of his nature for that love. 

My point in this is that authors are not always wrong or always right.  Whatever they say has to be judged against the text. If the claim is borne out by the text, I am perfectly happy to revise my opinion accordingly, as I did in this case.  If what they say is not supported by the text, then I will not.  Their claim, like any claim, needs to be judged based on evidence. 

So, I don't much care what you think about the story, or who told you.  If you want to convince people that your point of view is true, you need evidence from the actual work.  And if what you say is true, then that should be easy to do, and you shouldn't have to call on an imaginary authority source anyway.

I'm not sure why I have to spend so much time on this, because it is a known logical fallacy.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority

"One of the greatest things about writing is that there is no right or wrong for an author. The challenge is to portray that vision to your audience. I fell into this trap in a recent script I wrote. I over complicated it, and was restricted to 45 seconds. The result of the draft was revealing to me. Only 40% of the people understood the meaning behind it. That is not good. That is bad. Some people might say "Oh well the 60% are stupid." I've had people say that to me. On the other hand. I picked a subject that required more time to flesh out the explanation and emotions. For the period of time the script took place in. I did not clearly depict a characters intention. Instead I used metaphors and symbolism to do so. This lead to confusion and required me to do one of two things. Rewrite the script in a more simplistic manner for the allotted 45 seconds. Or flesh out the characters over more time. I have to go with option A. In reality I would love to do option B and make it a full, fleshed out story. I certainly learned a lesson there. In my mind, my vision was as clear as the sun. It couldn't have been any brighter. Then after getting input, I can see the flaws from other peoples points of view. That's when I begin to refine the story to make more sense, whilst staying true to myself. I would be dreaded to write something that I didn't enjoy."

I really don't get the relevance to this story, unless it is to agree with me.  It seems you're saying that the version in your head did not match the version that was eventually written.  Which is kind of what I've been saying.  What you think may not line up with what you actually write.  

I cannot assess the version of Mass Effect 3 that was in Mac Walter's head, or anyone else at Bioware.  I can only assess the one that made it onto my TV screen, so that is the only version I'm interested in.  And in that version, Organics vs synthetics was not the main theme.

And of course there is wrong for an author.  Which is simple to demonstrate.  Supposed JK Rowling (we'll use her again), was posting something and wrote "The main character of my book was named Larry Potter".  She would be wrong.  This is obviously a simplified example, but obviously authors can be wrong. 

"All in all. I understand your perception of the matters. In the end. The theme that the game was built around remains the same. What started out as an idea, a concept. Bloomed and grew into something much more. With that understanding I was able to see why Bioware views the Synthetic ending as the real ending in "their" minds. As I stated in my first post. I explained that each ending is subjective to the player and is to be considered real to that. As the writers, they considered the synthetic ending to be correct as it touched most of the major themes of the game and the main theme they stemmed the game from. Keeping that in mind. The player creates their own story and legacy as they go through the game. So their choices may result in another ending making more sense to them. Or perhaps their ideals feel more inclined in that direction. After all, Bioware games are created with the intention of their worlds are created to let create their own story. That is the core essence of Bioware games and it will be seen again in the new IP that the talented people are Bioware are currently hard at work on."

I never argued about which ending is real, so I'm not going to address this.  I don't think any ending is real.

"The fur coat story is silly, but very impressive. A psychological trick, and one I am quite familiar with. If you wish to enter the mind of psychology, then we shall. The fur coat is a simple smoke and mirror to your claim. Of course your last post was not about a fur coat and I am quite sure that you did not hold the idea of a fur coat firmly in your mind when you typed it out either. Feel free to correct me on this matter. Your point is simple. One person can make a claim, then contradict it later. This isn't an issue that is exclusive to writers. We all do it at some point, as you clearly pointed out. I have done it not once, but at least twice since we started our conversation. In the case of George Lucas, I hate it when people use him as an example because he kind of has his own little special corner. He changed the film to fit his visions. He was the heart and soul of Star Wars up to this point. I hold a lot respect for him to stay true with the visions in his head, rather than simply give people what they wanted. He created a universe and shared it with the world. He stayed as true as possible to his ideas. Continuing to improve upon (albeit in his opinion and mind) the story and change details that he wasn't happy with or felt wasn't inline with his visions. In a manner of speaking. He created it for himself and shared it with the world. He had a dominate level of control over the story and direction of the series, some might perceive that his mind was copied to the paper. That's only one perspective. Others might look at it as he was a poor writer. Yet, it was his story. In your mind, there is no right or wrong with a story. That is the art of it. A child creates a story that makes sense to him, it might not be sensible to another. With Lucas, heh, he continued to write plot scripts despie not releasing them. It really was his universe.  Now if he were to turn around and say something stupid like "Leia wore a pink dress". He would need to go back and change that to be true, regardless if it is in his mind. Or he would need to write something else into the canon to change the statement to true."

It's not a trick, and it's not psychology.  It is logic.  It's a clear demonstration.  It is 100% objective proof that a claim an author makes can be wrong.  Star Wars is a bad example (which I know I brought up, but I did not intend to talk about it this much), because that is an example where the work itself is actually and physically being changed.  So there are different versions of the film, and what we can say about the film changes with each version.  If I was watching the original version and I said "there is a Gungan on the roof at the celebration" in return of the Jedi, this statement would be wrong.  If I was watching the edited version, that comment would be right.  This makes it a confusing example to use here and I'm not going into it.

But my question was very simple.  Was my last post (two posts ago) about panda fur coats?  You said my post was not about a panda fur coat, when I, the author, clearly said it was.  So, you're saying that the author can make a statement about his or her work that is wrong.  And you say it is wrong because that statement contradicts what I wrote.  So, what is actually written is more important than what the author said about the writing.  I rest my case.

I could also put that in simpler, more neutral, logic terms if you don't like pandas.

Premise 1:  Authors can be wrong about what they've written.

Demonstration of Premise 1:  My statement was (as you say) wrong.

Premise 2:  We recognize that authors statements are wrong when they contradict text.

Demonstration of Premise 2:  My comment was contradicted by my original writing, and thus you judged it to be wrong.

Conclusion:  When the text of a work disagrees with extratextual evidence, then what the text says takes precedence.

If you cannot disprove either of these premises, the conclusion holds as true.

If what I say about my post can be wrong, then what Bioware devs say about their game can be wrong as well.  The way we tell if my comment about my post is right or wrong is by looking at the post itself.  Same thing with the game.  If what the author says is contradicted by the work itself, then it is wrong.  So, even IF someone at Bioware said, "the main theme is about organics vs synthetics", that would be wrong because, in my opinion which I have explained earlier, it is contradicted by the work itself.  Therefore, what an anonymous and probably imaginary person at Bioware said is irrelevant.  Even if they had said that, we would STILL have to look at the actual game to see if it checks out.  So, unless you can give compelling examples from game to back up your opinions (that the war between synthetics and organics is inevitable, and that organics vs synthetics is the main theme) then your claims are wrong.

*Sigh* I spend way too much time arguing with people who are wrong on the internet.  But at this point, I've given you evidence from the game itself, and I've given you logical proof, examples, and sources that clearly explain why author's do not have complete authority (or perhaps any authority).  All you've given is an incredibly sketch claim that you've talked with an anonymous source at Bioware who told you the theme with a complete lack of context or explanation.   If you are going to argue against this without presenting any kind of evidence, you have left the realm of rational conversation, and are wasting both of our time.  

To be fair though, he never engaged me in conversation to begin with.  He gave his opinion (which I obviously think is totally wrong), and left.  It wasn't like he said it to me directly or anything, so there's no obligation to respond.  You don't have to defend everything you say on the internet if you don't want to.

Whether he just realized he's wrong, or simply doesn't want to reply, that's fine.  Personally, I'd probably be better off if I just let some things go on the internet.

We get more sequals instead. I'm ok with the that.

Instead of what Dragon Age does to deal with it: Kill every past hero or major character so they are not a problem.

That's not true. My Warden, Hawke, and Inquistior are alive. Can you make choices to cause that not to be the case? Sure, but I didn't and they are still around. 

Well... they are if you sacrifice other important characters instead. So, someone will die cause Bioware doesnt want too much work. You get the sweet decision of picking wich one.