No Drew Karypyshyn ruined Mass Effect 3

I was writing a review for Mass Effect 3 here on gamespot which didn't post, probably because of Obamacare. I will get it to work eventually but it helped me flush out my thoughts on Mass Effect 3.

And while the merits of Bioware's third installment of the Mass Effect trilogy is old news by now. It has been discussed to death. I still have never seen anyone as put a fine a point on it as this.

The fact that Drew Karpyshyn didn't do the writing for Mass Effect 3 is what ruined it (and a little bit of EA greed.) Think about it. Drew Karpyshyn wrote the stories for Baldur's gate, Jade Empire, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect 1 AND Mass Effect 2. In short, everything you liked about Bioware was partially due to Drew Karpyshyn's writing.

He didn't work on Mass Effect 3. The ending sucked. The companion dialogue was contrived as hell. And though the combat was great, there were some bugs and glitches that EA didn't bother to patch. (Ashleigh's Marksman ability.)

I am not here just to rant about Bioware. I am actually kind of raving about Drew Karpyshyn. I wished they would have kept him on rather than punting the story to sweaty interns in the cubicles. It all felt rushed, low budget and unworthy of the original Shepherd. What Shepherd represented to me was one of the first humans in space to interact with other species who never saw humans before. They forgot that and other stuff too.

If I can get gamespot and obamacare to get my ME3 review to work, I will post a link. Any Drew Karpyshyn fans in the house? I didn't even know I was one until I finished Mass Effect 3. /sigh.

Kotor 1, ME2 were terribly written, with insultingly predictable plots and cardboard cutout copy paste characters. And ME1 was only decently written if you looked at it as a love letter to the sci fi genre. Lets not forget this talentless hack also wrote the Revan novel and was behind was is quite possibly the second crappiest class storyline in SWTOR. As for the early bioware games, he did not write any of those, his only involvement with BG was to write the story for some spin offs and write the novelization for Throne of Bhaal.

http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/17086/mass-effect-writer-drew-karpyshyn-reveals-original-mass-effect-3-endings

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-19-ex-bioware-writer-discusses-dropped-ideas-for-mass-effect-trilogy-ending

That may be so, but read the links I posted and let me know if you think it would've been better than what we got, since the general conscensus was that it would've been just as bad as what we actually got.

He wrote the Darth Bane books too. I read the first and it was badass. If they based a star wars movie off of Darth Bane it would be amazing. Such a complex character.

I've only read the first one, but what a book it was! Loved all the KOTOR references.

"....The fact that Drew Karpyshyn didn't do the writing for Mass Effect 3 is what ruined it...." WRONG !

In any case it doesn't matter.... Mass Effect 3 was not "Ruined".

This is the kinda thing people say when they play games for the story..... Mass Effect is more than just its ending and Dialogue.... ALOT MORE !

@Lulu_Lulu: "Ruined" is a strong word; I should have used 'hurt.' I'm not 100 percent bagging on ME3. It was a pretty good game that could have been better.

There is an overall issue here. It's this. Bioware sells us on their story but don't buy into their own story themselves. Also, known as a "pulling a Ken Lay" or "pulling a Jeff Skilling." (See what I did there?) I'll give you three specific examples of how Bioware sells us on story, but doesn't REALLY think we care about story, so they don't either.

1.) "Mass Effect" for instance is named for the fictional energy source which has made space travel cheap and obtainable in the ME universe. When was the last time they mentioned that outside of codex?

It's a pretty cool concept, adds life to the universe. Or...it would...if Bioware gave a sh*t about it. But they probably figure we don't so they don't. Mass-effect energy never gets used to drive any story -- main or side story -- forward because Bioware lost interest or forgot about their own cool idea.

2.) (Spoilers Ahead) Oh, and hey never mind that Shepherd began as the (among the) first ombudsman for humanity in outerspace. (SPOILER) Just kill him off. Or even worse, imply that he was killed off but don't show him getting killed off, or even worster. Have your love interest repopulate Earth, with (MAJOR SPOILER) Joker? Are you kidding me. I would rather see humanity die and Shepherd live because he represented humanity and could start something anew. But Bioware kind of forgot that they started Shepherd as the first human in space, or crapped on it, or didn't care, or as South Park put it "Shepherd is a talking duck or he's a talking dog...or whatever...f*ck you."

Yes, the ending was bad, but no matter what ending you got, the worst part about ME's ending, was that it was tone deaf to ME's beginning. Here's ME's beginning. Humans discover mass effect energy later than other species. We are late to the party; the intergalactic table as it were. People who didn't play the original don't know that you were walking around as Shepherd and little alien kids are walking by you going, "Mommy, what the hell is that!?"

So, Shepherd represents humanity. Kill Shepherd. Kill humanity. That doesn't sound very triple-A ending to me.

3.) It was explained in the codex before that Earth is basically the Detroit of the future. We pretty much abandoned Earth in favor of other planets with only the lowest socioeconomic classes remaining. Now, I'm not saying that Earth isn't still worth saving, but if they would've at least addressed it, mentioend it, made a joke about it, made a sad comment about it something. But they, didn't. Why? Because they don't give a sh*t.

Rather than just complain though, let me give you an example of a developer BUYING into their own story. You won't hear people often raving about story in DArk Souls, including the game's developers. You might say Dark Souls is the "Jerry Seinfeld Show" of gaming in that some people say it's about "nothing." Now, that is a thread for another day the finer points of whether there is a story to DArk Souls.

When you get to the forest in Dark Souls, however, there are enemy NPCs who don't fit any other enemy. They aren't henchmen. They aren't bosses. They are humans just like you. Just like other players. With the same randomness in equipment, abilities as other player characters to fight. And here is the kicker? They even go so far as to give the NPC characters' non-player SUMMONED characters just like we have!

Without even hitting us over the head with press releases saying "story story story" Dark Souls crafted some story. But more importantly they crafted an orginal summoning co-op and pvp mechanic. Then, to show us how dear their creation is to their hearts, they even REFLECT the PVP and co-op mechanics with NPCs that we go up against later in the game! The fricking NPCs are teaming with each other and fighting us just like we do. That is subtle. That's cool. They didn't have to do that, but an immersion-nerd like me really appreciates that stuff. It shows they take it seriously and give a crap first, with the hype being an afterthought.

I don't know what's worse, Cryptic Studios -- makers of Star Trek Online, Champions Online and some other stuff I don't want to play -- hyping up their "customization". Or Bioware hyping up their "story." Or Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling hyping up their stock price? (See what I did there?)

None of these companies believe their own bullsh*t and it showed in Mass Effect 3 in the story. The combat was still fun for the first 30 hours (and then EA didn't fix Ashley's Marksman ability right when I was in the mood for it.)

@Fire_Wa11

'Also, known as a "pulling a Ken Lay" or "pulling a Jeff Skilling." (See what I did there?)' NOPE.... Are those wrestlers or pornstars or something ?

Anyway.... I after my 5th Playthrough of the 1st Mass Effect I discovered a Tiny little flaw in the Dialogue/Morality Sytem the "Ruined" the entire Narrative for me...... So when the Sequals came out I was focused on the gameplay and trying to have sexy with my entire crew...... I was not dissapointed in the slightest. :)

So Naturally with Mass Effect 3 having the best gameplay and sexscenes, that not only made it a good game, but effectively it made it best in the Trilogy. :p

No, Lay and Skilling were executives of a company making far less than its accounting revealed in an attempt to overinflate their stock price, flooding the top executives' coffers with public money, while telling their employees to invest the full amount into their 401...."

Ah, f*ck it. Yes, they were porn stars and professional wrestlers. ;)

@Fire_Wa11

What I wana hear ! :D

a man after my own heart.

They were the top execs for Enron. They inflated Enron's earnings and tricked employees into investing their salaries (and others) into company stock helping to flush the company with public investor money while they lined their pockets. The whole time, they were selling off their own stock because they knew it was a bs house of cards.

While Bioware isn't doing anything illegal and seem nice enough, I thought it was an appropo comparison because Ray Zmuga of Bioware saying that they are revolutionizing MMOs or whatever with a "fifth pillar" of a brand new invention called S-T-O-R-Y. That is like Enron telling it's employees to buy stocks when really they think their own stock is bullshit.

Why? Because Bioware had some neat story ideas in ME1. They buried it in the codex in ME2 and substituted for a tepid story and a confounded ending in 3.

They don't bother to connect the dots or make allusions to their own lore because they think we're too stupid, or don't care, or because they don't care. Can you imagine if George Lucas just dropped Darth being Luke's father in Return of the Jedi because he thought you were too stupid to keep up with it? That's what Bioware kind of does I think.

Do you know why all of these aliens speak English? Because your cybernetic implants are translating what they are saying. You might remember in ME2 there was one species that you couldn't understand quite yet as all of their language was not yet transcribed to your implants. These are neat little ideas but Bioware never incorporates them in the story because they forgot about it or just don't care.

I guess my overall point is, I will give a sh*t, when they give a sh*t. Other companies give a sh*t.

I can't wait until Cyberpunk 2077! CD Projekt Red: now there's a company that gives a sh*t.

The main problem with ME3 is it tried to do entirely too much.. There were like literally 3 to 4 story arcs that could have been their own games compared to the scopes to the last two games.. That being said, mechanically it was the best of the three games.. It was the perfect mesh of the combat and rpg elements of the first and second.. Seriously to me it felt like if players had a choice on having Shepard survive there wouldn't be much b!tching (which is stupid to begin with and just illustrates how people can't handle having endings that are anything but happy).. That and it wasn't very tense even though the game tried it's best to do so.

Wait please do tell me how KOTOR 1 was predictable in many areas? It had widely agreed one of the biggest plot twists out there.. And please do tell me how characters like HK 47 were cardboard cut outs when he makes the top character lists in gaming all the time..