Mass Effect 3 Discussion Thread

Nobody forced Bioware to sell out to EA, so I still blame Bioware.
For sure, Bioware's higher ups deserve some blame. As that article shows, they are either working spin to make it seem like working for EA is wonderful, or are something much worse...
 
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Nobody forced Bioware to sell out to EA, so I still blame Bioware.

This. You can't whine about artistic vision and all that shit when you sell out to a company like EA, which is known as the gaming world's equivalent of a sweat shop. They care about volume and dollars. Not quality.
 
Nobody forced Bioware to sell out to EA, so I still blame Bioware.

Definitely true... but maybe they were thinking of money benefits for the games. (I highly doubt it, probably thinking for money benefits for themselves, but it's not absolutely impossible that they weren't thinking of only themselves.)
 
It's a BS excuse. They make it seem like they had to sell out in order to survive as a company, or that they have to demean their product with "exciting new features" to stay competitive in the industry.
 
Well, I'm late into the ME3 game, just started and it's been extremely difficult to read anything about it due to the spoilers. So I'm flying blind basically. I'm sure this has been talked about but I can't read throught he pages.

Were there any graphical updates done to ME3? It appears to me to be the exact same engine with no updates whatsoever. Looks passable and of course runs like butter, but some of the environments look very simple. Other than that, it's still a great game, only about 2 hours in.
 
Well, I'm late into the ME3 game, just started and it's been extremely difficult to read anything about it due to the spoilers. So I'm flying blind basically. I'm sure this has been talked about but I can't read throught he pages.

Were there any graphical updates done to ME3? It appears to me to be the exact same engine with no updates whatsoever. Looks passable and of course runs like butter, but some of the environments look very simple. Other than that, it's still a great game, only about 2 hours in.

There are a few updates to some of the characters if they hadn't been updated in ME1. For example: Ashley was identical to her ME1 appearance in ME2. So for ME3 she got a new model, new textures, etc. Tali was updated in ME2 so she remains unchanged in ME3. Shepard's armor and face textures were slightly updated but that's about it. Most models and textures from ME2 were reused in ME3 with no changes other than to some of the lighting.

If it is better graphics you seek, on the PC version I can help you out.

The first post has mods and directions for modding the game.
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/368/index/9735492/1

This post has the texture mods I made for the game.
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/368/index/9735492/91#13218652
 
Well, I'm late into the ME3 game, just started and it's been extremely difficult to read anything about it due to the spoilers. So I'm flying blind basically. I'm sure this has been talked about but I can't read through the pages.

Were there any graphical updates done to ME3? It appears to me to be the exact same engine with no updates whatsoever. Looks passable and of course runs like butter, but some of the environments look very simple. Other than that, it's still a great game, only about 2 hours in.

The combat feels much more fluid than ME2 but the graphics are basically the same except for some truly atrocious low res textures in some scenes that if it weren't that I was having a great time with the game it would be inexcusable. Some textures like control panels and signs are so bad I would stop in the middle of a mission just to look at it since it stood out so much. Regardless, its a great game with crappy ending. Its like eating a giant juicy steak and getting a small mint for dessert.
 
Do those textures work with the multiplayer (guns, mainly) without causing problems? I also saw the voice command mod which looks pretty cool; I might try it out, too.

Eh, fdiaz, the ending isn't so bad now. I so wanted it to be an indoctrination, but they've somewhat made do with the Extended Cut. I'd still like to know where the series goes from here, if it goes anywhere. Maybe BioWare will soon cease to exist?
 
Do those textures work with the multiplayer (guns, mainly) without causing problems? I also saw the voice command mod which looks pretty cool; I might try it out, too.

Eh, fdiaz, the ending isn't so bad now. I so wanted it to be an indoctrination, but they've somewhat made do with the Extended Cut. I'd still like to know where the series goes from here, if it goes anywhere. Maybe BioWare will soon cease to exist?

Yes. The textures do work in multiplayer.
 
Thanks Dan D. When I get home tonight, I'll try that link to the mods. I reviewed some and it does indeed make the game look better.

If they could just jump the graphics into the DX11 era, I think the emmersion would be that much better in ME3.
 
Thanks Dan D. When I get home tonight, I'll try that link to the mods. I reviewed some and it does indeed make the game look better.

If they could just jump the graphics into the DX11 era, I think the emmersion would be that much better in ME3.

As I've stated before, BioWare didn't do anything for the PC version of the game beyond the bare minimum the platform requires. They will never do anything special for the PC version of ME3.
 
As I've stated before, BioWare didn't do anything for the PC version of the game beyond the bare minimum the platform requires. They will never do anything special for the PC version of ME3.

Agree 100%. If ME3 was a great game in itself but imagine what a few months of PC polish could have done. The low res textures on backgrounds and control panels had to be due to the lower video memory of consoles compared to PC.
 
As I've stated before, BioWare didn't do anything for the PC version of the game beyond the bare minimum the platform requires. They will never do anything special for the PC version of ME3.

Well that isn't a surprise. Bioware went total console 'tard before EA bought them. Seems a bit strange that we have EA to thank for better PC support but it really is the case. I mean look at their progression:

At first, all their games were PC only back when Interplay and then Infogrames published their stuff.

Then comes KOTOR. Had a consolized feel for sure and the PC release was 4 months delayed. Still though decent on the PC.

Then is Jade Empire. Not only was it heavily consolized, there wasn't a PC version even announced. MS only published it for the Xbox. A year later 2k announced they'd publish the PC version. It did at least have some PC enchantments, but not much.

After that, Mass Effect. Again Xbox only published by MS. The PC version came a year later published by EA and not even developed by Bioware, Demiurge did the PC porting. To the extent there was PC improvement, it was Demiurge. Bioware had basically written off the PC at this point completely.

And then there's Dragon Age, and Mass Effect 2, which is after EA owns them. Dual simultaneous release for PC and consoles. DA:O in particular had quite a few PC enhancements, and DA2 has more.

Basically Bioware really seemed to have decided they didn't like the PC. However EA seems to have said "No, there's money to be made on the PC platform and we aren't going to ignore it." But it doesn't surprise me that ME, already walking down the "console rule" path gets little love on the PC.
 
Agree 100%. If ME3 was a great game in itself but imagine what a few months of PC polish could have done. The low res textures on backgrounds and control panels had to be due to the lower video memory of consoles compared to PC.

It would have been easier for them to use higher resolution textures and scale down to the console platforms as needed. Instead they just settled on the lowest common denominator and that's what we all got.
 
And then there's Dragon Age, and Mass Effect 2, which is after EA owns them. Dual simultaneous release for PC and consoles. DA:O in particular had quite a few PC enhancements, and DA2 has more.

Though I somewhat agree with your overall premise, Dragon Age was in development as a PC-centric game long before the EA purchase.

The rushing of games, shoehorning of multiplayer, and the lack of quality, that's more attributable to EA than the shift to console development.
 
There are a few updates to some of the characters if they hadn't been updated in ME1. For example: Ashley was identical to her ME1 appearance in ME2. So for ME3 she got a new model, new textures, etc. Tali was updated in ME2 so she remains unchanged in ME3. Shepard's armor and face textures were slightly updated but that's about it. Most models and textures from ME2 were reused in ME3 with no changes other than to some of the lighting.

If it is better graphics you seek, on the PC version I can help you out.

The first post has mods and directions for modding the game.
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/368/index/9735492/1

This post has the texture mods I made for the game.
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/368/index/9735492/91#13218652

holy cow, 9 minutes to start up the game with all his mods the guy is saying in that first post. shame the modding is so convoluted, these textures are looking pretty awsome and I want to use them in my run with leviathan.

surely there must be some more efficient sideloader that exists for this? I did some texture swapping through coalesced.bin with ease, but those were with in game assets.. there has got to be a way to load external files this way, or replace them outright.
 
holy cow, 9 minutes to start up the game with all his mods the guy is saying in that first post. shame the modding is so convoluted, these textures are looking pretty awsome and I want to use them in my run with leviathan.

surely there must be some more efficient sideloader that exists for this? I did some texture swapping through coalesced.bin with ease, but those were with in game assets.. there has got to be a way to load external files this way, or replace them outright.

There isn't anything more efficient for doing this. There are alternatives, but if you think Texmod is a pain in the ass you won't find the alternatives any better. You need something that can decrypt the .PCC files and write to them so that texture replacement is permanent with a given installation. ME3Explorer can do that. Unfortunately you have no way of knowing what textures are what in the PCC files. You can't preview them and there is no way to sort them. They are grouped somewhat, but again without a preview it's a shot in the dark to replace anything. You may also have to replace multiple instances of the same texture multiple times. There are 90 mods or so. There are on average 2 or 3 textures per mod. This means you'd have to do around 300 or so manual texture replacements. Trust me, without a preview, search function, and a means of knowing what given files are this isn't realisticly possible at present. The development team that made ME3 explorer got an earful from me and they are working on the interface.

They were quite butthurt when I called the utility an excercise in futility and frustration. When I told them all that they seemed to take it as a challenge to improve it and they are making strides, but it isn't ready. Not by a long shot.

Mine doesn't take quite 9 minutes using Texmod on my system. The problem is Texmod is old and really only benefits from a single CPU core. So clockspeed is king here. Overclock a bit and it helps some. There is uMod but I couldn't make it work. That's the newer tool from the same developer that made Texmod. Unfortunately that utility is convoluted and doesn't work well because the developement team was far too ambitious and the software tries to do too much. Supposedly it's backwards compatible with .TPF files, but it doesn't work right if at all with ME3. Texmod is slow, but it's easy to use. I have a group of MP only textures which doesn't include the level textures which shaves down start up time. This is what I do if I only want to play a match or two of MP. If I'm going to sit down for 2, 3, or 4 hours to play the single player game 6 minutes or so to load textures is not really a big deal. I just launch the game, get a beverage, take a piss, grab a sandwich, or take out the trash or something. When I'm done the game is loaded.

I would also point out that while the Leviathan DLC does use some textures we've already modified, there are some new assets in the game which we haven't touched. Things like the Titan diving mech aren't done at all and the texture for that is horrifying in how bad it is. So there aren't any specific mods for Leviathan that I am aware of. Dr. Ann Bryson is modified, but only because her outfit is the same as Dr. Chakwas's is. Other areas which reuse textures such as the Citadel and the mining station are also improved, but again nothing specific for Leviathan. I did the M-55 Argus rifle already so if you didn't have that as part of a preorder, you can use that with Leviathan. That's as close to specific as there is for Leviathan mods.
 
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Arise from your slumber thead!

So I finally got around to trying this game. Played the intro. thought it looked like a 360 port. tried to mod it only to find out that you can get banned from origin by doing so? lol

Edit: looks like that is for MP only. I tried using and ENB but the game refused to load. Going to look into other tweaks.

Looks like it is a lost cause. Some nvidia inspector options but the texture mods look like a pita.
 
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You can mod the game. You just have to be careful what you mod. Coalesced.bin mods and texture modding is perfectly acceptable. In fact BioWare has even stated that modding is fine so long as it doesn't give you an unfair advantage in the multiplayer. As a result you just can't alter any multiplayer related values which seems to be perfectly logical and goes without saying as far as I am concerned. I've been doing it since about the time the game came out and ran mods as recently as last Friday. It's fine. Running texmod is easy. There is a workaround for Origin that makes it tougher but if your going to sit down for a couple hours or so it's not a big deal. ME3 Explorer has also evolved to the point where we can permanently insert textures into the game. There are additional considerations and it's not easy, but it's not the guessing game it was when the program first released.
 
For the mods, I just downloaded the entire Optimized 2 folder. Can I run all of those or will I run into issues? (gonna be installed on my Plextor raid array, and rest of specs in sig).

I'll also try the FXAA injector.
 
Is Leviathan ($10) & Omega ($15) worth the trouble of $25 burned?

Leviathon is worth $10. Nothing earth shattering but still fun enough to spend 10 bucks on and a cool twist at the end. Haven't played Omega so can't say on that one.
 
Leviathon is worth $10. Nothing earth shattering but still fun enough to spend 10 bucks on and a cool twist at the end. Haven't played Omega so can't say on that one.

Depends. Leviathan is more story oriented than Omega is. Omega is more combat oriented. Leviathan has some unique gameplay aspects in the Mass Effect universe because it involves some detective work. It's not terribly linear and can be done with the rest of the game. It integrates very well. Omega is about 3.5 hours long and sort of gives you a hub world of sorts but it's very linear. In fact I'd say it resembles the Shadow Broker DLC for ME2 in a lot of ways. It's self-contained and once you start it you are along for the ride until it's done. Both are good but both could not be more different. I found them both worth while for different reasons. You do get new weapons and weapons mods with Leviathan and some new mods with Omega, but no new weapons. You do have a couple new enemies to fight on Omega so that's nice. ME3 lacks enemy variety compared to ME2.
 
For the mods, I just downloaded the entire Optimized 2 folder. Can I run all of those or will I run into issues? (gonna be installed on my Plextor raid array, and rest of specs in sig).

I'll also try the FXAA injector.

You can't run all the mods at once. Texmod has very strict limits. It's limited to 2048 individual textures or around 1.0GB of mods at a time. That's all I can do even with my machine. And if you haven't gone through more of the thread, there are plenty more mods listed in that same thread made by others, and even myself.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/368/index/9735492/91#13218652

I can't stand the FXAA injector. It makes things look grainy and makes the game too dark. It also causes additional headaches with Origin and the performance hit using it can be quite large depending on your resolution.
 
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Leviathon is worth $10. Nothing earth shattering but still fun enough to spend 10 bucks on and a cool twist at the end. Haven't played Omega so can't say on that one.

Depends. Leviathan is more story oriented than Omega is. Omega is more combat oriented. Leviathan has some unique gameplay aspects in the Mass Effect universe because it involves some detective work. It's not terribly linear and can be done with the rest of the game. It integrates very well. Omega is about 3.5 hours long and sort of gives you a hub world of sorts but it's very linear. In fact I'd say it resembles the Shadow Broker DLC for ME2 in a lot of ways. It's self-contained and once you start it you are along for the ride until it's done. Both are good but both could not be more different. I found them both worth while for different reasons. You do get new weapons and weapons mods with Leviathan and some new mods with Omega, but no new weapons. You do have a couple new enemies to fight on Omega so that's nice. ME3 lacks enemy variety compared to ME2.

Thanks for the advice. I'll wait until EA dislodges some of the crud from their eyes & reduces the prices on the ME3 DLC. A bit expensive for the content when I've bought full games + DLC w/ all of the sales this holiday season.
 
Thanks for the advice. I'll wait until EA dislodges some of the crud from their eyes & reduces the prices on the ME3 DLC. A bit expensive for the content when I've bought full games + DLC w/ all of the sales this holiday season.

Keep waiting. They'll drop the price of the base game but never the DLC. I think ME2 DLC is still at full price.
 
Keep waiting. They'll drop the price of the base game but never the DLC. I think ME2 DLC is still at full price.

That's a rather dismal outlook when nothing has dropped in price & they still haven't released a true "ultimate-with-everything-included" edition for ME2. I guess that won't happen for a long time with ME2, ME3, or DA2. :mad:
 
That's a rather dismal outlook when nothing has dropped in price & they still haven't released a true "ultimate-with-everything-included" edition for ME2. I guess that won't happen for a long time with ME2, ME3, or DA2. :mad:

They've never done complete editions for Mass Effect 2 or 3. The DLC has never been on sale as far as I know. People have this glimmer of hope for a complete edition of these games because other companies do that. BioWare even has Dragon Age Origins in a complete pack, but not for Dragon Age II. And as I understand it, the Dragon Age franchise isn't nearly as successful financially as Mass Effect is. So given that ME2 came out in 2010 and we still don't have a complete edition I don't think it will ever happen. Or if it does the game will be so old no one will give a shit.
 
They've never done complete editions for Mass Effect 2 or 3. The DLC has never been on sale as far as I know. People have this glimmer of hope for a complete edition of these games because other companies do that. BioWare even has Dragon Age Origins in a complete pack, but not for Dragon Age II. And as I understand it, the Dragon Age franchise isn't nearly as successful financially as Mass Effect is. So given that ME2 came out in 2010 and we still don't have a complete edition I don't think it will ever happen. Or if it does the game will be so old no one will give a shit.

I really don't get how EA works anymore. Riticello said that he wanted to make huge improvements with how EA ran. I'm seeing degradation of games & content delivery rather than excellent bundled packages with everything included. I'll miss the old THQ, since they seemed to understand that not everyone is going to buy every DLC available. The "complete" or "full" packages go a long way when you can get the actual, complete game for cheaper than a game's original release. I'd rather not spend $25 on 2 DLC that don't even add up to a full game for the same price. I may break down & get them eventually but that's due to my inherently strong streak of curiousity.
 
The problem is that Mass Effect 2 and 3's DLC's are selling well enough separately. At present they probably believe they should stick with this model and that there is no need to create a complete edition of the series or individual games.

The Trilogy Edition of the series probably sells well despite being woefully incomplete. Playstation 3 owners are probably excited as hell for it because they can now play ME1 on the PS3 for the first time and carry a complete Shepard all the way through the series. Before the trilogy edition they couldn't do that. They had to start with ME2 with the Genesis DLC (which was free for them) and then carry that save game through ME3. Price aside I think they should compile a complete version of Mass Effect 2 because of the sheer number of DLC's the game has. ME3 is still getting DLC's so it's not done yet. Also the multiplayer DLC's are free so I see no reason not to download those. Once they are done I think they should compile a collector's edition of all three games and DLC's together. Even if it were $100 or so I think it would be worth it. The number of hours you get and the sheer amount of content plus not having to figure out which DLC's you want and already have purchased is nice. Though tracking your DLC purchases with Origin is actually quite easy. Much better than Steam I think.
 
I'm quite amazed that the DLC sell that well. I've been avoiding pricey DLC & waiting for the prices to drop. BioWare games haven't gone that route, so I don't much to show for ME3 & DA2. The ME2 DLC have been quite enjoyable, so I guess I'll wait to see what others are released for ME3.

Doesn't Origin list each DLC as an individual item? I know that Steam shows all of them on the DLC property tab.
 
I'm quite amazed that the DLC sell that well. I've been avoiding pricey DLC & waiting for the prices to drop. BioWare games haven't gone that route, so I don't much to show for ME3 & DA2. The ME2 DLC have been quite enjoyable, so I guess I'll wait to see what others are released for ME3.

Doesn't Origin list each DLC as an individual item? I know that Steam shows all of them on the DLC property tab.

Origin shows them all in itemized form. It shows what's available and what you own. There is a purchase button next to it if you haven't got it yet. After purchasing it it details what's installed currently and when you installed it.
 
This thread is back again? DLC is irrelevant, because The Truth is Out There:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4S0TWxgbGhUQohTXZBxSznUusWAsmwzl

DLC is irrelevant? Why because some people want to pick apart the plot lines of 2 games which have about 30-40 hours of game play in each? How does that change whether or not the DLC is any fun or worth the few bucks for entertainment purposes? You can pick apart the story lines and plots of virtually any work of fiction if you look hard enough.
 
I did the fxaa injector and it does well enough. Jaggies are mostly gone now and the damn shimmer/blur is too. I want to expand the fov a bit though. I am ok with paying for dlc as I only paid $10 for the base game. I guess that is the way to do it. Wait until the base game is cheap and then add the dlc if you want.
 
I did the fxaa injector and it does well enough. Jaggies are mostly gone now and the damn shimmer/blur is too. I want to expand the fov a bit though.

You have to use the widescreen fixer or flawless widescreen tool to do that I believe. I can force FXAA through the control panel which does it without the grainy appearance and color / gamma changes. Screw the FXAA Injector.
 
You have to use the widescreen fixer or flawless widescreen tool to do that I believe. I can force FXAA through the control panel which does it without the grainy appearance and color / gamma changes. Screw the FXAA Injector.

I'm not sure if you are aware but you can tick off the Sharpness and ToneMap stuff (or even customize them to your liking) and just have FXAA on with the injector. But if you can do it through the CP there is no point.
 
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