I haven't started ME3, so maybe there are things in the last 10 minutes that needed a prequel. But other than that, I don't think it's a good idea. Btw, I don't think there's a need to spoiler things anymore. Most people who visits this thread has already finished the game or those who haven't would click the spoiler anyway LOL @ Blasto Effect.
Don't necessarily "need" a prequel (though don't really "need" a sequel either IMO, especially without Shepard). Just saying it would be more interesting IMO. If nothing else, maybe it would give BioWare definite beginning and ending points, so they would have less of a chance to screw things up too bad at the end (they already have plausible explanations for how things conclude). Just focus on doing what they're great at. Good characters, lots of exploration/content, great action/RPG gameplay, etc. I realize the 3 games gave good info on a lot of events, but I think it would be interesting to actually dedicate a game to some of those events. You can have a great prequel while still knowing more or less what happens. Give me a squad-based Hanar shooter during the Rachni War. Tell me that game wouldn't be interesting and entertaining to play. (actually, I probably would skip it if it was just a shooter)
I think if they are going to have a prequel and still retain the "Mass Effect" title, they can do one on the Protheans. Have another trilogy on the downfall of the Prothean society and have the Prothean who survived and played a part in ME3 be the protagonist. This formula can have no limit to it. Once the Prothean trilogy is done, go another 50K years back to the civilization before the Protheans and talk about their downfall. In ME2 in the beginning of the suicide mission, Joker makes a comment on the remains of the "ancient ships" once they passed through the Mass 4 Relay. So it would be interesting to know the stories of those ships. The only downfall is that it'll get old and boring after the first prequel trilogy about the Protheans. Then maybe do a sequel where after the ME3 events, the bad guys are actually still alive and have a small human colony survive somehow. 50K later the human colony has grown and going by the legend of Jesus Shepard (my character ) the humans are at it again to fight the reapers.
BioWare did the hard part of creating an interesting universe. With that done, it shouldn't really be that hard to come up with interesting ideas (and again, we don't have to put it on some timeline directly related to the original trilogy...it is a big place with lots of stuff going on). Follow the FF/SMT/etc. model for doing this, assuming they even want to make that many games in the same universe (given EA's track record, I guess BioWare will be shut down in 3-6 years). Maybe pursue some unrelated story with bad guys intent on blowing up the mass relays...oh wait...now it all makes sense!
Whatever they do in the future with the Mass Effect Universe -- and I think they will definitely make another Mass Effect game, just not with Shepard -- I hope they don't treat it like a cash cow and try to rush games out just to profit from it. Either continue to make high quality games with a lot of thought behind them, or don't continue at all. If Mass Effect turns into the next Halo, I'm going to go insane.
Here's an article explaining why the endings are sh!tty and make no sense, neither satisfy anyone. Don't read if you don't wanna know the story: http://www.gamefront.com/mass-effect-3-ending-hatred-5-reasons-the-fans-are-right/ One picture there is pure gold:
Love this one, making fun of how the ending choices basically go down to the colour of the explosion:
^^^^^^^ My biggest problem with "Reaper logic" is that it never seems like organic life is in danger of being wiped out by synthetics. I mean, you have the Quarians fighting the Geth but who else? And hell, but the time the ending had rolled around, I had brokered peace and the Geth were helping the Quarians rebuild Rannoch. It really didn't seem like there was a need to "save" us by killing us. If organic life gets overrun? Sure. Come and kill synthetics and all organics capable of making synthetics so that at least the primitives have a future. But don't arbitrarily show up every 50,000 years and "save" organic life if it's not an issue. The proper ending should've been Sheppard saying "No, I already took care of that ****" and then the Reapers going "oh" and leaving and going back to deep space. That Shepard's own experiences with synthetics doesn't factor into the dialogue at all in response to Reaper logic is another example of how poor a job BioWare did with the ending.
I honestly would have been happier with the ending if they would have just went straight to the credits after Shepard and Anderson sat down next to one another and had that conversation.
Wow this is getting epic. One of the leading Bioware Community guys just temporarily disabled posting in the entire forum because the insults and swearing got out of hand. Reason was a just released app where you get interviews and pics about the ending and how the process of making it went down. Here's a golden line: "But then me and Casey talked and decided, lets keep the conversation "High level". Give you the details that you need to know, but don't get into the stuff that you don't need to know. Like "How long have they been reaping?" You don't need to know the answers to the mass effect universe. So we intentionally left those out" So they basically said "screw it, people don't need to know, just make it cloudy" "The illusive man boss fight had been scrapped... but there was still much debate. 'One night walters scribbled down some thought on various ways the game could end with the line "Lots of speculation for Everyone!" at the bottom of the page.'" There was also a handwritten document where they had the making of the ending, last line was: "lots of speculation" WHAT? That just proves they didn't give a sh.. about properly ending the game and wanted to create buzz.
<br> Yup, this basically throws out any other theory going around. There will be no "real" ending eventually. That's it... That was the **** ending of 3 games and 150 hours.
I was just reading that thread. The whole thing was planned. They wanted some speculation at the end, like what happened in Inception or the original Matrix. Instead they got the architect from Matrix Reloaded. Just a bunch of non sensical BS that didn't explain anything and made the player/viewer go "WTF"? Wholly unsatisfying to virtually everyone. It's not necessarily a bad an idea to have an ending that leaves the player wondering what exactly happened and/or what happens next, but it was executed really REALLY poorly.
Look familiar? <iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rm82gjZDIDU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> This, on top of Tali's photo coming from iStockPhoto just adds to the thought that BioWare got incredibly lazy. I guess that's a stock image as well. Google image search "space winter".
I'll give them credit, though... they had a pretty damn good soundtrack. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QqTDh6wiTM8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
