f13.net

Let's head off the inevitable, unreadable 20 pages of spoiler tags in the regular thread.


Bhodi Edit: Changed title, no more spoiler tags

End game.

Kro-Planet spoiler:

My MANShep is a confirmed heterosexual - he had no choice since ME1 and ME2 didn't allow for anything else for males.  He finds it disturbing how Kaidan is giving him soulful looks and meaningful glances. I mean, sheesh!

Also (complete ending spoilers - do not read until you really want to be spoiled):
I am not making this up.

So...anyone know if Obsidian are working on any RPGs at the moment?

This is literally the most disappointing ending to a sci-fi series I have ever seen. I have seen Matrix Revolutions. What a fucking awful, hackneyed, meaningless, shitty ending to what could be a good series.

I'm not buying this game. Ever.

RE end

Yeah, glad I'm not the only one.   I was still on the fence because of Origin vs. Steam before I read that over the weekend. That's what killed it.

It's nice knowing I can read spoilers since I'm not going to buy it.

If ME3 was a Japanese game everyone would be all "welp, another Japanese game with a nonsense ending you have no control over!"

The explanation for the Reapers is just..I don't even know...it's like someone wanted to go for a Babylon 5 vibe but just had no idea how to make it work. It's like an attempt at a classic sci-fi twist except that it's just nonsense. They created a frankenstein's monster but entirely on purpose, in order to prevent the creation of frankenstein's monsters........WHAT? It's like "chop off your nose to spite your face" turned into a video game plot.

The epilogue is also incredibly trite ("the future was actually the past all along!!! Cue shock!" - didn't that just happen in Battlestar Galactica?) and the image is a photoshop of a free desktop wallpaper...it's like they did it in the last 15 minutes before gold. You really think this kind of idea comes up in a 2 AM bullshit session and the next day everyone comes to their senses.

All 3 endings are basically the same anyway. It's like they wanted to copy Eternal Darkness but lacked the budget. (lol) If you remember in Eternal Darkness throughout the whole game there are 3 different gods represented by red, green and blue symbols and depending on what you do you get an ending cinematic where one of them beats down the other. It's like someone watched that and all they got from it was "hey guys, if we swap red and green and blue we can get 3 different endings!"

I feel sorry for people who grind to maximize their readiness to get the "best" ending only to see that all the endings are basically the same with the lasers recolored.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/829607/MX3/08/04.jpg)

Spectres, the Krogan plague, Cerberus, Rachnii, Geth, there are countless examples of this in the story. A lot of it is badly written and lacks continuity, but the one thing I liked about ME is that is has themes in the writing, and 'hey bad shit is going down, do we swallow a spider to eat the fly?'  was probably the one they did best.

I just like the whole "Welp nothing you ever did in the entire game series really mattered. Sorry if we gave you the impression that you'd get anything more than flavor dialog and some model-swaps in cut scenes for your choices" angle.

EDI:


DLC dude:

DLC dude:

EDI:

Jack:

Hahaha, that was totally the moment where my eyes went all big and sparkly and I got all, "I LOVE YOU, DOUCHEBAG DLC GUY."

I never heard of that while I was there. That doesn't mean it wasn't floated at some level above me.

I haven't watched the endings yet (I'm not going to play the game, because being the sort of OCD I am, I'll just end up throwing juvenile tantrums over every physics violation, canon retcon, and ship painted the wrong color), so I don't know what ended up in the final version. When I left, the Big Reveal was going to be

Still sounds better than what they went with. :heartbreak:

Actually Stormwaltz, I like that version. That sounds ridiculously better than what I'm hearing.

Agreed.  "Oh hey, you never mattered, thanks for the cash." is what I get from this story.  Even dying and galaxy destruction as only one outcome rather than ALL outcomes would have been better.

(http://i1001.photobucket.com/albums/af134/gnosblax/yodawgme.jpg)

The ending Stormwaltz posted makes way more sense even if it is sort of like an episode of TNG.

Plus it explains why the Reapers would keep steering the galaxy through the exact same technological cycle, which doesn't make much sense if their main objective was to prevent a certain technological development that happened on every previous iteration.

It's not necessarily the perfect story, but it's an ending that is internally consistent with the bits of story presented in the first two games.

Bioware, Lords of (http://i.imgur.com/D4iMN.gif)

Now I wish I'd let my Shepard sleep with Tali in ME2.

She kills herself?

 :awesome_for_real:

Um.

I would be gobsmacked if Casey, Preston, or Mac were even aware of TTGL's existence.

The whole, "The badguys are really the goodguys looking at the big picture; you're the badguy. You're Hitler!" angle isn't exactly a new thing.

Edit: Hey, let me remind you who was right.


Yeah. Seriously, can we stop this fucking cliche already?

Just for clarification:

Dude, naw. Shepard Jr. will get to be part of the team that rediscovers everything we already know about. The Mass Effect equivalent of Star Trek: Enterprise.  :why_so_serious:

Yes,
and No.  

Tengen Toppa Puella Mass Effect?

Nah, like I said in the boring thread last week this just preps the ground for Mass Effect: the MMO. Something like...

Mass Effect: Death & Rebirth/End of Mass Effect
"It all returns to nothing, it all comes tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down"

E: Quick, someone shop a picture of Shepard sat on a chair with everyone else from the game applauding her and put "Congratulations!" at the bottom.  :lol:

They must have liked the Princess Bride and its ending.  I mean, Princess Bride, who doesn't like Princess Bride?  Right?

There's no way they could cash the storytelling checks they wrote in ME1. Not without brass balls, and there's too much money sunk into the franchise for that.

The copycat scenes I like to imagine is subconcious shit. Hell, I have that Winter on Mars in my wallpaper queue. I'd probably copy it without realizing it.
It seems odd that they'd be cheap about a few pictures, which would be a speck of sand compared to their total budget, I imagine.

Further Questions:

Wow, I am really speechless at the conclusion of this game.  I am not sure even how to put things into words at this point.  So this was a really awesome game up until....  The battles seemed authentic like they were nothing but chaos errupting all around you.  Signs of desperation, worlds at war, putting aside old hatreds, and the worlds uniting.  Everything was pretty amazing and it really felt like you were making a difference.  Then...the traditional Bioware end before the ending.  It really was neat to see the integrated guys from the Mass Effects making a comeback.  That was handled brilliantly.  Now the spoilers:


Ending:


My Initial WTF:




The Pure Gold:




What I Wish:

GOD DAMMIT JACOB

=(

GOD DAMMIT JACOB, PART TWO:


And yeah, Pezzle. I feel ya.

Garrus scene aboard the citadel:

General space events:

YES <3

The writing for this is aggressively uneven, but I found that scene just about right.

That ending would have been infinitely better. Shades of Baxter's Xeelee cycle. The only thing cooler would have been Photino Birds.

Really? 


Anyhow, I'll say one thing for the writing in this game, they actually really got me liking Jack despite the fact that she was one of my least favorite characters in 2.  I also loved the previously mentioned Garrus scene. 

Plus Tali's scene in the Normandy rec room/bar towards the end.
Also the first time I went down into the engine room, in the bottom area where Jack stayed in ME2, I thought I say a circle moving around but dismissed it as just locking onto something through the wall.  It wasn't until near the very end of the game that I found out: 
Anyhow, that's pretty much all I feel like saying about the game.  It was good enough that the ending didn't really bother me.  Any time you tell a story on a scale like this it's hard to come up with any sort of satisfying conclusion.  I guess my main issue with the end is that:

Lol-lore speculation, regarding Stormwaltz's ending:

The thing I talked about:

Answers to 1 and 2 are simple. They're machines and their programming doesn't include "creativity."  How do you program spontaneity and imagination?  That's one of the biggest problems with AI in the ME universe. Even the Geth and EDI don't appear to have that.. they just act within their programming with minor variances.

Windows 7 isn't going to suddenly become an accounting software.  Why would intelligent machines spontaneously develop.. spontaneity?

Man, that ending.


What I liked:

I had mixed feelings on:

Things I did not like:

Basically I enjoyed the ride, I will do my MANSHEP playthrough as I am apt to do, but ... yeah. This was very KotOR 2, where they had IDEAS, man, but it's nigh impossible to tell if those ideas would've been any good if it hadn't all crashed into each other in a big ol' mess.


Also, Stormwaltz, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic when you say the series had been bereft of "humans are special" jingoism. Because um. There was a LOT of "humanity, FUCK YEAH," even in ME1.

Sjofn beat this already? I need to stop spending so much time with the multi I guess.

All I know is anyone who thinks the weapons are weak needs to stop using the shitty guns. Yeah, powers are awesome. And the Scorpion is the only weapon anyone ever needs to carry. Because it's that awesome. Also: there is an upgrade station on the normandy. Bump that gun up from level 1.

Took me about this long to beat ME2 and DA2, too.  :why_so_serious:

Took about 28 hours, I think? I think it was 28h on my POST GAME SAVE.

It wouldn't surprise me, frankly.

House gets his revelations from the strangest places. It's not odd that super-duper hyperbeings just might be looking for a fresh perspective, in their own strange way. New blood, and all that.

But yes, making the Reapers too 'nice' would be anticlimatic. I kinda like the idea that the motivations for the Reapers might have been beyond human comprehension. Hyperbeings got hyperproblems, and just as a caveman wouldn't understand the policy of nuclear deterence, and all the politics of the world, so we might not understand why the Reapers have to cull the universe to further their bizzare plans. But then I don't think "You can't understand it, so there! Nyah!" would fly either.

I am too wired about the ending to sleep as I ought, so I am going to ramble a bit about it some more:



I should probably stress that I really enjoyed most of this game. I will probably play it a few times. But yeesh.

But it's all from the humans, and they can't back it up.

The Alliance is a "Third Galaxy" power, and as a species humans are weaker and softer than the krogan, less wise and less biotic than the asari, slower and less intelligent than than the salarians, and less organized and disciplined than the turians. If they try to seize power in the ME1 ending, the result is a galaxy with a lot more prejudice against them and brushfire wars breaking out everywhere (listen to the news on the Citadel).

In ME1, sure, but from ME2 on, non-humans start being defined by their views on humans, and the reapers apparently give no fucks about non-humans.

And even in ME1, the alliance is basically china.

I think the impression is "humanity FUCK YEAH" precisely because humans can do the power grab like that despite all those drawbacks you list, and no one dares to tell them "no, fuck YOU and go back to the corner with the volus like the third-grade power wannabe you really are, OR ELSE".

Maybe it wasn't intentional but ME1 was the same sci-fi trope seen time and again  "Humans aren't the best at anything...except their 'human spirit' makes them the best race EVAR"

I never get the impression that Humanity is ever shown as being weaker/less able than the other species, or treated as such. This may be tainted by you basically playing the UberHuman and seeing that side of things. But essentially from minute 1 you're showing that humanity is advancing in the galactic space far faster than anyone else has. And that the humans are kicking ass and taking names against the geth fucking shit up in 1. In 2, humanity is the primary target of the hostiles, and humanity is the group kicking ass and taking names against the reaper pawns. In 3, humanity is the central force bringing the galaxy together to fight the reapers, and leading the entire show.

The Mass Effect series may have been written at first for humanity to be a low tier power trying to fight for relevance. But the actual produced product is non stop Humanity, FUCK YEAH! They're displayed as being the only power in the galaxy actually willing to and capable of fixing shit.

Now that's not a very fair comparison.






KOTOR2 had a valid excuse.  :awesome_for_real:

The very first thing Humanity does is win a war against the local military powerhouse and do so in a fashion to make the other races shit themselves slightly and include them into the galactic community as quickly as possible.

The Codex goes on about how Humanity revolutionized space warfare that hasn't otherwise changed in thousands of years. Inventing ideas like Space Carriers to circumvent the dreadnaught limits and abusing VI drones and mobile infantry. Or how Humanity's military might is still only a tiny volunteer fraction of their overall population/resources.

Everyone bitches at us because we are moving up 'too fast', getting to greedy, to aggressive.


Then at the end of ME1, when all the other fleets are useless, it's up to human cavalry to save the fucking day.



The entire first game is about Humanity going "We are here bitches and we don't give a fuck if your bigger, strong, faster or smarter. Were humanity and we are more STUBBORN!"

Which is really, a pretty accurate representation of our species.

Wouldn't the plan to harvest organic races every so often be a sign of trying to creatively solve a problem?  Certainly it wouldn't be the kind of plan you'd expect software to just come upon logically.

I'd say it's not as much accurate representation, but rather a stereotype and the game narrative's willingness to handwave its own settings in order to justify human advancements. IIRC the game codex specifically notes turians are far more stubborn (in the sense they'd rather literally die than give up ground, or at least how their units don't break in combat etc) and i don't think humans on average are really that much more stubborn than say, krogans.

It's not unlike making the collective galaxy a bunch of idiots apparently unable to come up with any notable inventions or tactics for literally over thousand of years just so humans can show off those big brains of theirs, and be on relatively equal footing with species which got access to mass effect technologies centuries earlier. That is to say, mildly annoying.

So, as someone who has not played ME3 yet, but may eventually get it as a bargin bin title some day just to finish the trilogy off, can someone tell me what exactly WAS the purpose behind the Reaper system wipe cycle?  Was it ever revealed exactly why the Reapers were harvesting us?

Well that's the entire point of the Mass Effect technology. NO ONE actually thought it up themselves, they just reversed engineered it from their local relay/cache.

You're making the assumption that the Reapers came upon that idea themselves and weren't programmed for exactly that purpose by the organic versions of themselves who were seeing their own extinction on the horizon.  :grin:

I don't mean the technology itself, but rather the possible applications of it. Case in point -- the main gun on the ME1 Reaper also uses this technology. And i'm expected to believe that no one out of billions thought of using it to propel jet of molten metal rather than cooled down metal for thousand of years, until one Reaper got killed and the species of the universe got their collective appendages on such weapon. And then i'm expected to believe this stunning lack of imagination affects not only all fields of research but also unrelated areas like military tactics, medicine and whatnot... which is especially funny when at the same time the game gives you option to 'perform research' and 'invent/adapt technologies' which routinely double your performance, and more, effectively over course of weeks tops.

So, the synthetic reapers just want to kill us so that we don't get killed by other synthetics. OK, I get that, but now what was the point of ME1 and 2 again?

ME2, surely the invasion was always going to provide much more human goo than they were ever going to get by sneaking away colonists?

As for ME1, I no longer get it at all, why is Sovereign shooting at the Citadel, why is he pro-geth, and what was the point of him showing up exactly?

By responding quickly and with force. The turians outnumbered them by thousands to one.


They shit themselves because they realized, "Oh fuck, the turians are going to pound these yokels into the stone age, and we haven't even had a chance to talk to them yet." The turians only understand total war - complete commitment of all state resources until the enemy lies prostrate and offers unconditional surrender. The human counterattack, without our knowing it, had just provoked that level of threat response.

The Council intervened to save us, not the turians.

Or at least that was the way I left it. ME3 could spin it differently - in which case that would be canon, and I'd be talking out of my ass more than usual. :P


All true. But remember that their population and resources are roughly equal to those of the elcor. The problem is, if they mobilize there's real potential for a war of Krogan Rebellions level savagery. Neither the turians nor the humans know when to swallow their pride and walk away.

I think you're confusing something. The humans have no advantages of economy or biology. All they have is the hunger of youth. Council Space is complacent. They're wealthy beyond measure and untouchably powerful. They don't need to work for anything, they're coasting on the profits of their earlier investments. They've made it. The Alliance is like the Imperial Germany before WWI. "We'll do anything to share the prestige of our older neighbors, even if it means getting into a naval race we can't afford with the British and colonizing the crap islands in the Pacific that no one else wanted!"


That's not quite accurate. The Council Fleet isn't useless - it's scattered. The Council peacekeeping fleets couldn't respond because they're out policing half the galaxy. It take time to organize and reorient for a counterattack. Meantime we only have a handfull of colonization clusters to defend, so we keep all our forces in a few big clumps. One of which was real close to the Citadel relay.

The Kid Sucked:  





The Consequence of the Ending:

How long did we have gunpowder before someone invented a proper weapon with it? Ancient Greeks had all the technology and science available to start work on steam engines, but never made the leap due to various factors.

Or conversely, how has the gun actually improved in the last say, 50-75 years? Is say, a WW2 era artillery piece all that different from the ones they use today?



The idea of civilizations sorta staying where they are for awhile isn't that hard for me to accept, especially when there isn't any real pressure to change.



The fact the game lets you double your effectiveness with your 'research' is just gameplay, nothing more.



-fake edit-

Storm, I did not take the council intervening in any way for our benefit in the initial first contact war. I took it as a "Holy shit, someone handed the Turians their asses, we can probably use them to balance out the Turians I bet".

Then once they got to know us they went "Holy shit, good thing we stopped this before it really got started, those humans were barely trying, lord knows where a full blown Turian/Human war would have went!"

The thing i don't understand (without bringing the "because we couldn't put humans into spotlight otherwise" into it) is, why this is supposed to apply seemingly universally to the Council space when there's supposedly large number of species who came later and as such didn't actually "make it", and who continue to have deep interest in trying to increase their power/position. Pretty much just like the humans. Except with centuries of headstart which they've apparently spent doing fuck all.

And that's not even getting into those who live outside of the Council space, and have literally "do or die" incentive to push research, technology and everything else as far as possible.

A lot of the 'lesser' species have severe biological limitations they are working around. Like the little fat merchant race, they can barely exist in "normal" environments, let alone wage any kind of war of conquest.

Then you have species like the Batarians, which mirror humanity in a lot of ways. They are just like us, doing their damnedest to 'make it' and be one of the big players. We've already fought a few minor wars with them over shit I believe.


-edit- Like, I have no idea how long Batarians were developing their tech independently of council exposure. How long they had to colonize and expand before they ran into the council. If I remember right, I believe the Turians for example, were already cruising around with a bunch of colonies before they ever met the council. Humanity also had this pre-council time frame where we went "We don't know if anyone else is out here, but there is evidence they MIGHT be, so we are making some god damn fleets, JUST INCASE", which is what saved us in the first contact war.

Supposedly ~300 years for the firearms to appear. And the ancient greeks did actually come up with steam engine -- Hero of Alexandria, to be exact.

The catch is, these examples are bit of red herring. Development in ancient times was considerably slower thanks to very limited ability to share/distribute discoveries and ideas, as well as to small number of people involved. That's not a case with modern societies, and even less so for ones which couple that communication prowess with think tanks the size of multiple planets.

The problems are also scaled up in magnitude though. Like, warping space/time itself is no trivial task  :why_so_serious:

Precisely. And the Batarians had been part of the Council space since 200 BCE, that is... nearly 2400 years. And in that time they achieved and invented fuck all, to the point as soon as humans appeared and started to colonize systems in the space Batarians considered their own, the Batarians withdrawn leaving the humans free to wave their little Alliance flags.

They didn't withdraw, we kicked them out.  :why_so_serious:

See. SEE :uhrr:

("fuck yeah, HUMAN SPIRIT" :why_so_serious:)

That... makes even less sense.  And the more time they'd have to devote to explaining everything, the less it works as a plot in a video game.  I wouldn't want some Kojima-esque hour long info-dump cutscene.  They probably would have been better off not explaining anything else about the Reapers at all.  We got some indication from Harbinger as to their motives in ME2 and you could either take that at face value or not.  Beyond that, why bother trying to understand an ancient race of sentient machines?  At the end of the day, they're trying to kill and harvest organics, and organics are trying to stop them.

Where was Harbinger, anyway?

Just to the left.

I thought it was weird that the genetic/personal diversity of humanity is brought up a lot over the series (mostly in 2 however), but they don't really seem to go anywhere with it.

Everyone covered why I felt "humanity ... FUCK YEAH" was a running theme of Mass Effect, good job, team.  :heart:


More ending shit:

EDIT:
Oh! Oh oh!

Harbringer's Location:

That's what I thought too, yeah.

I might have missed this but has anyone else noticed just how similar the endings to ME 3 is with Deus Ex (the original)?

As I remember it you have three endings:

I can't take credit for this but when it was pointed out to me... man I can't help but think this can't be a coincidence and I think that is even more tragic all things considered.  What the hell is happening to Bioware???

I know this is the spoiler thread, but shouldn't you spoiler tag that? Someone might be coming here to talk about something earlier in the game before actually finishing it.

I thought it was safe since it was in the spoilers section my mistake.  Spoiler tagged now.  However it is a remarkable coincidence isn't it?  I have to believe its way too much of a coincidence. 

I thought that was kind of the point of having a spoiler thread?  It honestly struck me as a bit odd that people were spoliering text within the spoiler thread.  Like, it's pretty much a given that people will be discussing the ending here, if you don't want to hear it, why would you visit the thread?  What are you really going to be able to discuss halfway through the game without bumping into spoilers?  Plus, it means I have to log in to read it.  :angryfist:  But eh, what do I know.  *shrug*

I believe the endings are completely original in that they were created without the conscious intent to rip anyone off but I guarantee that a conversation happened like this:

"Wow, I hadn't thought of it before but these endings are a LOT like Deus ex, should we change them up a bit?"

"Yes, but most of the people that are going to buy this game have never played the Deus ex, so just go with it."

Fordel, they have GPS-assisted shells, their firing control allows them to fire rounds in succession at different angles and have them all land at the same time, and if nothing else the platforms that the guns are attached to (such as tanks) are better than before.  Vehicle-mounted, they have microwave and sonic energy weapons, and the lasers are kinda taking off.

For small arms, smart ammo that detonates after it passes through the window, the various types of rounds designed for different targets, and all the non-lethal systems that they didn't really have in the past.

Watch more Discovery channel, heh (although, this past year it's been all Ancient Aliens).

If you read my posts prior to my "OK, finished the game now" post, you'll see that I, for one, like to react to something right after it happens sometimes. And crazy as it sounds, I actually like to read all the posts in a thread (while avoiding clicking on spoiler tags if I'm not sure I know what's under it) before posting.

It's not really a big deal, it was just a thought. <shrug>

That kid really smacks of an idea that one guy fell in love with and just refused to admit was terrible. Conceptually it just doesn't make sense that some random kid out of nowhere would be made a focal point and expected to emotionally resonate with the player.

Yeah, I didn't like all the wanky bullshit with that stupid kid, but I would've hated it less (probably) if it was, say, Dead Ashley or something in those scenes. Someone I actually sort of cared was dead.

They would've still been stupid, of course. Just LESS stupid.

In regards to the post-credits epilogue scene:

Seriously, it's a spoiler thread.  Do we really need to hide everything when the warning on the title itself?  :oh_i_see:

That's my thought. We all talked in the ME3 non-spoiler thread about a potential "everything goes to shit" ending and how if handled right, could be awesome. The problem I have with the ending wasn't that everybody got fucked, because in the grand scheme of things, everyone was only temporarily fucked. Yeah, all the people you were close to ate a big shit sandwich, but that's kinda what they signed up for and in the long run, after the long dark night, civilizations will survive and find their ways back to each other.

That said, the way it was all handled sucked monkey balls. The noble sacrifice of my Shep and his/her peers is only dimly seen through the haze of ham-fisted shit writing.

So, Legion question:

Legion doesn't die, it just uploads the various geth programs that make "legion" to the cloud so to speak. The programs that made up legion are "alive" and well pretty much, just the hole-blasted hardware platform they were on isn't moving anymore.

The prime afterwords distinctly says he's sacrificed himself and is gone/will be remembered. They heavily imply he's quite Dead/No Longer Legion. It would make sense in the lore of the Geth mechanics if he WAS the prime that shows up a minute later, and he's with his people now/not coming with you. But instead they just flat out kill Legion in a manner that makes no sense within the fiction of his race.

Well, legion's programs merged with the collective, + the reaper code. That mass of programs just got a lot, a lot of new input. If you added one new geth program to Legion's platform he'd be "dead" the same way in that he'd be different.

I mean dead in that his programs that made his personality do not appear to be able to inhabit another platform. The Prime flat out says he's dead.

I agree with your take on it from a Geth Lore standpoint, but the game seems to be either stating or implying that in Legion's specific case, Legion's programs were erased during the upgrade somehow.

Huh, you're right then. That makes no sense.

So the Reapers exist to kill/harvest any civilization that's about to create AI that could potentially turn against them. Which is kind of a bit ironic, seeing how the Reapers are synthetic.

I "think" the game is trying to portray reapers as the ultimate version of a cyborg and are the mass effect races paranoia vs machines taken to it's furthest extreme. 

Sort of saying that really the whole series has been machine vs non and the reapers are what we could become if we let fear rule us.  Of course, none of that really comes off well with what we've been presented but I can see ho that's what they were going with.

Again man vs machine was done better in deus ex.

That's the impression I'm getting from the spoilers. The Reapers poisioned the well of spaceflight, and the galactic community have to rebuild without their influence.

I'm not so hot over the idea of the synthesis of organic and mechanical beings ending. Sounds kinda hippy-dippy to me.

Lotta bitching about the ending, but I don't want to rush to it so I can properly bitch myself.

Sounds more like "Congratulation Shepard! You just created The Borg" to me.

He fails to copy the reaper code due to an error and decides to break down his own code to upload, killing him. He realizes without the upload the Geth fleet will be obliterated by the Migrant fleet. The event was somewhat foreshadowed in an earlier mission on Rannoch where it's implied that Legion was one of the first sentient Geth and was protected by a Quarian who dies as a result. Legion witnessing this was likely one of the originators of the Geth rebelling against the Quarians, implied in the Rannoch mission flashback of a Geth with Widowmaker.

Legion was robot Jesus.  :grin:

Abandoned (I guess?) plot point.

Mass Effect planets aren't Star Wars planets (where for example Tatooine has to import everything).  They won't have interstellar, but each planet will be fine and will recover.

Besides, it took what, 2200 years to go from the Romans to exploring Mars and finding the relay?  1200 years from the Dark Ages?  Compared to 50,000 and extinction, seems like a minor setback.

A lot of the planets are Star Wars planets. There are plenty of planets you see/visit that we're obviously only there because they can import shit. They aren't all Eden Prime.

Is this some EU bullshit? Because the movies never say that Tatooine has to import anything. They seem self-sufficient with their mosture harvesters and there's plenty of native flora and fauna.
People live in the desert here on earth...

It's not Tatooine that requires the imports, it Courscant and Nar Shadda. There are several entire worlds near Courscant that do nothing but generate food stuffs to feed Courscant.

But clearly it was.

Whether or not it is a true story is the question, but clearly it's a story being told by him.

I read a new take on the ME 3 ending today.  I am actually not sure it changes much but is interesting nonetheless to me.

A Possibly new take on the End:

Here's an idea, maybe you could either play a Bioware game more current than the first 10 mins of Kotor, or you could stop posting in threads about them.

You so crazy, Velorath.

So essentially because humanity wasn't

Here's an idea: kill yourself crybaby.

Sucks that Bioware made a shitty ending, but "maybe that old man telling a story wasn't actually an old man telling a story" seems like an odd rationalization. Maybe the old man is just a metaphor for the awesome power of Bioware storytelling!!!!!!!!!

I'll tell you what, you go a month only posting in Bioware threads then I'll go a month never posting in them.

By the way Vel, here's a little pro-tip for life: if you mewl and scream like an infant every time someone like me says something even slightly negative about your beloved laser swords and free desktop wallpaper endings you should fully expect future snarky comments about laser swords.

The thing I love about you is someone can say that the ME action dolls that come with random DLC codes are kind of lame and you'll invariably post a passionate defense instead of just "yeah, they are pretty lame lol." It's like Bioware is your virgin betrothed.

I just say "laser swords pew pew" and you spazz out.

If someone wants to blast the FFXIII-2 ending and DLC strategy I'm not going to be all OH NO YOU DIDN'T!!! because yeah, the ending and DLC strat are kind of lame. (And I say that having played only the demo of FFXIII-2 myself) In this case you have a super corny voiceover accompanied by a random image from the web, along with three endings that are basically the same and not much resolution. It's just self-evidently bad and your Bioware can do nothing wrong ever attitude makes pointing that out a lot more entertaining that it has any right to be.

Is it your punishment in Hades to only be able to read and post in threads about games you hate and have no intention of ever playing or something?  Take a look at your posting history man.  Over half the first page is posts about ME3 or SWTOR.  That initial SWTOR thread went on for like 3 years, and you participated in it for damn near the duration.  I mean seriously, what's that like that the only thing you're capable of discussing in a hobby that you presumably liked at some point in your life, is the output of a company that you absolutely can't stand.  That's got to be a miserable existence bro.

This psychobabble bullshit again lol.

When you find yourself typing out drivel about how the meanie who made you feel bad is secretly miserable and you can totally tell through the magic of the internetz you should probably just stop and go back to masturbating furiously to your Slave Leia in Hutt's Lair diorama. (Which, let's be honest, you totally have. I think this is the part where you tell me that it's not a Lair it's a "Hutt Hovel" and I would know that if I was highly educated like yourself)

To tell the truth judging by how emotionally invested you are in Bioware and Star Wars it's hard to imagine how your life isn't laughably pathetic but whatever, I'm not going to pretend to be able to diagnose whatever form of retardation you might be suffering from from forum posts. Probably you are a sad loser who writes a letter to Bioware ever day begging them to release a Mass Effect dating sim with fully posable models but maybe you are a fairly normal person who is just kind of a dork on forums. I really don't know or care.

Just finished it. Like pretty much everybody I think the ending is a massive letdown and just poor storytelling. Which is a shame as the rest of the game I found to be awesome. I suppose I should have known everything was going to be crappy when I had a conversation with my love interest that said She'd like to end up in a nice house with a white picket fence and two kids. I don't mind a downer ending as such but that one just left me feeling wtf was that crap. And all the senseless stuff that led up to it. The reapers know where the missile battery is well enough to send waves of mobs after it but the reaper that's right there can't shoot it with his laser? That's just one among many senseless writing bits.

Ah well. I played the hell out of 1&2 with multiple playthroughs each. This one I doubt I'm going to play again anytime soon. Overall the series is great but man what a letdown.

I'll let your unraveling sanity speak for itself.

"It's probably a pathetically mechanical attempt to heighten the emotional tension of the next game sequence. No use fighting it. "

IMO the Goose Playing the Piano then Dying Right After device (TOP GUN SPOILERZ!!! - yes Velorath I've watched Top Gun calm down please) is similar to Checkov's Gun in that it works until the audience becomes acutely aware of it as a device, at which point it becomes trite.

I wonder if there is some sort of term that describes stuff like that - storytelling techniques that work until they become too well-worn. It's a little more specific than simple cliche.


Of course saying that is exactly the opposite of doing that. Logic - don't try it at a home.

 :popcorn:

Unnecessary. Stop being a dick.

That was kinda my feeling. I can deal with Downer Endings, but this one was just ridiculous.

 :why_so_serious:

(http://i.imgur.com/Pvz3w.jpg)

Stay classy, EA.

You do know that the chance of that player's story being bullshit is 99%, right? At least I hope that's what Triple's :why_so_serious: is for.

On the other hand, if it's not then that's some masterful griefing going on.

Lets assume he duped the credits.

I still give no fucks and EA are being ridiculous for banning someone from a single player game for cheating.

Especially ridiculous considering that EA sell cheat mode dlc all the fricking time.

It isn't unheard of server operators intentionally fucking with someone's client, if there's means and an actual effect.

Possibly not, though.  Before the game was released there was a thread on the Bioware site where someone mentioned modding their MP-host machine to do this.  I had wondered why at the time and now I see..whoops.

It's possible to mod the client to do this. I'm pretty sure the host has nothing to do with it, but it's possible the payout system uses the host to determine the data. Would be even dumber than trusting the client though, just from a "that's a lot of useless data to send across the wire that the client already has" standpoint.

As for banning someone from their DLC stuff for multiplayer bullshit: Doesn't steam fuck your account pretty royally if you get VAC banned? I think you can still play single player, but every multiplayer aspect gets locked from you hacking in one of them.

I'm okay with the idea of "hacking in multi? gtfo of our service", but you need to be DAMNED sure they were doing so. And ME3's mutli code is so riddled with poor security that I don't think you could ever prove it.

It begins: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuNTa3Psqz4

Well, that's the first one of those that's made me crack a smile.

The problem with this kind of ending (http://squallsdead.com/) is that unless it's explicitly spelled out, it's no different than any one of a million other "maybe Shepard is really in an asylum and hallucinated the whole thing" kinds of theoretically possible endings.  Is it possible?  Sure, I guess, but so what?  Everything after that point is basically a "metaphor" or something, which means nothing narratively (since the game doesn't go anywhere with it, can't go anywhere with it since it's all one character's final delusion).  The game doesn't improve or suddenly reveal some deep hidden message if you believe the ending to be true.  Ultimately, you're stuck with the problem that the real, canonical ending of Mass Effect is basically the same ending that you would have gotten if you'd died ten minutes into the first game, except with some additional meaningless hallucinatory babble tacked on.

And you still have the "Grandpa's Story" problem where the stuff you're doing in game isn't "real" even within the scope of the game fiction.  A lot of people can handle imagining a story, not as many are interested in a story about a story.

Since I finally beat it, random thoughts:

Except it is. That was clearly not being told on Earth so right off you know it's in a sci-fi setting. All that ending is really saying is that you have become a legend, a story that is passed down throughout the galaxy which is actually hinted at pretty hardcore throughout the whole game.

Anyway, my biggest gripe with the end

Has this been posted here yet?

http://social.bioware.com/633606/polls/28989

We're just posting links to bitch threads on the Bioware forums now?  Nice.

EA are going to interpret that poll, and the whole associated hullaballoo, as "gamers insist on happy endings".

Just saying.

They're going to interpret it like that because that's what a lot of people on Bioware's forum are actually saying.

Edit:  Which in a way I somewhat blame ME2 for.  In ME1, regardless of what choices you made, one of your teammates had to die.  ME2 was the game that conditioned people to think that if you make all the right choices, everybody will survive what was deemed a suicide mission, and I'd bet that's what most people did.  A lot of people seem to be asking for the same with ME3, and while I agree with a lot of criticisms about the ending, the desire for a way to get a happy ending isn't one of them.

I always kinda liked the "You busted your ever-loving ass and made all of the right decisions across all the games? Happy ending." idea myself. I mean, that kinda makes the reward proportional to the "work" you put into kicking ass and thought you put into your choices.

Also normally I don't link to the 2000 different retards doing YouTube video reviews of games thinking they'll be the next ZeroPunctuation/Yogscast/whatever but this one made me laugh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVgwvj8N8ew

Also, it's not like there aren't any sacrifices anyway during the course of the story.


e: Interesting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=booBmcFw_Lk
Looks like this is the original version of the "Anderson & Shepard" scene, which sounds like it was supposed to be placed after the climax. Wonder what the original ending was going to be?

Ok that one did make me chuckle.

No, it's the host, and it isn't a new problem.   The same thing happened with Battlefield 3 and hacked servers, resulting in banning from Origin -and all your single-player games - entirely.  But thanks for handing-over all that cash to EA, they appreciate it!

So the rule is: only play on official servers for all EA games.

Given the scale of the conflict and the stakes I guess to me a happy ending just wouldn't have made sense.  Like I said before my biggest complaint is a lack of closure.  I can only assume that part of the reason for that is maybe ME4 will reveal the aftermath to you as you're playing.

"Happy" is an operative word. I mean, you could end it where everyone in the squad lives, and all the ancillary characters people like live (anderson for example), but the reapers managed to give the universe a pretty good shit-kicking all things aside. Also everyone who died from ME1 onward.

I never really got the praise the Mass Effect series got by fans and critics alike. The games have always been a collection of bits and pieces that sometimes worked out well and sometimes didn't but always felt half-finished and not entirely well thought out.

Bioware has a knack for writing episodes that are in and of itself brilliant but they never quite managed to put all of the different bits and pieces together so that they formed a coherent and well thought out game or even story.

They simply didn't care enough about any part of their games to make at least one of the bits truly brilliant.

They sometimes excel at the small stuff (like the Overlord and Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC) but they also always fail at the overall arcs and stories

They were also always exceptionally lazy when game design was concerned.

I knew that the third installment wasn't going to be great when they released "The Arrival" as the final ME 2 DLC. The story they told there was so hackneyed and stupid that it's better to simply pretend that it doesn't exist at all.

Even the pointlessness of everything you do as Shepard isn't new or just a feature of ME 3. The games never give you a real choice, they give you lots of superficial ones but no real ones. Choosing between the options only changes who says something or how something happens but never keeps it from happening or changes the outcome. (I consider the death of NPCs inconsequential as long as the story still unfolds in exactly the same way just with a different substitute)

Shepard is never in control of his destiny or situation. In ME 1 he wouldn't even know that the Reapers exists if Saren hadn't led him to them yet he is always a step ahead. Shepard only really saves the day because an extinct race of space hippies "genetically modified" the sentient handymen on the citadel so that they wouldn't obey their former masters. Because if they didn't then the game would have been over years before ME 1 actually takes place.

You could have made the game so much better just by hinting that the absolutely useless council wouldn't help Shepard because they live on the mother of all reaper artifacts and are likely indoctrinated to ignore the Reaper threat. (One of the bigger plot holes in 1 apart from the question why the Reapers spare all of the non spacefaring races that already lived 50.000 years ago)

In ME 2 you no longer even have the choice of where you'd like to go first, in order to "win" the game you even have to play it in a certain way. In most levels you don't even have a choice of going left or right because there is just the way forward and parts of the game only get unlocked after you have gotten to certain checkpoints. There is also the issue of why I should work for people that are so obviously evil as Cerberus, a fact that is hammered in in ME1 and carries over into 2. Half of the missions is cleaning up messes the Illusive Man made instead of preparing for the Collector base.

Oh then there's the issue of destroying the mu relay and nuking a whole batarian colony that has no effect at all, where you are conveniently knocked unconscious for the exact amount of time the reapers need to invade so that your only "choice" is to nuke the relay. Which as we've seen with ME 3 doesn't matter at all, they didn't even have the decency to prosecute Shepard after he proved to be a genocidal maniac. They just shrug it off.

In 3 you don't even finish missions yourself you get "help" by crew members and NPCs that always reveal themselves right at the exact moment Shepard fucks up another mission by staring blankly while holding a gun.

Saving the Council on the Citadel after the Cerberus invasion was  probably the second most ridiculous piece of storytelling after the ending itself, you chase "ripped from Final fantasy sword guy" through half of the citadel and instead of a decent boss fight you get a cutscene of Thane failing to beat him up before he escapes. Literally every time you are on the brink of catching him the game gives you another cut scene to tell you exactly why you aren't allowed to catch him yet.

Hell even confronting Udina only boils down to who shoots him you or Ashley/Kaidan but he ends up dead either way.

Instead of a challenging fight against lots of modified rachnii you get a cutscene of Grunt beating the shit out of them and that after a decent Alien-esque buildup.

Instead of a great storytelling moment you get a cut scene of Mordin using an elevator and being blown up.

When you can actually fight for yourself then the biggest threat is usually an Atlas dropped from orbit that get's blown to pieces as soon as it lands by my awesome "so much damage it's basically cheating" Widow rifle on my infiltrator.

The "twists" get telegraphed miles away and even if you wanted, the game takes control away from you in the exact moments that you actually could change something. If all else fails by breaking your powers. Don't expect stasis to work on assassin girl in the first mission for example. You are expected to run after her,
hell you'll even fail the mission of you don't keep up but actually catching her before she reaches the shuttle is impossible, because the designers want it that way.

I mean I had my whole squad with me and all the game made me do is watch a scene of robot girl beating Ashley to near death while I was thinking "Give me the controls and I would have killed her five minutes before she even laid a hand on my squadmate"

So in a twisted way the ending is somewhat coherent when it drives home the point that nothing you ever did over the last 3 games had any meaning whatsoever. That it is inane, ignores the major story arcs of the previous two games, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and is also basically a giant "fuck you but thanks for your money" to the fans, while at the same time being lazy as hell (Seriously: "Shepard is now a legend". Why not: "Sorry but your catalyst is in another castle") is just the icing on the cake.

Every time Bioware would have needed resources or just time and a little bit of thought to flesh out story or levels they always went for convenience, bending stories, creating plot holes, removing control from the player, creating superficial conflict or letting bridges collapse conveniently at the exact moment you'd want to get over them. (On Tuchanka they even collapse the exact same bridge model in the exact same way a few minutes apart).

Just finished the game, it kinda fell apart at the end.

Dragonball Z storytelling.  Once you've got a character so powerful they start blowing up planets, you need to start finding excuses of WHY they aren't blowing up planets.

The mass relays aren't the only way to travel FTL. They're merely the best, fastest way. Otherwise it would take months or years to go from relays to neighboring star systems, and this clearly isn't the case.

No, the Turians didn't starve. They just headed home by slow FTL.

Y'know what I think? I think Bioware flinched. It's hard to build up this big, huge story, and not be tempted to make the ending some transcendental experience. They think "God, no ending will be good enough! How can we top it? Jesus... jesus... JESUS! We'll put in some metaphysical imagery and a Christ metaphor! "

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hMtrisbkXkM/TdoQcf6AleI/AAAAAAAAADo/YKJUpwTKK40/s1600/Brilliant_00.jpg)

Meanwhile, alls the audience wanted was a satisfying wrap up to all the plot threads that had been laid out.
Maybe a comment on human nature a-la Star Trek. That's all. No need to go herpty derpty on us.

3D chemistry is a Real Thing, by the way.  :grin:

Biology A-Level time: Okay, the more complex organic structures can take one of two actual shapes (chiralities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality_%28chemistry%29)). On Earth, that means the overwhelming majority of amino acids (building blocks of proteins) are dextro-chirality and the overwhelming majority of sugars are laevo-chirality.  What this means is that if you had, say, a chunk of protein based on laevo-chirality amino acids (essentially non-existent outside of laboratories), the enzymes in your body would not physically be able to process it. You could eat three square meals of L-protein and D-carbohydrate food a day, and you'd still starve to death. This isn't something (relatively) easily fixable like, for example, a mineral deficiency.

We were heading for a Christ metaphor since ME2 anyways. There really wasn't any way around it.

As for the reapers not doing much: I'm also a bit surprised that every time you kill one.. they don't seem all that badass. Like, it turns out the humans have missiles that will just flatten the smaller ones? WHY HAVEN'T YOU BEEN USING THEM?

I haven't read this thread because I'm not done but I just wanted to say that I am extremely annoyed that

Is that tied to a save? It should just be a paragon/renegade choice unless the default new character assumes tali and legion fucking hate each other still.

Sure, but they leaned on it really heavily to float them through the ending, instead of taking a chance on a definitive ending. Having Shepard sacrifice him/herself was inevitable. Making us guess what that meant for the galaxy was lazy.

Yes. I wanted to know what happened to the galaxy after I was done. Even just a series of 'slides' with a voice over by Admiral Hackett saying what happened to the alien races and of course humanity. Preferably finished off with a shot of the surviving squad members on the Nornandy telling stories about shepard with Garrus saying "So, there we were, 20 banshees charging us and the Commander goes 'What do you want to live forever?' and charged into them. It was glorious. Of course, he didn't know I was blowing their heads off to keep him safe..."

Yep.


EDIT: And no, turians and quarians can't eat what we can, they say multiple times it is basically like eating poison (we can't eat their food for the same reason).

EDIT EDIT: And I should probably stress we never had any fucking idea how the mass relays worked. They're not getting rebuilt any time soon.

Everything I've read says you need to do x, y and z from me2 and then do the paragon/renegade choice to unite them.

Edit: Oh plus the usual high reputation and having done the side missions.

Hm, is Tali's default state exiled if you're not loading a save? Because one of the things I did in ME2 did NOT give points towards peace, but I managed it anyway.

EDIT: My extremely brief looking around has a bunch of people saying you had to have destroyed the heretic geth in ME2, but I know I didn't in Sally Shepard's save, and she got the geth/quarian peace option.

I liked the resolutions of the side-plots, and the interaction with previous characters once the game wasn't throwing one at me every 30 seconds. Most of the races you met through the three games had their main conflicts resolved in satisfying ways. The ending, and in general the progress of the plot with the Reapers in ME3, was pretty disappointing. Overall, I'm still pretty happy with what the game did manage to do.

I actually thought the ending was going to be worse than it was.

The flirting between Tali and Shepard... The pain... Noo... god.... ....

YOU HAVE NO REASON FOR THIS.

WHY GOD, TELL ME WHY.

More ending thoughts:

ending blah blah

Now that I've let it simmer:

I've seen three different videos of the ending now, in each one the players have made the three various 'galactic prep' check points.

A) The "I didn't give a fuck about shitty sidequests and other crap" ending. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=JlyGL9Cqsxw#t=688s)  The kid says "You only have one choice.  Do it or GTFO."

B) The "Ok, I sorta cared a little" ending. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=exswWQxVss4#t=1100s)  The kid says "You got two choices, bro.  Either one sucks, but I'm not stopping you."

C) The "I did everything that I could do, short of giving up my arm and leg." ending. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlhz08W0c7s&feature=player_detailpage#t=1070s)  The kid says "Synthesis would actually break the cycle and is REALLY WHAT WE'VE BEEN TRYING TO DO THE ENTIRE TIME, but you still wanna control or kill us, it's cool bro."

Regardless of progress, the kid ALWAYS says that the crucibal's energy release destroys the relays after he's introduced all the options.  The same energy that's released whether you destroy everything (explosions, man!), take control (the energy reprograms the reapers), or merge (the energy spreads your DNA around like a galactic orgy).

I can see the the destruction of the relays happening with the destruction option, but the other two?  Fuck you Bioware.

I was kind of hoping that as last part of the series the writers would put in wildly divergent endings.

Of course, that would only have worked without EAs burning desire to wring more money from a franchise by planning yet another sequel. So we should really have seen this coming.

This. After letting it simmer this is what pisses me off too. And it's why the DA2 ending didn't bother me at all because all the loose ends got tied off and my char rides off into the sunset. I don't mind Shepard dying I mind everything else, all the cosmic bullcrap from left field.

DA2 had a sound plot, what killed it was gameplay design (copypasta dungeons and endless enemy waves) and LOL DOUBLE BOSS FIGHT.

Urgh, I get more annoyed every time I watch the ending. What stupid, stupid shit.

It's like watching Let's Make a Deal.

"Okay...we've got door number 1, door number 2, and door number 3!"
"...Door 2?"
*horns.aiff* (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-GaXa8tSBE)

What pisses me off is that it invalidates the effort players put into three games worth of story. They basically tell you that the Reapers are evil and that their intentions are basically incomprehensible. They even let you build up an army the likes of which the galaxy has never seen before. All the while basically implying that if you do everything right you have a chance to beat the Reapers and save the galaxy.

They've based a lot of the story telling and their whole morality system on the question of whether a threat of mass extinction can and should alter the way you behave, whether you're allowed to sacrifice friends and allies for the greater good or if you should stick to morals even when things seem dire and hopeless and the selfish act might seem like the only way out.

Hell they've even made it hard or even impossible to get the best (well, best meaning slightly less shitty) ending if you didn't choose the paragon ending for most quests.

They throw all of that away in the mystic space kid ending to replace it with some hackneyed retconned stupid shit about the Reapers basically being the misunderstood emo kids from the highschool av club. "We don't understand how you just simply won't let us kill you all, we do it to save you from being killed by synthetics, we mean other synthetics than us, obviously".

It's like the whole writing team died unexpectantly in a plane crash three months from release and the intern had to finish it.

Well most of the team did bugger off after ME1...

This.

Just finished it last night (actually, REALLY early this morning--work is so going to suck today). That was pretty much my reaction after the initial, WTF? Did I fall asleep here and now I'm getting NGE flashbacks?

I have a metric ton (well, about 7) playthrough saves from ME2 and I doubt I'm going to bother much at this point. At least not right away. Overall, I had a pretty good time, but, frankly, I could have called it after Rannoch and been reasonably content. I've always viewed Bioware RPGs as about the journey and not the destination, but this one went full retard.

I'd always thought that Shepard was on borrowed time from what we saw in ME2. I was really getting that vibe early on in ME3. Every time Chakwas wanted to "talk" I had a sinking feeling it was going to be about bio-synthetic rejection then finding out Shepard's ass was grass and the only question is whether the lawnmower was going to be his rapidly unravelling genetics or a reaper. Instead we got...well...what we got. Ah, well.

Major disappointment on that front. I've seen/heard all the talk about the super-secret squirrel ending as well. When I eventually get around to a couple of 360 playthroughs I guess we'll see (full disclosure: initial playthrough was on the PC--don't ask).

Your forum avatar...I do not think you remember where you are...

Finished last night, took the synthesis option...

I'm OK with the general gist of the ending, I just think the Reapers' stated motivations are either A) untrustworthy, B) terribly written, or C) both.

You have now spent more time on thinking about and explaining the ending than Bioware did.

Thank you, everyone. You have saved me 50 euros.

What a load of shit. And this is from someone who LIKED the ending of KOTOR2.

So you see, we have to kill animals, or else they'll DIE.

You know, this Stupid Reaper motovation isnt even that original in Video games. At the end of Freespace its speculated that the Shivans Aliens motovation was to kill all warlike speices so that they would not be there to kill off newer peqceful spieces that were emerging.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5sdlDK0TOw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5sdlDK0TOw)

Of course when that monolouge happened you had literally saved the day and stopped them just as they were heading for Earth, so you had won the day. The revelation here was just some knowlage to the player about the Shivans motovation.

Fuck sake the Jump points to Earth collapsed at the end of that game too, but due to the huge fuck off supership blowing up as it was emerging from subspace, thanks to you. Bioware had to make that even MORE by hammering the entire galaxy.

I get why the relays had to go in at least one of the endings.  Choosing to destroy the reapers outright SHOULD have such a consequence.  Fucking over the galaxy for a few hundred/thousand years in exchange for completely eradicating a threat that has existed for billions of years is acceptable trade.

What I don't understand is why all three endings all end up the same way. It seems like the bioware response is "because fuck you, that's why"

To have the same jumping off point in ME 4 thats why.

I'm sure that's true, but then again, they'll just give one "canon" ending to 3 that they run with anyway...

The AI may be just blowing them up as a big "fuck you" to the galaxy, anyways.

You mean Mass Effect Online, right?

Notes on tech and colonization:

On galactic populations:

Okay, I'm opening up this thread and declaring it spoiler-tag free from this point forward.

Everyone is largely discussing either the ending or things that require knowledge of the ending, and I'm tired of post after endless post with spoiler tags. It's dumb, so, at this point

You have been warned.

Also, for the hell of it, since this kinda amuses me.


Dunno if anyone will get what this is referencing however.

I don't really see that making a lot of financial sense for them to make unless it was something on a much smaller scale than an MMO.

This somehow feels apt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6Fa2Dcn4Zg&feature=related

edit: and this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzYLTbQQEZQ

I don't want a Mass Effect MMO (though I'm almost certain it will happen eventually). Despite the ending stupidity, however, I still am a big fan of the universe. Seems like a no brainer for the "oh this totally wasn't planned all along, THE FANS HAVE SPOKEN" extra ending DLC or whatever. If they were to do an MMO, it would be in that post-DLC weirdness, or set in some time earlier in the cycle, like during the turian/human conflict.

I really like the multiplayer, so I wouldn't be averse to something that expands on what they've done there. Story-based co-op? Some side stories where you play as Cerberus agents during the ME2 era or somesuch? Whatever.

I'm not as worked up about the ending as some other people appear to be, but I can still recognize where corners were cut.

Posting this reply after reading like half of page 1:

Why is any of Bioware's inability to finish a story well a surprise to anyone? I don't want to look for an answer over like 180 posts.

Patching in a not-shitty ending isn't without precedent really. That's what Bethesda basically did with Fallout 3.

There's a not-shitty ending in FA3?

Well, at least with Broken Steel you're not forced to commit horrifically painful suicide and be melted into a literal pile of goo by radiation when you have potential ghoul, supermutant, and robot sidekicks who can go do it and literally be fine.

Well, there's poor endings and then again there's poor endings. I haven't seen a tone-deaf conclusion like this since, oh, I honestly don't know. Even the Matrix Trilogy had better fitting plot twists and a more satisfactory conclusion. Even Gainax at their trolliest write better endings than this.

Hell, I've seen SyFy made-for-TV films with better endings.

M A S S  C O N T R O L  II: The Reapers Masters



I stayed awake for 26 hours to finish the game. The ending made me cry.

I will pay for a real "no, we heard you, here's what REALLY happened" DLC.

As I mentioned in the Skyrim thread, this strategy is currently how Squeenix is handling FF-XIII-2.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-02-06-final-fantasy-13-2-to-be-continued-ending-explained

From all accounts FF-XIII-2's story is just as incomprehensible as the first.

True, but that's a progressive thing with FF.  I imagine that FFXV will require either a doctorate-level education to even beginto understand the  :uhrr:, or some REALLY good LSD  :grin:

Still, the point remains; DLC could save/triage the ending, though I don't know how.  Once Shep is dead, he's dead, so unless they're prepared to (fucking finally) allow us to control someone other than Shep directly, I think we're done here.

Yesssss
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQvPFNjxxU0

Also: Almost everyone on the Citadel died when the arms closed. (http://twitter.com/#!/macwalterslives/status/177930229329829888)

Wow...ok, someone explain this shit:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DPhWndG6EIY

Skip to 4:24 for the meat.

It's a 'Destroy' ending, but the uploader claims that he achieved a score 'over 5000' on the galactic prep thing.

Discuss.   :grin:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/03/12/how-bioware-could-find-redemption-using-mass-effect-3/2/ (http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/03/12/how-bioware-could-find-redemption-using-mass-effect-3/2/)

Forbes contributor suggests that Bioware release a free DLC ending as a sort of apology to fans.


I actually agree with his proposal. It would go a long way to fix things by showing customers they were heard by the developer. Meanwhile, EA's stock has been taking a progressive beating in 2012, and is on the tops of many short sellers lists.

Duh?

Seriously, am I missing something here?  If you're EMS score is high enough, Shep gets to live after all?

Supposedly if you have a high enough EMS and pick the Red Ending, there's a brief clip of Shepard taking a breath while buried under a pile of rubble. Nevermind that there's no way s/he would survive the Citadel getting blowed up. Nothing else about the ending is satisfying or makes much sense, why should that?

If you choose the "Renegade" ending and wipe out all synthetic life including Edi and the Geth then yes. You see a brief shot of his chest armor and then he takes a breath.

I dunno...I haven't seen the issue discussed yet.  Any word on any difference if you have a high EMS and go Control or Merge?

My EMS was over 6000 and I had 100% readiness from doing a lot of multiplayer.  There's no sign of Shepard still alive in the Merge ending.

I cannot remember what my EMS was (I had filled the bar but I think I was shy of 4k, which is what you need for the Shepard breathes DESTROY ending), but the stuff I've read indicates it's destroy or bust. I will say with the synthesis ending, you like. Melt. Onscreen. So I doubt she's coming back from that either way.

Also, it occurs to me that Shepard is not WEARING armor in the final WTF moments (you are in bloodied fatigues). Which I suppose is why some people are clinging to the hope that all that WTF wankery was just Shepard hallucinating, and ANY MINUTE NOW the "real" endings will be unlocked and you don't ruin the entire setting because shut up that's why.

It's just the Destroy ending, which starkid warns you will kill you because you are largely synthetic too after you were rebuilt in ME2. In the other two endings, you don't die so much as you are absorbed into beams of light. You're basically watching your body disintegrate.

So, is it just me or does anyone else find the concept of a macguffin 'magically' killing every synthetic in the galaxy to be a bit....much? I mean think about it logically. How would it even be able to distinguish between a geth or say, a toaster?

Geth shoot at you. Toasters make PopTarts.

Some guy on the Bioware forums wrote his vision of a 4th choice that should have been available in the ending. To me, this is pretty close to how it should have ended.

I just finished it now.  So that bioware guy (http://social.bioware.com/unity.freeforumshosting.org/forum/Mass-Effect-3/Mass-Effect-3-General-Discussion-No-ME3-Spoilers-allowed/A-note-about-multiplayer-in-relation-to-the-endings-9665384-1.html) who promised we didn't need to do multiplayer to get the best ending (if you consider synthesis the best) is just a fucking liar right?

The Salarian Union formally requests you stop touching that.

Good stuff there!

Are we being played?

I got the synthesis ending without doing any multiplayer or anything. I didn't even do ALL the sidequests (I even missed entirely the Kasumi cameo sidequest, which nets quite a few assets). I just did shit until my bar was full, then off I went (I usually do my second playthrough as the MUST DO EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THING playthrough, first playthrough is MUST DO ALL THE OBVIOUS SHIT playthrough).


EDIT: Although! It MAY be hard to get if you don't have a good ME import. I'm not sure what the "no save import, brand new game" is.

I really do think that Bioware flinched. The converastion with the Catalyst reeks of juking from one idea to another during the final writing process.

It kinda makes sense if you imagine the Citadel is inhabited by the first Reaper. The first species to undergo the change. That species saw that the road to singularity was dangerous and painful, and wanted to save other species from the risk of self-annihilation. So it started harvesting them and uplifting them to become Reapers. Dark Energy, Synthetic Takeover, Nuclear Proliferation and Gingivitus- The Reapers are beyond these concerns, and we can be too. Instead of giving the Reapers a specific threat, I think they would have been much more interesting as wanting to prevent a general threat.

I don't think the Reapers should have been explained anymore than they were in the first 2 games. I didn't need to know their motives. They were alien and mysterious and wanted to put me in a glass and hit puree. I didn't need anymore than that. I just needed to beat them and have a satisfying resolution. That was it.

 :why_so_serious:

Seriously, I'm with you on this...was just having fun, please don't ban me XD

Right now, unless someone at Bioware magically appears yelling "Psych" and showing me the already finished DLC that turns the ending around, this is all just conjecture and the grapsing at straws by desperate and utterly disappointed fans.

We're basically in Stage 3 of the five stages of grief as they pertain to Mass Effect.

We've had denial and anger already, now we're at bargaining, soon we'll arrive at depression and finally acceptance of this being just another shitty ending to another beloved series with no hidden meanings or secret messages to "enlightened" fans.

They went for the strong reveal and "surpising" twist at the end (Mass Effect written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan). Unfortunately for them, the writers for ME 1 and 2 never intended the series to end this way, they didn't put any hints in place in ME 3 that could point you to the series ending this way and the ME writers are not really good enough to pull something like this off anyway. So the end completely crashed and burned and took the whole series down with it.

The rest is just fans expressing their grief on the internet

This pretty much. It reeks to me of either a rush-job, or possibly a half-ass compromise after a lot of debate by the writers. If it was confirmed as the latter I'd be more alright with it; I mean the authors having the same discussion we're having about how stupid X/Y/Z is and then realizing they have to work with what they have because they have 99% of the voice acting recorded already and most of the animation/art is done, then going for what they considered the least offensive option at least makes me feel less cheated. I mean, they cared at least, even if they should've had it written in concrete longer than 10 minutes before they went gold.

This is basically "Writing 101" though, isn't it.

Be clear on how you'll want to start, know how you'll want it to end, then fill in everything in between.

I get that this is not always feasible in Television, where you seldom know for exactly how long your series will be on but in written fiction, moview or gaming this should be the modus operandi.

Especially in games where it is nearly impossible to "fix things in post" or reshoot/restage things after they have been created.

The bigger picture is that this is somehow a trend now. There have been a number of series in the last years, in gaming, television and movies, that left fans with lazy or even shitty endings and resolutions. And I don't mean merely unsatisfying ends because I know that you can't be everything to everybody when you've built up expectations over months or years.

I did absolutely everything I could.  After every priority I would do a walk around and talk to all my crew and go through the entire citadel looking for quests.  Every single asset system was explored to 100%.  I didn't complete one mission because even though I searched every nook and cranny I still managed to miss a terminal or something but that was from the DLC so it shouldn't be required.  I have to assume it was because I had no ME2 imports.  I couldn't get both the geth and quarians, Jack never showed up at all in my game and I assume I miss out on other things too.  I was at 2712 readiness and I guess you need 2800 without multiplayer.  At any rate you need an effective readiness of 4000 to get the Shepard lives ending.

I shall play some multiplayer as I curse bioware.

BTW. I'm sad about all of the missed opportunities they didn't take.

Take for example the great little scene between Garrus and Sheperd on top of the citadel presidium.

Why not make a mini game out of it? You already have the mechanics for it in place (also the spectre shooting range is in the game). Let them shoot at bottles for a while. Let the players see if they can actually win against somebody as skilled as Garrus. Create an achivement for it. Let the players decide if they'll let him win with more than just a dialogue option. Make mechanics so that both Garrus and Shepard can cheat or distract each other. End with a quip by whoever wins and let them choose to be a graceful winner/loser or to gloat at the other a little.

This would be that much more memorable to players.

I actually expected them to let me shoot the bottle myself, this being a "shooting at things" kind of game after all.

When they left me with basically a dialogue option it made me said because I realized just how myopic their view of the game and their thought processes had been by this point.

Bethesda or Obsidian would have made a whole mini game out of that, complete with challenges and achievements and all the bells and whistles.

Bioware gives you an animation where Shepard vapidly stares into the distance and then let's you select a dialogue option that boils down to "be a dick and let him win" or "be a dick and don't let him win".

You'll basically need the bar to reach the end, even though effective strength is only 50% which should require about 6000 readiness rating (which leaves 3000 effective)

One gripe I had with two and three, you can miss essential upgrades or quest items. For example the dog tag the guy in the embassy requires who talks about his missing son is hidden in one of the N7 side missions (which are all basically repurposed multi player maps). Those missions end automatically when you've completed the objective. So you're either lucky and pick it up accidentally while shooting at Cerberus thugs or you're SOL.

As in 2 you can miss guns and upgrades and you'll be unable to return to prior parts of levels after a cutscene has played. As in 2 you'll be unable to get to those resources after a cutscene has played/you finished a level/ a door has locked. As in 2 this can screw you out of the "best" ending if you're unlucky.


The way you get to the "least worst" end is also influenced by paragon/renegade decisions you've made in ME 1 and 2. The decision to keep the colllector base/destroy the collector base at the end of ME 2 tweaks the points you need for certain ends to unlock for example other paragon/renegade decisions also tweak the point levels needed to unlock certain endings. There are also one or two things you simply cannot do if you made the wrong decisions in ME 1 or 2 (uniting the geth and the quarians for example)

Jack shows up in the mission where you have to protect the group of biotic students from Grissom(?) Academy from Cerberus and where you can meet the autistic guy from the Project: Overlord DLC

I found that very frustrating, especially since the vast majority of missions try to inflict a false sense of urgency on you with your crew or npcs screaming to hurry up or they'll die.  Most missions feel like they have a time limit (even though they don't) so it's jarring to stop and just run in circles looking for crap.  However, there is the saving grace that if you miss something you might be able to buy it afterwards from the spectre terminal, including those dog tags, so long as you don't complete the next priority mission.  It's sort of like a second chance except that they don't bother telling you it exists...

I did that but without an ME2 save you don't get Jack.  DOUBLE ENTENDRE PUN!  And by don't get I mean she doesn't exist at all and never shows up, I know she doesn't join the crew either way.

So, I replayed the end game citadel stuff last night and this time I chose the Destroy the Reapers no matter what it does to the Geth and Edi ending. I also got the Shepard breathing clip. I'm relatively satisfied with this ending and I've read some stuff on the forums that leads me to believe more and more that this is the only real ending.

 Something I hadn't thought about before was the dream sequences. The final one has Shepard standing next to the boy and burning with him. Somebody on the forums took this to mean that the boy is dangerous and misleading and that both the synthesis and control endings are nothing but lies. I also noticed that if you do the destroy ending it's the only one where Shepard acts like...well, Shepard. As he shoots he sort of straightens and gets this real determined look on his face like you're used to seeing when he pulls off something very important. His posture, his facial expression, all of it is exactly what you're used to seeing with Shepard rather than the slumped, defeated look he has up until that point.

Maybe I'm just justifying it in my head but this ending is one I can live with. Especially as it feels like the one the game was really building too the whole time. I have a hard time believing that TIM was right and Anderson was wrong. And Synthesis feels too much like giving the Reapers exactly what they want.

That, and really, fuck the God Child. He wants me to merge or control? I'm going to destroy. I was sent to stop the reapers not get touchy feely with them.

Since both of the examples of exactly why the star child is wrong (The geth and EDI) die in that ending it's as pointless as the other two. In a well written "sort of greek" drama it might count as dramatic irony since the only way to destroy that particular kind of evil also destroys the sole examples that proved it to be wrong in the first place.

The more I know about Bioware though, the more I think that this was probably entirely by accident.

See, that just gets way too fucking game-y for my tastes and would've taken me entirely out of the moment they were trying to present, and I think the scene would've been poorer for it. It's also exactly the type of thing that might be neat the first time (for certain values of "neat"), but gets really stupid and/or annoying the second or third time through.

Basically you picked one of the scenes I felt worked best in the entire game, and want to slap a gimmicky mini-game onto it. I can't say I'd be down with that.


EDIT: And since it can't be said enough: fuck that little kid. So fucking hard. Utterly loathesome device.

But do the Geth and Edi really die? Sure, we don't see Edi in the finale cutscene but so what. You're assuming the Starchild is telling the truth and the destruction ending has a scene that actually makes it appear that he is a little fucking liar. He specifically says Geth and Edi will die then says "and you are also part synthetic" at least implying you will die. Yet, if you have high enough war readiness or whatever it's called you are shown taking a breath clearly NOT dead which is what I got last night when I replayed it.

So, it's only as pointless as the other two if we assume that the little kid who claims to have created the Reapers is telling the whole truth. But we have no reason to believe that. None at all. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think the kid was basically a last ditch effort to scare you away from doing what you were sent to do. I mean really, the choice Anderson made is the wrong one? For all 3 games he is a father figure and a voice of reason. He, and he alone, believes fully in Shepard throughout the whole series (not counting squadmates) and we're expected to believe that his choice is the "Renegade/bad end"? I don't buy it.

It's as pointless as the other two because you still destroy the mass relays and ruin everything, plus you've done blowed up the only work force that wouldn't starve to death. I have no reason to believe the Starchild was lying about it killing the geth and EDI, given EDI doesn't pop out of the Normandy like she does in the other two endings. It's as strong evidence as Shepard's one shallow breath. EDI COULD hop out of the Normandy fourth, just as Shepard COULD go on to gurgle and die (as s/he SHOULD, there's no way s/he would survive the Citadel blowing up).

Of course, all Normandy-related ending shit is stupid anyway, as Kaidan somehow went from being dead via Harbringer (he was in my squad, although I guess I only noticed Garrus' body during my magic beam slow-mo run) to hopping out of the Normandy.



Random aside: I am finishing a ME2 MANSHEP run, and I cannot believe how much I dislike Jacob now. I had grown to appreciate him during my ALL JACOB PLAYTHROUGH, and now I halfway want to send his stupid ass into the Death Tube to get killed. Cheat on MY Shepard, will you, you asshole?

Well since the ending was so ambigious and so well...inconclusive we're left with nothing but theories. Yes, there is evidence that Starchild told the truth but there is also evidence he didn't. I choose to believe he didn't. Also, someone pointed out that in the Codex it says non-relay FTL is a dozen or so light years per day. Still not Mass Relay fast but it does give hope that the other races might be able to make it home, especially with the Quarians having food ships most likely. So, eh, I don't know. I think I'm sticking with the destroy ending. It's what I worked for for 3 games and even if I killed the Geth and Edi there is zero chance of the Reapers ever coming back and the more I think about it the more I like that that ending basically gives the Starchild the middle finger.

It's still not like, I don't know. Camping? You guys seem to think it'll be a simple matter of roughing it for a little bit, then everyone lives happily ever after. And that's ... well. Whatever gets you through the ending, I guess.

I can't even focus at work today because all I'm thinking about is how badly done those endings were, how flawed their readiness system is and how so many important plot points were marred for me because I switched platforms and didn't have an ME2 save.  I need to stop playing video games.

It would fit with Bioware's screwed-up habit of making all the wrong decisions the "right" ones.  I never played ME2 other than with my import from ME1, because all the defaults were renegade KILL EVERYONE GO GO GO HUMANS RAR shit--no wrex, no rachni queen, council replaced with humans, human romance option survives (not that that's a bad thing, other than BOTH HUMAN OPTIONS SUCK) blah blah blah...

I'm still ok with my synthesis ending.  AndroiDNA Joker/EDI get to be happy and have little cyborg babies, Liara lived, Tali/Garrus hooked up, and I got to ensure Lieutenant Bro-hawk and the Duck-Lip Spectre died to Reaper fire (or so I hope, I didn't see them again so I can dream, can't I?).  Plus, I can assume everyone's immortal now and they have time to travel between stars, and can all live indefinitely on a diet of stale fish-sticks and D-Cell batteries.

BTW don't replay it if you liked the game and just hate the end. Serious reccomendation.

If you do you'll see just how much your "choices" matter in the big picture which is not at all.

You rescued the Rachnii queen? Tough luck the reapers enslave them again and use them to fight the organics
You Killed the Rachnii queen? Tough luck the reapers clone one and use it to fight the organics

The only difference is that the dialogue is slightly different.

This is basically the same with every choice you could have made throughout the game.

Did you sell Legion to the IM? Then you'll meet a Geth Platform that looks and talks entirely like Legion up to the N7 breastplate that you just seem to keep losing all over the terminus systems.

It's the same with basically everything, if a sqadmate died in 2 you'll get the same scene except with a generic stand-in taking over for Jacob, Jack etc.

Regardless of your choices the levels play out in exactly the same way except with a different rationalization for them and slightly modified dialogue. Which makes the whole "choices carrying over to the third installment" thing just window dressing.

This might surprise some people

You're in the same thread with people complaining that they can't get the ending they want or that they are missing plot points because they don't have access to a save with the right decisions.  Think how upset players would be if their decisions mattered more, if, for example, they couldn't access content they paid for because they didn't buy the two earlier games.  Bioware is really damned if they do and damned if they don't, and I don't think it's at all self-evident where the line for "meaningful decisions" should be drawn.

So, someone on the Bioware forums claims that if you use Edi alot in your squad she shows up in the Normandy crash scene even in the Destroy ending which is either A) An oops that they let slip through. or B) very hard to find proof that the Starchild lies.

It's an oops.  If you think otherwise you're really just reaching for excuses to make this a non-shitty game, imo.

On that particular example, spoilers have it that if you didn't save the original Rachni queen but do choose to save the NEW queen, she eventually flakes out and causes trouble.  Result is a net loss of war assets rather than a gain.

Regarding the followers, you miss out on a few War asset points (meh) and the chance for futher dialogue for a lot of them.  Which may also be "meh" to many, but I like the Jack scene in the Citadel ("Shepard! Everyone knows you can't dance!")

It's all minor stuff, but it adds flavor.

The morailty choices in most games have been primarily designed to encourage the players to replay the game, which is fine if a bit hackneyed. Except that all the other companies don't claim that "Your choices matter", that "choices carry over to new installments" and that you "get the story you want and created". They mostly define a canon ending they base sequels on andthat's it

This is why Bioware is "damned if you do damned if you don't" by its own decisions and PR.

The sensible choice would have been to include a save game generator where you can set the relevant choices in some sort of decision tree and then play the resulting character to see how it would have played out if I had behaved differently.

The mechanics for that are in the games (the save game importer basically has to do that anyway). Make it unlockable after the first playthrough or offer it as DLC for 600 microsoft points (that would have been a sensible zero day DLC btw.)

Everybody that complains can shut up and use the generator, the rest can bitch about their characters being the only pure ones because they actually played everything instead of just selecting it. This way everybody wins.

Hell I'd buy it just so I could see some parts of Mass Effect I'll probably never experience just because I don't want play it another time.

Even better, design it like the interactive comic they did for the PS3 version of Mass Effect 2, only with a lot more options available. This could even be the tutorial to introduce players new to the franchise via interactive storytelling.

Do what naughty dog did with Uncharted 3 and offer a Mass Effect Series bundle that includes all three games + DLC or reissue the old games + DLC included for a reduced price if you're concerned about discouraging new players to buy the old games if they can use the interactive comic instead.

Maybe only offer certain key choices to players that bought the previous games, which would be slightly evil but still OK in my book.

Or, you know, stop claiming that the choices of the players actually matter if they really don't

Maybe. But maybe not.

The game pretty much rocked up until London. Then the wheels seemingly come off.

The more I think about it and talk it over with friends, the more I think we're getting played by Bioware and the reapers. I'm about 90% positive that brat is the face of indoctrination and ending(s) are just a minigame of Shepard vs. indoctrination. Of course, we have no confirmation of this presently.

If we get an ending DLC, I'd expect this to play out as confirmation. Also, it's purely in line with EAs present business model (and the forum crying would be truly epic). Time will tell!

Here is a fairly long video about why it is probably a dream/hallucination/indoctrination

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us4pkLy-PYk&feature=youtu.be (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us4pkLy-PYk&feature=youtu.be)

This one is shorter but more to the point and makes the same case

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDSwW7jflAQ&feature=share (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDSwW7jflAQ&feature=share)

I have to agree with what I think Shrike was saying. The vast majority of the game was really well written so it is hard to believe things fell apart this utterly at the end with this many glaring plot holes and inconsistencies. You'd expect to see it through the whole game if the writers were truly this shitty.

You'd want to buy a generator and use it to make decisions that, according to you, don't matter?

I think ME3 was the probably the worst game of the series, but as a device for bringing closure for the characters I'd grown to like, it was pretty damn good. The shooting scene with Garrus (which would have been destroyed by a retarded minigame) and the final scene with Liara were both very good. Saving the geth and the quarians with Tali as my character's romance option was excellent, as was the little touch with Tali's photograph. And I loved constantly bumping into familiar faces who were there because of the choices I made years ago.

My total military strength was about 6900 and I did pretty much everything I could, and even though the N7 missions were nothing to write home about, I never got bored. I didn't like the ending either, but on the other hand, it was what I expected. Dragon Age 2 taught me that Bioware really only cares about the big picture wrt the game's universe, which while detailed, is cookie cutter fantasy/scifi. And the reason I love the Mass Effect series and DA:O are the characters and the emotional investement I have in them.

Look, nobody planned an "End Game DLC" and put in this ending to mislead gamers.

If this ever came out the public relations fallout would be epic, this would have serious repercussions on sales prospects of all current and future Bioware titles and most titles by other EA-backed studios. It would probably kill EA (it will affect their stock prices) and most certainly will kill Bioware if they ever did it.

The other EA studios would be up in arms about it because EA/Bioware basically destroyed the rest of credibility and goodwill they had and because they made them guilty by association. You'd see news reports, lawsuits, the mother of all shitstorms on every gaming site and forum you'd basically destroy the trust and goodwill of most gamers out there probably for a long time for the smal price of only 6,99 per pop.

It could have legal repercussions because of the implied business practices, misleading advertising and so on.

It would be such an epically stupid move that I cannot possibly imagine even the managament of EA trying it.

As a previous poster pointed out the reason they included decisions that don't really change the experience significantly is so that nobody feels left out just because he didn't play the "best" way in previous games (or because he/she is new to the series) which is a fair point.

So eliminate the reason people might feel left out (as in offer them something to correct bad decisions/decisions that prevent a certain ending) and then offer them choices that really change the experience.

Or simply don't claim that the choices of the players actually matter.

I'm mostly over the ending but what continues to annoy me is London. They build up this whole thing about saving Earth and then your return is based on the stupidest most contrived excuse ever. You have to land, fight Reapers on foot and take the magic elevator back to space. Why? Why wouldn't they just sneak in with the stealthy Normandy and drill a hole in the Citadel?

On top of that, their gameplay engine was woefully inadequate for any kind of depiction of mass warfare. You play up this big assault and then it's just another three man mission with lame ass radio chatter standing in for the rest.

Maybe it's a question of what one deems significant. For example, I was apparently one "point" away from having Tali commit suicide, because I reprogrammed the heretic geth in ME2. Just that would've changed my experience a lot.

I still claim Bioware handled decisions and consequences well in Mass Effect. In Dragon Age 2? Not so much. A three-game series like this is nothing anyone has tried to create before. Of course there's lot's of room for improvement, but in books the overall experience is great.

Look, we have seen halucinatioon Endings before. In S.T.A.L.K.E.R. you can go into the ruins of the Cherbobyl Reactor and go to the wish granter and make a wish that depends on your choices in the game. That wish ends the game and is just a hal;ucination of your brain bieng burned out and you turning into a Zombie. For example, Good stalkers wish for the Zone to disapear, and all of a sudden you are in a beutiful glade with birds twittering and whatnot, but then you look up and your Irises have closed and you are struck blind. Bad stalkers might wish for lots of money and you see lots of money falling on him, killing him.

The thing was that if you went back to a previous save you could turn right instead of left and go find the ladder which takes you to where you can have choices that leave you alive and you either join the bad guys or kill them. If you had just the "Congratulations on your fucked up wishending comrades" ending S.T.A.L.K.E.R. would not be held in as high esteem as it is. People would have quite rightly smashed up the DVD.

And by the way the people who are trying to say that "this is just a halcination and the reapers win" are trying to justify a shit ending with an even worse ending. Thats just pathetic. Shepherd after all he has been through dreams about screwing the galaxy over as he lays dying. Bullshit. Sure, you can see his body remaining on the ground as the lift rises to where he meats the kid, but you can argue thats harbinger transmitting into him through his reaper tech, so its still valid.

Crafting a worse ending in your head to try and make a bad ending seem better is the worst form of barginning. And there is no way that Bioware would ever recover then the PR Disaster of a DLC ending "Give us 10 bucks or the Earth gets it" would result in a gigantic fuck off

Plot holes that introduces:

First, everything we've heard from Miranda, the videos on the Cerberus station, and the Illusive Man himself indicate he didn't want to risk breaking whatever made Shepard, well, Shepard.

Second, the Illusive Man didn't have indoctrination technology until after Shepard was rez'd anyway.

And even if that was all untrue, he'd have used it earlier to keep Shepard from blowing up the collector base, running off with the Normandy (which he DID have remote override capability installed in), interfering on Mars, keeping him out of the Citadel the first time, etc.

I suppose one could argue the Reapers have indoctrinated Shepard--but where was their opportunity?

BTW, I watched the shorter of the two vids that Riggswolfe posted.  Some of the questions it poses are just stupid or overthought.  The rest look to be just dramatic plot devices (or in a couple of cases, sloppiness)

Someone in the community made something like this for DA2. There is also a save editor out there for ME, so you can customize your ME2 save before importing it to ME3 if you want. I think the problem with including a save editor is that Bioware assumes people without saves to import are mostly new players. A save editor isn't going to be worth anything to someone who hasn't played ME1/2 and doesn't have any idea what events the editor is talking about.

For everyone else, you're better off importing the save you had and rolling with it. If you do a repeat playthrough with a radically different save, you'll end up being disappointed just how little changes. Better not to look behind the curtain, and let the game pretend this is more *your* Shepard's story than it actually is.

I've already ranted elsewhere about the ending, and won't go into the details that so many others have raised here, but I will say that it really feel like this is the special kind of terrible that comes from management forcing a change at the last minute and the team having to scramble to change the ending.  The lack of denouement VO, brevity of the conversation with the magic sky kid with no ability to interrogate him, weird teleporting characters, and general incoherence point to this.  And I'm now specifically starting to think that the change that was mandated was that all the mass relays had to be destroyed to set the stage for their next game or something.  It would explain the lack of denouement, as nothing written before deciding that the mass relays blow up no matter what would make sense anymore.  Maybe one of the endings previously involved a crashing normandy (that had some reason to be making a jump between relays, possibly fleeing an exploding Sol system that happened in one of the less positive endings), and they figured they could just tweak some textures and make that the "fate of the characters" shot for everything.  Obviously nothing involving home planets or species as a whole would work anymore, as the destruction of the relays would change everything.

Obviously this is massive speculation that could be totally wrong.  It's a pretty horrible ending, though, and given that the writing is generally pretty good for a space opera, I really suspect the abomination was caused by more business-y related things than by simple bad writing.  Cuz I mean, damn.  Teleporting characters, yo.

Just went home, did some multiplayer (which I sucked at), to get my readiness high enough for the synthesis merge ending and then restarted the final mission.  It didn't take, I couldn't do it.  I'm guessing your multiplayer percentage gets locked in when you attack the cerberus base or something.  I'm not replaying that far back, fuck this game.

Also, fuck Bioware.

It's ok.  Just imagine Joker and some leaves with a little shimmering circuitry on them and you're pretty much good.

 :why_so_serious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99kS02nPoEM

This guy claims he has sources that told him the intended ending

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/995452-mass-effect-3/62230265

Take it for what it's worth I'm skeptical but you guys might be interested.

At least his one does make some sense compared to some of the other fan endings out there

When you're running at Harbinger before you even get to the Citadel. You get knocked sidewides, Harbinger stops shooting and starts trying to ASSUME DIRECT CONTROL over Shepard via her suspiciously bleeding-edge implants so thoughtfully added by Cerberus. You know, that organisation run by a partially- (ME2) to fully-indoctrinated fuckhead.

I wish I could believe that.  But every time I've ever heard someone say "Surely they wouldn't tarnish their reputation by doing [infuriating moneygrab X]" it's followed a week later by a press release that says they are.  I mean, this game has kindled the rage of a thousand suns on the internet over a half dozen different topics, and it doesn't seem to be hurting for sales.

What now?

Assuming you're objecting to the former, I think Mass Effect is unique when it comes to offering the player a vast number of decisions whose consequences are present throughout a three-game series.

But if you feel that said consequences are only superficial and don't really change the gameplaye or experience, it's a moot point, of course.

Here's the major problem. Having a vast number of decisions doesn't matter if they are all inconsequential. A consequence has to be the result of some previous occurance, but if all the previous occurances arrive at the same result, your vast amount of choices essentially aren't choices.

By and large it's the illusion of choice, which has been talked about on f13 numerous times so I'm not sure why it's surprising some people now.  If you want to have actual choice, you have games like Way of the Samurai which has a ton of endings but can be played through in a couple hours and doesn't lead into future games.  Even for what little variance the choices allow for in the ME games, look at all the extra work that has to be done.  Every party member from the previous two games except for Liara had to have a potential replacement in ME3 with someone else doing the dialog.  I assume this is why they have Kaiden/Ashley incapacitated for a large part of the game.  Leaving the Rachni out if you didn't save them in ME1 would result in Ravagers being completely absent from the game, requiring ever bit of combat that involves them to be reworked.  It just wouldn't be practical.

Why does this matter if the game frames the story with your choices in mind? For example, I killed the Rachni Queen in ME1. I knew with the Rachni/Reaper Queen in ME3 that I was being shown content that everyone else was also seeing regardless of what decisions they made, but the game still respected my choices. When Wrex first tells you about the mission, you and your companions acknowledge that it shouldn't be possible because you killed the last Rachni Queen. The dialogue during the mission and with the new queen also acknowledged it. Instead of investigating the corruption of the species I saved, my Shepard was investigating whether a species I thought I eliminated was back to cause more trouble.

Like we've discussed a bunch of times already, Bioware stories are about the illusion of choice rather than true choices. ME3 maintains the illusion pretty well until the very end. It does a pretty excellent job pulling all those decisions from two previous games into the third, all things considered.

I guess what I would add to this conversation is that this isn't just a matter of limited resources.  It's not true that players want true choices, but have to make do with the illusion of choice because it would be too hard to add more meaningful decisions.  Meaningful choices in (long) games are frustrating more then they are fun, like a choose-your-own adventure book where you can't hold your fingers in the pages to go back when you want to.   Bioware probably wouldn't give  more meaningful choices in their games if they could.

[citation needed]

The problem is, in everything after DAO, EA have been phoning this shit in - they hardly even make an effort to disguise it now.

Then don't add ravagers as an enemy?  It's not fucking rocket science and plenty of games have afforded choices that affect gameplay.  You can't tell me that this game, with the amount of money behind it really couldn't go the extra mile to make choice more than window dressing.

This is how choices in ME play out:

"Would you like green curtains or red ones on the normandy?"
Choice A.
"Red ones please"
"Very good sir"
Red curtains appear.

Choice B. 
"Green ones now, bitch"
"So sorry, but after they arrived the Solarian delegation ordered us not to touch them so we got you red ones"
Red curtains appear.

That's not really at all accurate, but I'm sure you thought it sounded funny when you were typing it.

I'm sorry, I loved DA:O. I loved it a lot. But the choices in that game were no more meaningful than the ones in the Mass Effect series. And frankly, it felt to me like they went through a lot of effort to try to at least respect the choices you made in ME 1&2 (until the end, of course).


A throw away line by the Prothean sort of amused me ... apparently the Protheans thought THEY had wiped out the rachni. I had saved the queen, so her being around wasn't a big deal, but it did make me think "huh, so there might be more queens out there after all."

Kind of describes all your posts about the game so far, yeah.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/03/12/how-bioware-could-find-redemption-using-mass-effect-3/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/03/13/why-fan-service-is-good-business/

Somewhere, a high-up EA executive is getting his PA to put an email together to Bioware management telling them they'd better have an answer to why Forbes is calling them out for pushing a franchise-destroying ending.

You could have used any number of real examples of how the game deals with choice (assuming you've actually played the game).  Instead you made up a situation where the choice is something completely superficial which is then immediately completely invalidated by the game.  I think even a lot of the series harshest critics will tell you that's not how things work.  By all means though tell me I'm wrong when I'm one of the few people here who actually played the game.

DA:O was just as much about smoke and mirrors for your decisions as ME3 (aside from the DA:O ending, which was non-playable and pretty specific to your actions much to the detriment of EA's sequel planning). You'd only really notice that your story was the same sequence of events as everyone else's if you replayed the game or asked around. The only recent Bioware game that completely failed to sell the illusion, imo, was DA2.

Even DA2 had the illusion, it just broke down MUCH faster if you replayed it. DA:O and the Mass Effects, even if you flipped the same plot switches, the "why" you did it or how you got there was at least slightly different.

For example, my paragon MANSHEP let the Council eat it. His reason was the middle "we need to focus on Sovereign, sorry Council" rather than the renegade "Fuck the council!" choice. His ME2 citadel is the same as the renegade's ultimately, but WHY he did it was different, and even though that's basically window dressing, it helps shape my idea of who my MANSHEP is.

The tendency of this game to take away control from you just to keep you from doing something that they don't want/would break their story is annoying me more and more because it happens so frequently.

Also the reasons why I can't have nice things keep getting more and more ridiculous.

So somehow that "ripped from Final Fantasy" guy with the sword manages to get a gunship to a temple on a planet that has been besieged by Reapers for days and that I could only reach by the sacrifice of dozens of Asari. He also somehow knows about an artifact the Asari managed to keep secret for millenia and that not even the Shadow Broker knows about. Oh and he managed to break through code protected shield and had the ability to raise the barrier again after he got through.

He also conveniently shows up at the exact right minute and can somehow order an airstrike that conveniently destroys just enough of the building to keep you from catching him.

Well, after a pointless fight that gives you the impression you could actually affect something in this game for a change, of course.

If it weren't for the powers that be intervening by giving me a cut scene when I just want to shoot things that guy would be dead three times over before he could even utter a single word.

Seriously does anybody proofread that ridiculous shit?

There are a shitload of reapers on the fucking planet for god's sake. At least have the decency to have me get shot at by one of them thereby levelling the temple instead of the suspension of disbelief shattering miracle gunship from the heavens.

The next time I get to watch a friggin cutscene instead of the game actually letting me, well, play it I'll probably throw a tantrum.

If I wanted to watch a a film I'd go to the movies.

Already appears to have happened.  :oh_i_see:

Also, a lot of that gets explained later.

Hah, you ain't seen nothing yet  :grin:

I think the smoke and mirrors actually worked fantastically.  I was raving excitedly about how well the game made your past actions feel like they mattered to my non-gamer friend, and I feel like the series, and particular this entry, did this better than any series I've ever played.  It really felt like a story tailored for me, and I'm incredibly impressed with how well they pulled this off given that the content path is obviously largely identical throughout the games no matter what you choose.  I think it was a fantastically written game.

Except for the ending, which is probably the most suddenly and dramatically bad narrative I've seen in any form.

What I want to know is how in the hell do they make a game that was amazing, in my opinion, in damn near every moment up until you ride that beam into metaphysical garbage at the very end. I mean how in the hell did a room full of Bioware people and execs take a look at that final scene and go. "Yes! This is the way to wrap it all up!"

I wish they had ended it with the scene where Hackett calls Shepard

Remove the ending and this has been the greatest game I've ever played. They did such a great job of building up to the moment. Making me feel the urgency of the situation and how much was at stake. I'm frankly bewildered how they could do so well on the rest of the game and choke in the last minutes.

The Mass Effect series is the most epic troll in the history of game development?  :drill:

Oh, and dis-

http://www.gamefront.com/mass-effect-3-ending-hatred-5-reasons-the-fans-are-right/

You say that like EA has any credibility left to begin with.

If trolling really was their goal, they did an absolutely magnificent job! In fact, I almost wish it were true.  :why_so_serious:

That's what I took the dreams to mean throughout the game. Shepard's hope of settling down with a family and having a kid going up in flames. I did suspect for a time that the dreams were signs of indoctrination though.

I agree with about 80% of that.

Pie chart please.

Well, I finally finished. The ending was indeed retarded, but it was a fantastic game up until literally the last 10 minutes or so (I do have a couple quibbles with how the opening was handled I guess but those are minor). Then it goes so completely off the rails that I have to believe somehow all the good writers who made the entire rest of the game were somehow overruled by someone with a Vision.

I mostly loved the game, I'll just stop my next playthrough with Anderson and Shepard looking down at Earth, explosions all around them. That would have been a good ending if it had stopped right there (and a really nicely done scene I think). So, I can't agree with the people who are saying it is a terrible game really. My money doesn't feel wasted to me, and I'll get a good amount more entertainment out of the multiplayer too. But man that was a shitty ending.

The two things I find most baffling about the ending:

1) Why would they want to totally blow up their setting when it has so much more potential for other games/stories? Specifically talking about the relays thing; not being able to travel willy-nilly all over the place as needed just seems like it shuts down storytelling/location options. You can't show all the consequences of ME1-3 in ME4 if you can't travel around to everywhere to see it.

2) It's just a totally drastic tone change from everything the series had been about up to that point. Suddenly we take a hard turn from hard-nosed action hero time into transhuman wankery bullshit. Seriously, if there's one "intellectual" movement that is more retarded than objectivism, transhumanism is it. Which fatbeard running things is into that nonsense, and why would they possibly think we want anything like that at all?

EDIT:

PS My Shepard LIVED. Somehow, apparently he fell down to somewhere with concrete in it in the process. Also that whole Joker flying away people teleporting to the Normandy and crashlanding thing is just incomprehensible. Like I said, I'm stopping once TIM is dead next time.

I agree with 5, 4, and 2 completely.  For reason #3 I disagree that the "Inferred Holocaust" stuff is a bad place to go story-wise.  I also disagree with the concluding statement of #1 "Ultimately, it’s BioWare’s call, but it couldn’t hurt for them to very carefully listen to what that community is saying, and seriously consider working on some calibrations.".  I think any changes made to the ending at this point would be akin to slapping some fan fiction in to just appease people.  It's never going to be the "real" ending.  The real ending is the one Bioware chose to release the game with.  I'd love to hear them explain their thought process on why they ended things the way they did and why it's contradictory to things that Casey Hudson had said back in January when the game was pretty much done but for me it's just another story with a good build-up that kinda face-planted at the end (Sopranos, the last season or so of Battlestar Galactica, etc...)

Pretty easy, the next ME will be set far into the future. Mass-relay-like technology has finally been invented, and you're going out and seeing how the galaxy has changed after x hundred/thousand years.

The implied doom of virtually everyone you've been fighting for is a bad place to go storywise because you have invested three games worth of time into this fucking thing, and you're not just fighting for some shitty scrap of survival. You're fighting so all your friends have at least some HOPE of getting their happy-ever-after, or at least not-totally-depressing-ever-after. You don't get that, though. No matter what you do, no matter what choices you made, everyone you love and care about, and all those faceless people you were fighting for, are totally fucked over. And YOU had to pull the trigger on it to boot.

They didn't even have the decency to be coherent about it.

EDIT: Basically it's a bad place to go for THIS series. It doesn't fit the overall hopeful tone the other two games (and most of ME3) presented. A left turn into bleaksville just doesn't jibe well.

The whole Mass Effect franchise needs a good post mortem, what with half the writers changing and such.

This is just something we disagree on.  I'm ok with investing time into something with an utterly depressing ending.  I loved Children of Men for instance which is a horribly depressing movie with the tiniest shard of hope at the end.  With ME I'm ultimately ok with sacrificing everything, because the Reapers would have harvested or killed everybody.  And then 50,000 years later, they would have done it to the next group, and then again to the group after that.

I think to an extent it's disingenuous to tell a story where you're chronicling a war of this scope to try to end it on some positive note.  The glimmer of hope here is that at some point some of these races might eventually manage to claw their way back up, or maybe some new races might also.

The problem I have with that is that ME - at least to me - is more a story about the characters in it, than it is about the plot excuse to have those character interactions with those characters. A big part of the reason the ending is so unsatisfying for me is the utter lack of any kind of sensible closure that we get for almost every character. I don't really give that much of a shit about the actual plot except as it informs the character interactions and gives me stuff to shoot at. The background plot has always been the weakest element even when it wasn't bogged down in transhuman bullshit.

In other words, it could have ended with "galaxy is in awful shape" and still managed to give you some positive closure on major NPCs, and I would guess that would satisfy a LOT of the complaints.

EDIT: I mean, it says something really bad about the game's ending that the only characters in it that get any kind of emotionally satisfying ending are the ones who die mid-game.

I'm OK investing into something depressing as well, you know. I am one of the people who enjoyed DA2, for example, which is just basically the story of Hawke and how s/he fails at virtually everything. In DA:O, I often picked the ending where my warden dies, or my warden's boyfriend dumps her after the Landsmeet, or my Warden's boyfriend kills himself so she won't, etc. But those sad endings fit the tone of the game (the Dragon Ages have at least tried to be darker than the Mass Effects), and still managed to give you some vague sense of closure at the end. Yes, I think Dragon Age 2 gave me FAR more closure than ME3 did, and that ended on a fucking random "Hawke has DISAPPEARED just like the WARDEN. Tune in next time, when we'll probably be in Orlais!" But at least I'm not left wondering "What will Varric even eat in that new city? How did Fenris even GET on Isabela's ship?"

ME3's ending is depressing and still manages to not give you the smallest shred of closure about basically anyone you would give a shit about. I don't need a scene where Liara is skipping off into the sunset holding hands with Douche Prothean and singing a happy song, but Mass Effect has always been about hope, and how coming together and being bad ass will win the day. Essentially destroying the galaxy as everyone knows it, with absolutely no way to come close to fixing it within any of their lifetimes, simply doesn't fit.

Here, this is how you cope with the bad ending.

Spoilered for size and not to hide info, unlike some other people who've clearly either missed the warning or don't give a fuck  :why_so_serious:

Edit:  Also:

 :why_so_serious:

This is barely even the illusion of choice.

Under this logic Bioware would be respecting your decisions if at the start of 3 there was a text scroll that said "the reapers travelled back in time and changed your decisions to X, Y and Z! DAMN THEM!"

You are pointing to a place where they lampshade what was in essence a retcon. Obviously it depends on what you call "respecting" your choices but "character X has been replaced with a convenient doppleganger" seems like a very loose definition of respect.


Someone watched too much Battlestar is the obvious answer.

Guys, I hate to break it to you, but 99.99% of the time when you encounter nonsense writing in a game it's not some clever ploy, it's nonsense. Even if there is some crazy switcheroo dream ending it's been done so poorly that it's no better than just being a bad ending.

I'm reminded of people who defended Bulletstorm by saying that the game was clearly a parody of "dudebro" shooters. Only the devs themselves later said that it wasn't, they thought it was genuinely funny in a not tongue-in-cheek way, and if it came off poorly it might be because they are not native english speakers. Never attribute to some sort of awesome master plan what you can attribute to plain poor execution.

Let's say nobody reacts to the kid because he just exists in Shep's head, and there is some secret ending (very unlikely, given that the disc has been mined) or DLC ending that explains it. Is that better?

(http://i.imgur.com/kLwkS.png)

Wizardry 6 through 8.  Your choices in each, while more limited than ME, could make a big impact in 8.

The "Ending-o-Matic" seems to be the thing with the "dynamic"  and "choice filled" games lately. Deus Ex: Human Revolution literally has a panel with 3 buttons, then another hallway with a button. You literally have a "POOSH BUTAN, RECEIV ENDING" machine.

Deus Ex:Human Revolution also explains literally nothing that happens afterwards so there's still a lot of unknowns as to what's between it and the original Deus Ex, but Jensen explaining his choice and its implications was actually fairly satisfying to me somehow.

Well, barring the ridiculously awful, "I think I'll kill everyone for no good fucking reason" ending that the game seems to imply is the right one.

God i loved those games.   I still boot up a dos emulator every so often and play them.  Why can basically one dude (David Bradley) write a more coherent sotry thatn the stable of writers they brought on for this triple-A title?

I'm not sure who to blame, Bioware has been riding on the coattails of their baldur's gate goodwill for over a decade.  Every game since (save maybe dragon age 1 and kotor 1) has been a real let down in the story department.  Everyting they do lately feels like they rushed at the last minute to make some arbitrary marketing deadline.  I wish I could merge Blizzard's "it's finished when it's finished" mentality with some of Bioware's better writing teams.

There's no argument.  I blame EA, their stockholders, and the "bottom line".  I think Bioware does have the "it's finished when it's finished" mentality, but they lack the ability to tell EA to STFU and let them do their thing proper.

Feels like I've been punched in the stomach. Up until the last 10 minutes of the game, this was *the* single best game I've ever played. The emotional attachment to my crew and the characters in the game was astounding. in every way this game was better than ME2, and I I played ME2 through 3 times and I never replay games!

Then...that ending. Honest to gods I understand they want to spin it off into an MMO so needed *one* ending that could be used as an MMO platform, but they aren't getting me as a customer. Don't think I've ever been so disappointed in  a book, film or game before.

No company really has the timetable to put in the kind of work required to really have an expansive game with wildly divergent paths I guess.

To be fair, if they had say, made it so that killing the Rachni queen in ME1 prevent you from being able to (or having to, however you wish to phrase it) do the mission involving the Rachni they would have either had to put in some sort of choice at the beginning of the game (like Ashley/Kaidan/Wrex) so you could choose to get it or not. Because if they had really shut off your ability to get access to content without the previous titles people would've been just as pissed as they are about the day 1 DLC.

I know people are hyperfocusing on the rachni queen as "lol my choices didn't matter" but I think they handled that fine. The explanation for why she's there (it's a clone, right?) is fine, and there IS still a consequence to killing the original queen. If you did, and let this new queen live, she bails on you, and hurts some engineers on her way out, overall hurting your readiness score, so don't be wishywashy about murdering rachni queens, I guess.

It's not perfect, but it's not quite as bad as people imply.

I don't mind about that. I was more than happy with the brief mentions my previous actions had - even if the difference was merely a different number on the war screen, it still was there in some form or other. I liked how the Rachni played out - if you saved them, they helped you, if you didn't then you either had to kill them or they turn traiitor and harm the war effort. in the games context, that's how I always thought it would play out in some form or other. The continuity between ME2 and Me3 in particular I thought was strong.

It's the simple fact that the game completely and utterly changed in the last 10 minutes. It's the fact the plot made no sense - at all. It actually contravenes the entire events of the last 2 games! It's gibberish at best. I just spent 3 games uniting the galaxy - organics ANd synthetics, to help destroy the reapers. And then I'm left with no choice but to either kill them all, merge the entirety of life or just resume the cycle further down the road? Screw that, I want the John Sheridan option.

"We've grown up now, we don't need you, get the hell out of our galaxy. "

Mass Effect is a space opera. I went the full distance, played the games for many hours, spent the time to do everything "right", I should get a damn happy ending with Shepherd + LI and get to see what happens to the galaxy now. Not some existential shit that directly contradicts the actual game, reduces *everything* I've done to the same decision, fucks over every person in the game I ever held any interest AND the entire galaxy at the same time and is completely the opposite of how the game should end. It felt like a completely different team of writers did those last 10 minutes, and whether they thought they were being clever or "provocative" all they did was fuck up something that could of been fantastic.

EDIT@ There's probably another, more personal overtone to my rage actually which is slightly embarrassing but WTF. This is the first time in a computer game where I've been able to have a gay LI and it was portrayed as completely normal. No mentions, no shock, nothing - everyone just accepted it, and the scenes were actually well written and quite touching. Major props to Bioware for that. Hell, they made Kaiden a likeable character which is completely beyond me. Having that then end with Shepherd dyring and him either marooned on another world or dead to a giant laser beam from Harbringer just sucked. Probably very stupid to emotionally invest in something like that, but it did have an impact on me I wasn;t expecting when the romance option opened up and it was so natural and normal in game.

Oh, don't worry, I am totally and completely with you on "wtf was with that fucking ending." Venting helps.

I've seen one other, but it's not out yet.  Still, I was really happy with how things have been handled so far.

(Still way early in my play through, I don't even know if there is an option for me, but they've had all kinds of little viginettes which have made me happy.  Well, sad, but happy they're treated like anyone else dealing with a galaxy going to shit.)

As far as I know it should be Liara, the embedded reporter and Sgt. Traynor (the communications officer) as female same-sex LI options and Kaidan and the shuttle pilot (Lopez I think) as male same-sex LI options,

It's Cortez as the shuttle pilot for the male option (who dies in a horrible ball of fire near the end. Only person to get singled out like that, poor guy!).

Cortez and Treynor are also same sex only options - they won't romance opposite sex characters which I also liked. Again adds to the "normality" of it all rather than just "we'll let you sleep with some straight characters if you want!".

Well the whole game dies in a horrible ball of fire near the end he just beats the rush

Yeah, don't remind me.

It's so clearly set up for an ME4 or ME MMO it's pretty sad. We don't get a proper resolution in our story because it needs to be milked for a further franchise, so every ending has to basically be the same and put everyone in the same situation.

My Cortez survived, he went down in flames and then after a moment of silence there was a HEY GUYS IM OK.

I don't see why you would think that.  If they wanted ME4 or another MMO (no chance with swtor) they wouldn't have destroyed the mass relays and all other technology along with it.  I don't even see how they could do more DLC unless it's set in a time before the game's ending.

I've been looking at the bioware social network, people are so desperate they are believing a flaky report from "an insider" that bioware intentionally made a terrible ending because of the leaks and plan a DLC called "The Truth" that will have the real ending.  That is insane and that people are willing to believe it shows how incredulous people are about the end.

Yeah he survived fine on my playthrough.  Bioware only kills him off if you get all gay with him.  No I'm not serious.

I picked the paragon/friendly choices with him but didn't romance him. I kept my Tali romance from ME2 going, which I immediately regretted when Shepard and Tali began flirting during missions. If they actually only kill him if you pick him as a LI... :uhrr:

That's subjective, but I thought the rachni example I gave in particular was the most egregious example of 'choices don't matter for story path', and I was also totally okay with how they handled it. I didn't completely wipe out the Rachni like I thought and the Reapers managed to create a clone of a queen. It's not a huge stretch when the main-character in your game died and was re-created from an old corpse in the previous game. The context of that mission for my Shepard was exterminating an old threat once and for all, and I felt like the game was still respecting my choices.

Whether or not he lives or dies is down to how you treated him in various dialogues, I believe, I don't think it has anything to do with whether or not you romanced him. The same sort of thing happens with Miranda.

Yeah - I didn't romance him, and he died in a ball of fire for me. I was quite happy with Kaiden, who they miraculously made good somehow.

Miranda, on the other hand - she lives if you speak to her in the citedal and tell her about Kal, otherwise she dies. It's possible her loyalty figures into it from ME2 as well, but that's definitely the trigger for her. Probably the same for Cortez - at some point if you keep talking to him you'll get a dialogue point, otherwise he dies. I didn't speak to him because I was worried I'd lock myself out of getting it on with Kaiden...

Ah, Kai Leng, this games little touch of :metzen:. Probably really the only other thing that really bothered me from a story/character point of view other than the ending. He'd bother me a lot less if he just had some guns and was jumping around like a John Woo movie, I think, the melee weapon thing is just kind of stupid in this sort of environment and his AI was just nuts, he mostly ran around in the distance without coming to get anybody. At least we do get to kill him, unlike some other examples of this sort of thing.

I told the reporter to GTFO.  Way too uncanny valley, and I couldn't see having a reporter taking up space when I'm trying to save the galaxy.

So that was a little flirting coming from Traynor.  I can live with that.

I kept her around for the war points, but god she was hard to look at. Her voice acting was even worse, that was a terrible bit of casting right there. The problem wasn't in the dialogue itself, there, a real actress would have done fine with it.

Plus what the hell was she wearing? That outfit was plain weird.

Think I posted this in the other thread, but it makes perfect sense for an MMO. Set it a few decades or a century down the road and use the "Destroy" command as the base. Why are there only X worlds/zones? Because that's the size of the local cluster of useful star systems. Why do all the races start in the same place? Because they were all trapped in the Sol System when Shepard nuked civilisations. Why is there a bunch of newbies being sent out to explore now? Because the MacGuffin Drive only just went into service and we need to find out what's out there. And so on.

As Simond says, the new set-up is perfect for an MMO or a new series. (Synthesis ending is the "cannon" ending).

You now have a multitude of races all in one easy starting area (Sol System), you can go exploring in new systems totally unconnected to the Mass relay network (who knows what lurks out there), it removes the need to explain why you can't visit Tuchanka / Thessia / Palavan, etc. That's why every ending is effectively the same - because every ending leaves you with a nice, neat set-up of a lot of races in a small area and new systems to be explored using normal FTL drives. Continuing the series with the Mass Relay network in place is actually a hell of a lot harder at this point.

Krogan and Asari live for so long I think they could probably just fly home eventually anyway. Just have to beat up the quarians and take one of their liveships and grow your kind of food instead of theirs.

Assuming of course all the ships in the sky weren't scrubbed out by the explosion of the relay, but if they were the whole idea of there being enough of anything but humans to sustain a race is really iffy. And of course if those ships didn't all get wasted by  the explosion, then the Normandy thing at the end is even stupider.

Miranda can live?  Fucking hell.  Oh well, I assume she dies on the citadel later with the other thousand people I helped, all in vain.  I wonder if that is another thing I got screwed over on for not having an ME2 save game.

As for Kaiden I wrongly assumed that terrible Kai Leng character would wind up being him since the one plot question you were asked starting the new game was "did you let ashley or kaiden die".  I thought whichever one I let die would wind up being man/fem-Kai Leng.  "Old jilted friend turned enemy" wound up being the one cliche they didn't use.

IF Miranda lives she joins in the final battle with other ex-cerberus in an elite fighter unit. In fact I think *everyone* from ME2 is there if you did all the quests "correctly" in one form or another - either with the Crucible or fighting with the fleets.

Miranda will only die if you don't trust her with Alliance access, I believe. And she didn't waltz out of the magical Normandy teleporting at the end, so in my head she and Shepard get back together after she pulls him out of wherever the fuck it was he was supposed to have landed at the end of my playthrough.

Kai Leng is a character from the (not very good at all, seriously they are not good) books by Drew Karpyshyn who was the lead writer on at least ME1, maybe also ME2. Annoying, Mary Sue-ish super character.

I met with her every time and gave her the alliance assets she wanted the last time we met and warned her about Kai-leng.  I chose the paragon option with her father and talked him out of holding her sister, so either that was what I did wrong or I needed ME2 data.

Hmm, interesting! Maybe she needed to be flagged as loyal from ME2 also.

I had Loyal Miranda who quit Cerberus after I destroyed the Collector Base. My Shepard worked with her completely (she specifically thanks me for the warning about Kai-Leng) and used the Paragon Special to talk her father out of holding her sister, where Miranda promptly killed her father. Miranda survived until the end -- her arc seemed to work out great for me. But I wonder about the other different arcs, like if you didn't saved the Collector Base or didn't help her on the Loyalty mission.

It's my understanding that, if certain characters were not loyal at the end of ME 2 but managed to live, there are spots where they will die in ME 3. 

As an example, when Grunt did his 'YOU SHALL NOT PASS' during the Rachni mission, I figured I'd just lost him, until he limped to the shuttle at the end.  Some searching later indicates that if he wasn't loyal, he wouldn't have made it out of there alive. 

Then some characters will die no matter if they were loyal or not.  Poor Mordin. 

http://retakemasseffect.chipin.com/retake-mass-effect-childs-play

Just under forty thousand dollars and climbing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWIimukNeAE

 :awesome_for_real:

Apparently you also have to read certain emails more than once. I read what you have to do to keep her alive and it's kind of weirdly convoluted.

I'm not sure "give us a new ending or we'll keep donating money to charity" is an effective message.

Shepard is a bodytype 2 you nubbin!

http://www.gamespot.com/news/bioware-responds-to-mass-effect-3-criticisms-6366168


This statement angers me. Gamers are talking alright, but not in the way I think he intended or how he thinks it is. Mr. Hudson's assessment of what the debate is about appears to not match with what the debate actually is about. The criticism appears to me to be how the endings were implemented in a fashion that wasn't true or faithful to the game series on both a plot (thematic) and technical design. The statement reeks of bullshit.

Further... it's a debate? Is someone arguing FOR the endings? Who's "debating" the other side?

Across all the forums there's probably 10 people tops I've seen arguing for the endings, and that includes neogaf which is spawning new pages in it's thread faster than I could actually read them at one point.

Exactly as you say - people aren't arguing over the meaning of the ending, or debating the choices made. They are all shit. They completely go against the theme and structure of the game, and to have the ending of a 5 year series happen like that is really dissapointing. More than dissapointing - I honestly think Mass effect did something no other game has done with the level of emotional investment I ended up having with the game (to my own surprise) and then it blew it all).

The only people I've seen discussing the "other side" have been people who are trying to come up with some sort of rationalization or justification for the way the endings work in order to just have it make some kind of sense. I haven't seen anyone who's actually argued in favor of them.

If Casey would sit down and actually discuss the endings with someone somewhere without being a smug asshole with his coy DLC talk then people may just be inclined to give him and his team a little leeway.

That would be nice and a developer, acting independently, may eventually do that in some post-mortem at a game conference with a "Lessons Learned" format, but I can't see a Bioware representative talking frankly about the product in public channels or while emotions are running high in the hardcore. That could damage the business.

The current narrative includes that they made promises or statements that were outright lies to generate hype (look at their pre-launch marketing campaign! Those are Halo 3 levels of emotional manipulation and expectation generation). So trust between company and fans is compromised right now.

That might just be weird internet superstitious voodoo, I'm pretty sure I didn't read any emails more than once, and she lived in my playthrough.

Hell, even the people who liked DA2 are upset.  :grin:

In all seriousness, I've seen a tiny handful of actual players say "Yes, I liked this ending". Oh, and most of the gaming news websites. It's almost like they have to be nice to EA or they won't get their kickbacks, or something.

Yeah I've seen a handful of people say they liked the ending, but even a lot of those people go on the clarify that they mostly mean the ending wasn't a crime against humanity. Which is reasonable enough.

So here is a forum post that compiles the theories about why the ending is most likely an attempt at indoctrination complete with screen shots and such.

http://w11.zetaboards.com/Theorycraftng_HUB/topic/7688087/1/ (http://w11.zetaboards.com/Theorycraftng_HUB/topic/7688087/1/)

The shitty ending is almost worth it to see the acrobatics people will do to rationalize it away into something that makes some shred of sense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL2FIUi57Jw  :grin:

The texts from Kaidan/Ashley ARE pretty weird, but the rest is a fucking stretch.

Nothing's 100%, but I think he got what he wanted. The fans are nearly universeally polarized against Bioware.  :uhrr:

Penny Arcade is carrying Bioware's water.

http://penny-arcade.com/2012/03/14/mass-effect-3-ending-spoiler-warning
http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/why-the-ending-of-mass-effect-3-was-satifying-and-worthy-of-the-series-mass

Huh.  Guess I was wrong.  Course, that being said, I still prefer what all happened in my Shep's play-through, even if Mordin died.  It was a good death.  

I'm guessing Wreave is who leads the krogan if Wrex died?  

Most likely, he is the Urdnot leader in ME2 if Wrex is dead from ME1.

(http://i.imgur.com/Dmog4.png)
We need a :spittake: emote.

Also:
(http://i.imgur.com/ICXk3.png)
People are upset with Bioware. This isn't "Let's get a buzz going, get people talking about a game", this is what's going to be taught in basic How To Run A Game Studio class as "Okay class, this is what is typically known as the 'Bioware lesson'".

Give it another week or so.  I'm sure someone will find the right sequence that allows you to have both Wrex and Mordin alive.

(http://chanarchive.org/content/8_tg/14669024/1303408579950.jpg)

Notably, even those who like the ending seems rather mellow about it. "satisfying and worthy of the experience" indeed, pass the tea old chap.

I'm sure someone out there has said it, but at this time I have yet to hear anyone say that the ending was superb, above par, noteworthy, praiseworthy, kick-ass, etc...

PA has been creating content for bioware for a while now, color me not surprised.

Re: Penny Arcade:

You don't shit where you eat.

http://dragonage.bioware.com/da2/info/pennyarcade/
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2010/01/25/biowares-chris-priestly
http://dragonage.bioware.com/da2/info/pennyarcade/redeem/
http://www.swtorstrategies.com/2012/02/penny-arcade-report-interviews-bioware.html

So, yeah, not shocking.  They're business men first.

ed: Lak beat me to it.

Reading this I'm pretty sure they are working on a new ending DLC as we speak as they will think that all the rationalisation = $$$$ from desperate gamers.

As for me I spent some of the $$$ I would have spent on the game on the book guide for Skyrm. Also I actually started a ME 1 playthrough a few weeks back as the female shep just for nostalgia. Amazingly I sensed some emotion occasionally in Sheps voice acting. Its not quite as good as I remember it. For one thing you spend a huge amount of time flying elevetors.

Even more notably, I've seen a few instances now of someone posting something like, "I thought it was ok, what's the big deal?", arguing for awhile, and eventually being like, "Wait, yeah, that is really stupid."

That color blind thing was great.  I don't normally like the yo dawgs but...

(http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/15992406.jpg)

Honestly in the end, Bioware doesn't have to give 3 fucks because the game has sold well so far and will make bank.

I dunno.  It's generally best if people like your games.  Obviously it won't be horrible for the sales of THIS game, and I have no idea whether it will damage their brand measurably, but it certainly isn't true in general that it doesn't matter whether people end up liking your games.

I think the saddest thing is that the ending is what people are talking most about, and it's almost uniformly "holy shit, what?" And nearly every rant about the game starts out with "I loved it until..." There are a ton of satisfying, moving, whatever moments in the game, but they all get essentially forgotten because the shitty ending is just that shitty.


And I could buy the "ALL of ME3 is the ending" argument if they didn't pull the rug out from under everything ME3 had been building to. You had a sense of what everyone was going to do after this war was over (do the massive amount of rebuilding that was ALREADY going to be needed in various ways, have babies with your replacement fuck you so hard Jacob, kill oneself, etc). And then they utterly destroy that, because "lolrelays." So you MIGHT'VE had a good sense of closure with everyone without it all being spelled out, except haha, nevermind, the galaxy is ruined. Rocks fall, everyone dies teleports to the Normandy in order to crash somewhere random.

Players being disappointed with one part of your game rather than all of it is progress for Bioware.  :awesome_for_real:

I will say that the problems I had with the ME3 endings are exactly the same as the problems I had with the DA2 endings. Your choices don't end up having any real impact because they needed everyone's universe to be in the same state for the next ME. You can tell that the story suffered in both games to meet business goals. The problems with the ME3 ending are just more frustrating because it was an otherwise fantastic game, and it was an ending 5 years and 3 games in the making.

I don't think I'm one of those hysterical gamers who start foaming at the mouth and get all nerd ragey about things like this, it's more that I'm supremely disappointed.  Even with all the crap other companies have done over the years with broken games, terrible DRM, delays, billing debacles and so on I've never consciously said to myself 'okay I'm never buying anything from them again'.

I have with bioware and EA though, mostly because bioware was one of the few companies who deserved a pedestal to stand on so I expected better of them than lies, screwing me over every time I didn't have an ME2 import, that bullshit ending and the terrible way they've defended the ending.  It's uninstalled, so is Origin, so is swtor and I will just calmly decline to buy anything from them ever again.  I know they are far too big to ever notice losing one fan/customer but it isn't about them anymore, it's about me, and I can't do this anymore.

Edit: Okay I've calmed down now and I don't care anymore.  I went through ME1 and ME2 again and ME3 is radically better with a proper save game.  The ending, of course, is still a nonsensical failure pit of dissapointment.

The most concrete thing that I'm frustrated by is how little I can motivate myself to play it again.  I played ME2 so goddamn much, and I never replay things.  The whole time I was going through this game, I was looking forward to my second playthrough, because the game was fun as hell.  And now... yeah, not going to go through it again knowing that it all ends in nonsense and teleporting characters.

Ugh, so frustrating.

I have a question for people that loaded saves where crew members were already dead:

During the obnoxiously wanky dream sequences, starting with the one after the genophage resolution, do the already dead companions have lines? Because it felt to me, as I was jogging and thinking how stupid this was, chasing a child I do not give a fuck about while hearing the voice of someone I DID give a fuck about, like there were some weird awkward gaps and random repeats of Nameless Voices calling Shepard's name. I am just curious if those voices were filler, as it seemed like the more of my actual friends died, the more variation in the WHISPERY NIGHTMARE VOICES I got. I'm just curious if it's locked in or if it takes that shit into account, I guess.

Yeah, I was playing a save where I had nobody die in ME2, and I pretty much initially just heard Kaiden saying something in the background.  After Mordin died I heard him as well.  I'm assuming if a bunch of people die that you hear them too, though I can't actually confirm it.  I'd be astonished if that was not the case though.  It was definitely one moment where I kind of regretted not having any deaths in ME2, as it sort of diminished the impact, instead driving home how few of my friends had actually died by that point.  Was looking forward to seeing some of the extra lines during my second playthrough with my less-perfect ME2 suicide mission, but, well... y'know.

Ha, yeah, that was kind of my thought at first. "Man, this would actually maybe be a bit more moving if it wasn't just Mordin and Ashley right now." It basically made me think I was pretty good at keeping people alive, all things considered!  :why_so_serious:

It would make sense that all the dead people talk, I'm just curious if they. You know. Do!

I sacrificed the Quarrians to give the Geth true sentience. During the last sequence, I clearly heard Tali's last words that she said before she jumped off the cliff.

And I finished the game tonight. I'll reiterate that I hate the ME cover system, and the last fight at the missile trucks drove that home. I had to turn the difficulty down to Narrative for just that fight, because I kept getting sucked into cover instead of reviving a fallen teammate, or humping cover while a banshee humped my ass. Fucking terrible.

The ending... I didn't hate it, but neither did I love it either. Everything up to the magical Reaper child was fine, and then I was given two color coded endings. I picked blue, out of not wanting to kill the Geth, whom I had sided with, reluctantly, over the Quarrians. And fuck mister knowitall Catalyst. Who is he to judge the races ability to get along with their creations? Whether they do or not, it isn't his place to decide. If not for the fallout, I would have nuked him and his stupid Reapers.

And the jungle planet and snowy old man scenes seemed really trite. Like they were trying to come across as Deep, and hit Derp instead.

3 star ending to a 4.5 star game series. Not completely disappointed. Just a little disappointed.

His spiel is even more annoying when you have gotten the Geth and the Quarians to work together and get to listen to Tali rave about how the Geth are helping the quarians do in weeks what would have taken years. It's yet another reason why the lack of a "you're full of shit" dialogue option is annoying.

Yeah, that was the main thing that cheesed me off about the ending spiel, aside from it coming out of the mouth of That Fucking Kid. RIGHT OUTSIDE was proof he was full of shit, goddammit. And even so, I doubt very much synthetics would wipe out ALL ORGANIC LIFE EVER. All sentient organic life? Maybe. But somehow I doubt they'd go out of their way to kill, like, all the plants and shit.

Graaah!

What I like about PA is how bloody patronising they are, especially Tycho.

'Oh, I read lots of hard sci-fi, you'd understand it if you just read more'.

I read sci-fi (shockingly!). I've read Hyperion from cover to cover, and just because the end is the same doesn't mean it works. You don't change genre in the final 5 minutes of your game, full stop - that's a basic rule of good writing, never mind sci-fi. If the entire game had built to that point it would have worked, but it didn't. Instead I'm expected to believe the Shepherd who questioned everything, who never backed down from anyone, who went toe to toe with the reapers despite everyone saying it was madness, is now just going to accept what they  say and make a decision that re-writes the basic genetic code of every live thing in the galaxy?

Also, re effect. Dragon Age 2 sold better than Dragon Age at the start remember, and then sales plummeted as word got round. I don't think the same will happen here (because the rest of the game is so well done), but Bioware are now clearly off the pedestal for me and their stuff won't be a day 1 purchase anymore. That's 3 times in a row they have fucked up, and this time has made me wary  about falling for their spiel again.

That post about the alternate "theories" for the game's ending is really just a catalog of fuckups. It's not even a theory, it's just a bunch of "well this didn't make sense!" observations that somehow sum up to "and therefore it's all like a dream or some shit uh...or something..."

Tycho going on about hard scifi endings was a bit cringeworthy because there's nothing hard about ME3's ending. It was wishy washy cosmicism or transhumanism.

Edit: Eh, who cares.

To be fair, it was probably only a matter of time before the Quarians fucked things up again.  In a way, they're like a much less competent version of the Salarians.

That assumes they won't be absorbed or restructured in to oblivion anyway, which won't happen so long as they continue to post profits.  This was rushed because it needed to come out, that much is obvious from what I'm reading.  It HAD to come out now because there needed to be a SP release this year.

 They don't have the kind of franchises that can be exploited annually, like DICE or Maxis but they have a few that can be cycled.  So this year it's ME3 and its DLC.  Next year we'll see DA3 and its DLC. After that a TOR xpac and either another ME game or a new one from an old franchise. 

Let's not forget that all this hubbub is on gaming websites and we aren't the majority of the market anymore.  We're the nice group bitching about something the majority just might not give two fucks about.

Between this and DA2. I think they are losing a lot of fans. I know I'm no longer going to be interested in their stuff on the first day because of the let downs over the last few years, and I'm clearly not the only one. Word of mouth *does* hit the bottom line in the long run (look at how DA2  sales plummeted despite all those glowing reviews), and this sort of stuff will impact on them.

It's a shame because they came *so* close to doing something no-one else has managed in gaming with ME. The level of emotional attachment and investment I had in those characters is second to nothing. Instead, the shitty ending has actually made me unwilling to even go back and play the earlier games. Knowing what i am working towards and the fact that none of it matters removes the fun of the journey. They have really poisoned the well for a lot of people it seems.

In the long run, as you y, they'll end up being restructured and effectively killed off, and then hopefully someone else will pick up the baton for westernRPGs. Skyrim was great, but there's needs to be someone out the making games like ME.

I don't think the issues with the end are a matter of the game being rushed.  A lot of people seem to agree that the rest of the game is amazing, so it's not like the product as a whole is a rush job.  Maybe it's just Stephen King syndrome where they had great buildup and shit payoff, or maybe it's because whatever they wanted to do next with the franchise required them to leave things the way they are with the endings we got.  This isn't something that would have been avoided with more time to work on the game.

The fact that the three endings are basically the same with some recoloring certainly says to me that time/budget became an issue. That's something you do to save on resources, not because someone thinks it's a genuinely good idea.

They probably had to free up people to work on the DLC.  :awesome_for_real:

Margalis echoed my thoughts on it and why I suspected a rush job.

It certainly would be a better reason than "no, really, even though the series is based around choices we really WANTED to railroad you down this singular path to a singular ending, ignoring everything you'd done previously."

Tbh, my thinking was more along the old lines of shearing a sheep and killing a sheep.

Do developers code a game in the order it is played?  I know movie-makers don't necessarily film the scenes in the order they will appear in the film, so when the budget runs out it's not always the ending that has a quality drop.

I haven't played the game yet (I am sticking to my "wait for a few months / patch" rule after being annoyed by the bugs with SWTOR), but IMO internet rage won't affect their sales figures for this game, much.  I do think that ME3 rage will affect their return-to-SWTOR numbers, and if they're thinking of making a ME MMO, that'll be affected as well.

Well, they have posted a topic on the forums now called On the Mass Effect 3 endings. Yes, we are listening. It was posted by Chris Priestly.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9992961 (http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9992961)

http://youtu.be/rPelM2hwhJA

All 6 endings in sync with each other.

Also, I watched the full "Bad Destroy" ending...apparently that one still has the Normady crashing on a planet, but nobody survived the impact.

Gamers are the beaten wives of the entertainment industry.

I'll just leave this here:

http://www.me3finalhours.com/


And from what appear to be his notes:


"End of First Matrix"  :uhrr:

Amusingly, I was just in Target and happened to pass by a couple in the electronics section.  The guy pointed at ME3 and was like, "Heh, guess I'm never buying that after hearing Tim rant about it."  I chuckled quietly to myself.

I'd say that ME3's ending is worse than the third Matrix movie's ending. The first Matrix had a pretty cool ending.

I assumed that the Emo Cyborg Ninja storyline couldn't get any sillier but then came the Cerberus base boss fight...

After being killblocked by two previous rogue cut scenes they wouldn't even let me kill him myself. I had to use a friggin' renegade interrupt in yet another cut scene. Since the renegade interrupt didn't involve hin getting mauled by an army of bears while I dance on his broken bones, merely watching him get sliced was a slight letdown.

Also the IL scene at the end is the only time you have to take a renegade interrupt or you die. They even throw rheir game mechanics under the bus at the end...

Now we know that this Star child shit was the way EAware decided to end things .  This is a fucking disaster.  See this thread and despair those of you who thought this might be an indoctrination theory:

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9999272


I have no words other than bile again.  I can't believe Casey Hudson is this big of an idiot that he believed this was a good way to end things.

Edited Note:  EAware decided to do damage control the guy posted Mac Walter's flow charts on the ending.  They sent the Priestly minion to claim it was intellectual property rights violations.

I'm pretty sure if you don't renegade interrupt him, he shoots Anderson and then himself. Shepard is never in danger himself during the IL scene. With the dumb cyborg ninja, I'm not sure what would happen if you didn't renegade interrupt his sword attack. Maybe a squadmate shoots him instead, or maybe he just collapses.

Yeah, the first Matrix had an excellent ending, not sure how they possibly think ME3 is in any way like that. And if they were aiming for the third Matrix - why would ANYONE want to go near a film that's near universally reviled?

From what I can read of the notes and comments, it seems the long and short of it is the ending was deliberately shit because "KEEP PEOPLE GUESSING". Rather than give people closure and a decent ending after 5 years, they wanted people to keep talking. Unfortunately, rather than talking they just got a wall of rage because this is not how you end stories. Seriously, do they not know the basic rules of the genre they are working in and storytelling?

Like I said earlier though - they are poisoning the well. Deliberately fucking people over to "keep them talking" is such a stupid thing to do after 5 years, it just kills any interest I have in DLC or the next game stone dead. Christ, I even paid for all the alternate outfit DLCs in ME2 I'm that much of a ME whore!

More from the Priestly Minion ROFLMAO they shut down the forum!

Good for them. The bad behavior was getting ludicrous.

I love the fact they blame the app and not the fucking atrocious contempt Bioware show for their fans in the app. Mind you swearing directly at people doesn't help in official forums and will always get you moded, but I can understand peoples rage when they see the ending to a 5 year story was scribbled on a piece of paper and deliberately fucked up "because".

Seriously, who on earth does a 5 year game story and deliberately ends it knowing it will piss people off?

(Clearly people who don't want me to ever buy from them again is the answer).

Given that the post quoted is in the thread about the app, I don't see what the confusion is about. People were getting really ugly over the fact that they thought Bioware was charging them $3 for an app that they had nothing to do with.

EDIT: Well, I guess not NOTHING to do with since they presumably gave the guy access for the interviews etc.

Then fair enough - that's just bloody dumb. all I've seen is rage over what the app revealed. I'm way past accepting that you have to pay through the nose for apps like this... :)

QFT.  You reap what you sow.  EAware is reaping the shitstorm now for turning their back on what got them to be bought out for what was it 800+ million wasn't it?  Instead of coming out and saying hey we fucked up and were going to fix it, they chose the silent treatment.  See how well that has worked???  Well little revelations like this and saying "were listening" isn't going to work either.  Its in fact damaging the Bioware brand.

They need to stop sitting on their hands.  They need to stop sending Priestly and Woo out there to damage control by censor.  They need to go to their fans and state that we know your upset, this isn't everything, and we will fix it in the manner that is true to the series so far.  Your choice will return.

That would end this.  This kind of action would in my opinion be lauded for I think most people think it takes courage to admit when your wrong.  I know I would respect the hell out of that kind of statement instead of the were going to close the forums because your angry and we are refusing to accept our part in your anger at being baited into a choice game and switched to the starchild inevitability.

It can't be fixed properly IMO. Just getting all the voice talent lined back up to give it a proper ending would be a nightmare to schedule I'm pretty sure.

In before copyright violation blocks...

That thread leads to this thread:

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9993946/1

which leads to this song posted on youtube on July 6, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm82gjZDIDU

which has the background used in the Grandpa / Grandson conversation, cycled through multiple colors, with lyrics talking about a Starchild and metaphysical crap about seas of stars and creation and rebirth and dreaming.

Locking the forums down smells of knee-jerk reaction to me. Lock the thread but there is no reason to lock the whole forum. I think the people in Bioware are sweating bullets. As much as they want to spin things in interviews and stuff they know they messed up. That poll that was close to 40k votes last time I saw it? If those numbers were in a political race the major news networks would have called a winner already. You can extrapolate easily from that poll. I honestly don't know what I'd do if I was in their shoes besides use some sick days from stress. If they change it, they probably fear they're starting a bad precedent. If they don't change it they've got to be aware it is hurting them. One of my friends was so angry he nearly canceled his SWTOR account and I've seen talk about other people doing that on their forums. This is really killing their customer loyalty and that napkin scribble? Yeah.

I know they got blindsided. I bet they thought people would relish the ending and talk about it like people talk about the end of Inception or something and some people are but most people are just pissed. It also seems to me that the ending was, in fact, rushed at the last minute if they were working on it as late as late November.

Sorry I can't buy this.  They didn't close a thread.  They closed the entire forum.

It was bleeding into everything. Sometimes you need to get the squirt bottle out to get the cat off the table, this was pretty clearly one of those times.

I mean even though I'm in the 'this ending was totally stupid' camp, people are behaving like such twats about it that it makes me want to take the other side.

EDIT: I mean, it is certainly the biggest fuckup Bioware's ever had, but that is honestly a pretty short list. And we're not talking an Elemental level of fail, here. The first 34 out of the 35 hours were pretty damn good.

EDIT 2: It reminds me of Yankees fans. Win two World Series in a row, you're on top of the world. Fall just short the next year, FIRE EVERYONE!

How many game companies have bounced back from such terrible decision making in the past?

Regarding the first matrix, people are assuming that they mean the first matrix film. But it could also mean the first matrix mentioned in the film. Where the macines created a world where people were happy, and the result was that people couldnt handle it and went nuts. People were happy in a world that made them miserable.

So toss in an ending that makes people miserable and there will be "lots of speculation"?

Let me repeat something I said earlier.  This is 100% Bioware's fault.  They are reaping right now the results of their policies and actions.  Its snowballing way out of control for one reason.  This company has lost what got them the level of respect it had prior to EA buying them.  The power to fix things I think is still with them because many people (Myself included BTW) want to believe that the old Bioware will come back and they will find themselves.  However time is running out and locking a forum will not change the fact that EAware is damaging the brand with every passing day this continues.

They have it in their power to end it.  I hope they choose to do the right thing.  They are running out of time.

They still let Peter Molyneux make games.

Also Bioware was only in the position to fail this way because they had done so well with prior games. That provides plenty of cushion for the occasional error, even a big one like this, IMO.

I'm guessing you're a Yankees fan. The first two Mass Effects were made AFTER the EA purchase. ME1 was already in progress but ME2 is the jewel in the franchise anyway. This "old Bioware" thing is tired.

There's no bouncing, it's all internet drama; makes for good reading and gossip but their sales figures aren't going to be affected.  SWTOR is continuing based on its quality / patches, and ME3's already been sold.  If they put out a DLC (any) it'll probably sell relatively well.

EDIT:  The perfect ending, for me, would be kind of a reversal of the ME2 ending, where if Shepard sends off ALL his squadmates on suicide missions in just the right order, and they all die and he dies too, but they just barely manage to ensure that the universe isn't fucked up.  Either keeping the relays or getting the schematics of how to build a relay to the Earth area (that's where the highest concentration of eezo is, right?).

Classical "huge tragedy but there's hope" scenario, I guess.

I don't know why you think Sales figures wont be affected.

Look at DA2. It sold more than DA out of the gate, but then sales *plumetted* after a week as word of mouth got round about how bad it was.

There's also the fact that even if this sells, there are a lot of folks who won't buy any more. (me included). Sorry, but there are enough good games out there for me to pay money to be intentionally fucked around by a bad writer. I just feel sorry for the rest of the writing team, because the game had some truly fantastic writing and character stories in it, and more than any other game I've played really made me care about fictional people. It came so close to being great, and then completely nuked it at the end.

I guess I just don't understand why you (and many many others) can give them 100% of the blame for the bad ending and then seemingly zero credit for the good parts. I mean, I can understand boycotting a company when they do something like shit out Elemental. Something that's unplayable, unfixable, and borders on actual malfeasance when you release it to the public knowingly. This just doesn't seem to rise to anywhere near that level to me. If you balance out the amount of fuckup with the amount of awesome, it doesn't seem to add up to NEVER BUY AGAIN to me at all.

I mean I guess I understand that the initial feeling of  :ye_gods: is that much greater because they did such a good job with all the lead up to it - I certainly felt it myself - but again, that's because the writing up to that point was so good. Why don't people want to reward all that good writing as much as they want to punish for the bad section?

The bad part spoils the good part is why.

When you play through the whole thing you get to have an opinion on whether or not that is actually true.  :oh_i_see:

The fact that I know how Moby Dick ends despite not having read it, does not make my opinion about it relevant or useful.

"It's great but the ending sucked" seems to be the general consensus with ME3. That's not the type of word-of-mouth that's going to stop people from picking up the game. DA2 was a different situation, as the word of mouth was basically "it's a steaming pile of shit through-and-through." DA2 and ME3 are on completely different levels of badness.

Having beaten ME3 and being disappointed with the ending, I still felt like my $60 was well-spent. Those last 10 minutes degrade the appreciation I had for the game as a whole but not completely.

I do see the point that instead of being able to absolutely recommend this game, we now have to say "it's very good, but the ending sucks" which invariably steers the discussion towards the ending only.  So they've lost some customers, cause word of mouth does matter.  It's just that I feel that games are like movies, the opening day and opening week sales matter, and after that it's peanuts.  At least that's how the publisher will look at it.

IMO they are losing on the "Bioware" brand, but that's for future games, and not just because of ME3 (SWTOR has issues too).

When the ending also destroys the setting itself, then you totally can say it ruins it all yes.

Because the bad part spoiled the good part? Because whilst the game is about the journey, the destination counts as well?

Stories aren't indiviual chapters in isolation, each builds on the previous to lead to a conclusion. Now, some stories aim to have mysterious endings, or surprise twists, but that's not Mass Effect. The game is a character driven space opera, and should stick to what it has been for the other 99.99% of the entire series.

I've played Mass Effect 2 three times, and I have only ever replayed 4 games in my entire life. I don't have the single urge to play Me3 again (or Me 1 -->2 like I'd planned because I only played ME1 once), because nothing I do counts at the end.

I just feel like the 'boycott forever' reaction is in essence saying that the journey doesn't count.

The setting is only valuable in that it gives context for the story. The universe is essentially mostly fucked over in the *good* part of the story anyway - nearly everywhere you go that used to have people has a description of 'Reapers fell, everyone dies' -  so if the argument is that 'the ending is bad because it blew up the setting' I don't really buy that; the setting was pretty damn well blown up already. (I think I may have argued something slightly different earlier but more thought has kind of changed my mind on it, the big fail is really around not giving any character closure - I could accept the grimdark ending if they'd done something reasonable with that, and if the reason the relays exploded was something that made a scrap of sense.)

I disagree, the setting had value on it's own. There were many more stories to be told in that setting.


Doesn't exist anymore though.

Plenty of stories end with the setting utterly changed, though, if that was really what all this was about there'd be no big drama.

How popular are those settings post change?

Oh for fucks sake stop being such a fucking fanboy.

Well that's what my point about the setting existing to serve the story boils down to - it doesn't matter if the elves all fuck off to the West forever and will never be seen again, magic drains out of the world, hobbits disappear eventually, etc., if that's what has to happen to serve the story that's being told.

Avoiding doing stuff in a story that damages the setting is narrowing your options in the name of creating a brand, which is exactly the kind of thing that you would expect to come from the EA side of the office, not the Bioware one. You're narrowing your storytelling options which is generally not what we want to have happen if our goal is to get good stories.

I totally agree with you in general, and I don't think it'd be an issue here if the mass relay destruction was part of a solid, satisfying ending.  Here it has managed to both fuck up the setting AND seem like a half-assed, pointless conclusion.

Yeah I don't disagree with that at all. It isn't the end consequences that ultimately piss me off, it is how they get there that doesn't work.

It doesn't count because you don't get to credit the company for only the good parts of the game.. it's zero sum.  A sale or no sale.

You bought it, you count as a sale.  Doesn't matter what happens after that, it's out and done.  If you hate it and you still buy DLC?  You're just reinforcing that you're a walking wallet who'll pay for any tired shit.  After that quality doesn't matter, on their projections you're a guaranteed sale, no matter how much you bitch.

If you didn't like the game, not buying the DLC is just logical, sure. A 'must boycott forever' stance against all products they might make in the future is not; the next game might be the best thing ever and by skipping it, you've now paid for one out of two possible games and got the worse one - and then what does the developer take away from that as a lesson, especially if the changes in the 2nd game are the result of all the bad feedback they got from the first one?

EDIT: It is kind of a hard question either way I guess - a natural reaction is "well, I won't make THAT mistake again" but if your goal is to play awesome games, you could be making a comparable mistake in the other direction by skipping one. And word of mouth is often unreliable both for and against a given game.

Wait, are we in the SWTOR? All I see is birds.

Your best bet is always to simply not buy until after the game is released and patched and there's a gold version for less than the original.  Gamers aren't often known for doing the smart, rational, non-emotional thing.  An all or nothing mentality shouldn't be too surprising.

Well in my case and in defense of gamers like myself.  I had a lot of faith in Bioware before this.  Yes in DA2 they reused a lot of areas and the fact that they can't seem to plan a story arc past one game anymore really did irk me but here is the thing I was entertained by each.  Were they ideal, no but they were in my opinion worth the money. 

I didn't mind preordering, paying the premium price for the collectors edition, standing in line in the cold with fellow gamers and rushing home to play till the wee early hours of the morning because Bioware had a track record of quality with me.  The same track record that Blizzard still has.  These companies put out quality games.  The real tragedy of ME3 is that this game is amazing up until the last 5 minutes.  Then not only does the wheels fall off but it absolutely kills any desire to play the previous games that includes a masterpiece like Mass Effect 2.

re Renegade interrupt at the end. If  you take the wrong path through the dialogue then the Illusive Man doesn't shoot himself after shooting Anderson, he shoots you unless you take the interrupt. Otherwise it's game over.

You can argue about relativism all you want.

It's still my prerogative to hate the whole game just because of the end, just as others have the opportunity to find merit in the parts prior to the end.

No opinion is morally or objectively better, more right or even more rational than the other.

It's also a straw man argument.

People don't bitch about a bad end to a three part game series. It's not a case of mismanaged expectations that couldn't ever be met.

It's that the end contradicts everything Bioware said and did with regards to Mass Effect for the last five years and it exposes most of the things Bioware PR has said with regards to the games as lies and bullshit. The end is basically not only bad but also proof that Bioware has lied to fans and the press for at least the last year or that they simply couldn't care less about their own property. I don't know what's worse.

- It contradicts the story, canon and world setting of Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3 and also the expanded universe of the books.
- It directly shows that nothing you ever did over the course of the last three games mattered. That all the claims about choices and you making your own story, about taking earth back and heading against the reapers was wrong.
- It contradicts everything Bioware PR said the game would be and every claim made by Bioware in the last year (a multitude of endings, no simple choice of A, B or C etc)
- Last but not least it's also a shittily written piece of story full of crap dialogue, insane troll logic and gaping plot holes and with a literal deus ex machina end (since you actually talk to the ghost in the machine) where your only choice is between three endings that are equally catastrophic and nonsensical. They also don't even have the courtesy to give you three different ending cinematics.

It invalidates most of the positive parts of ME because people realize that they've basically fallen for a sucker's game. That they got emotionally attached to a franchise made by people that not only don't care about their fans or customers but worse don't even care about their own creative property.

Even worse the end is so bad that basically everyone, even the worst Bioware fanboys, see it. Nobody understands why anybody that calls himself an author would come up with something that is so clearly bad and broken and nonsensical when basically even people that don't know the franchise get why it's crap.

It's not even controversially discussed it's just that some say "well the game was good until we got to the crap end" while others say "that crap end makes me hate the whole game".

So not only do many fans feel sad and disillusioned and betrayed, they also don't get why anybody at Bioware could have thought that this was a good end and why nobody else stepped in and said "clearly this is a crap end let's make something better"

This makes me sound more invested in the game than I actually am. Belittling people that got emotionally invested into a - up to the end - great story is not the answer, though. Otherwise I'll remind every one of you about it the next time you people bitch about the Star Wars prequels or other examples of basically the same kind of situation.

I would have wanted to see what kind of reaction we would have gotten if George Lucas had decided to let Han Solo, Chewbacca, Luke Skywalker and the rest die at the end of Return of the Jedi after barely not rescuing the galaxy from the empire, after he'd led on everybody to believe that they'd totally win.

[edit: I can haz grammar]

That it's also a testament to how great the game was up to the end that people actually show grief and bewilderment and need to vent their frustration is the irony here.

If the games weren't any good people would shake their heads and move on. Instead they simply want the end to be as great as the parts leading up to it now that they haven't gotten that they don't have closure and they'll need time to get over that.

A few years from now this will be a text book example though about how badly crappy PR, unchecked executives talking without thinking first and mismanaged expectations can backfire.

I got this from the forums and it is a perfect send up of the endings.


     

I once ate a delicious hotdog that gave me food poisoning. I feel pretty comfortable saying that was the worst hot dog I ever ate, not "the best except for the end."


This sounds like one of those cases where instead of the writers coming up with an ambiguous ending that has many plausible outcomes (with maybe one that is what the writers intended) instead they come up with nonsense that they don't understand themselves.

I want to address this point. That may or may not be their logic, but it just jumped out at me as I was reading through the thread.

What would be the precedent here? I believe it would be that you are listening to your customers and owning your mistakes. Let's not forget what Bioware is in the situation. They are an entertainment company. If the customers are this upset, relenting to their overwhelming demands is good business. They aren't policy creators, legislators, judges, or lawyers. They are there to entertain. And when people aren't entertained, they need to fix it. If they choose not to because of hubris, red-tape, or simply the impossibility of action, then they are looking down the barrel of a loaded gun.

EA is at an interesting point financially now, and they are eating some bad press due to this. The 2011 bump they got is now long gone, and they are back to their 2009-2010 doldrum numbers. From the way I look at it, Bioware hasn't actually done them any good as a total company, and now there is serious doubt about both their ME and DA franchises.

I would also point out that Mass Effect is largely story-driven, so a bad ending sabotages the entire effort much more than in a pure action game.

Bayonetta has a terrible story with awful cutscenes, but I would just tell someone to skip them. You won't miss much and the story isn't the point of the game at all. The bad story only detracts if you let it.

Most people who like Mass Effect like the story and character bits as much or more than the actual gameplay. Really this is very similar to movies that end with "it was all a dream!" It works 1% of the time, the other 99% you just leave the theater pissed off.

See, I don't want them to fix the ending. The horrible choices they made lead me to believe that a new ending would just fuck it up more. I'd put money on a terribly pandering ending at this point. And that would stink just as bad as the terribly dumb ending.

I will say that Bioware made it incredibly easy to decide to skip the DLC this time around.

Presumably, that you can cut corners in production and just "patch in" whatever people bitch the loudest about and then crow about how you're "listening" to the playerbase.

The other negative I can see (not for me personally, but for people who evidently care about this kind of thing) is that it hilights the idea that continuity is fluid.  People don't like it when you retcon things, it reminds them that this isn't a "real" world, it's a story helmed by a single person (or a succession of people) who can change anything they don't like about it on a whim.  Some people take things like continuity very seriously, and it bugs them when writers don't show it the same level of respect.

Zactly. Ambiguous can be good. But in ME3 it was just retarted.

Yeah, for me, thinking about it, the ship has sailed on the shitty ending. The ending sucked, I will turn the game off with Shepard sitting next to Anderson on the Citadel in my future playthroughs, adding more to the ending really isn't going to do anything. Because I know. I know what the ending was, and I know it sucked.

Started my MANSHEP playthrough. I am enjoying it, even though I know the ending is ass. I played through the end of ME2 to get this MANSHEP ready for ME3. The reaper baby boss fight? Still fucking retarded.  :heart:

This already describes DA2 perfectly, so I'm going to say that ship has sailed.

You raise an interesting point with your first issue. Would the customers feel betrayed anymore by doing this? I'm fairly sure that they are cutting as many corners as they can, since the company hasn't made an actual profit in years.

As to point two, I can sort of see it as a minor issue. I don't believe that there is a huge part of their playerbase to cause an issue. Loud? Yes. Annoying? Yes. But bottom line affecting? Not that I could see from an outsider POV.

I agree. I hope Extra Credits does a piece on the series.

Saying this as someone who works at a company that prizes it's message discipline, I understand where they're coming from in the, "let's not say or do anything or do anything until we have a solid, almost unassailable answer." That said, I still think they drooped the ball big time. Only time will tell if they can come up with a solid and decent response.

I just feel like changing the ending at this point would be after the fact focus testing.  It just wouldn't feel right.  The end might be shit, but it's shit that the writers somehow decided to go with as far as I can tell.  It doesn't look like something that was imposed on them in a way that might allow for a Director's Cut with the "real" ending.  Changing the ending here would just make the overall story 99% the writers' "vision" and then 1% fan fiction at the end.  At this point they just need to move forward.  Preferably with Jack, Wrex, Hackett, and maybe Kal'Reeger on Earth taking shit over.

And to add on to what Surlyboi said, as Bioware pointed out, the game hasn't been on very long at all.  Having an in depth, public discussion about the details of the ending when probably a majority  of the player-base hasn't finished the game yet probably wouldn't be the best idea.  Of course it also wasn't a good idea to promise the things about the ending that they did before release.

Kal'Reegar is dead. He died in an email.  :heartbreak: Tali clearly was using Garrus as a rebound after that.

I think you're taking the sunk cost philosophy too far in this case. They can't unring the bell, but considering how many times people do playthroughs on this game, and the amount of people that aren't done, I don't think throwing up their hands is the correct response.

Must have missed that.  If I can't get an Adam Baldwin voiced Quarian, I'd settle for a Nathan Fillion voiced one instead.



It's not a matter of throwing up their hands, it's a matter of justifying their endings with what they do with it going forward.   I'd prefer they own what they made rather than "you don't like that ending, how about this one?  No?  How about this one that was a popular alternative posted up on a message board?"  I don't typically see writing or any kind of art as a democratic process where you redo it until most people are happy.

Nor do I. I think it's a large difference between writing by committee message board and realizing you've completely alienated your customers with your conclusion.

God, what an awful end to such an immersive and rewarding series.  What got me is that the ending(s) wouldn't be bad at all if it was one of the three options, and the other two had different outcomes.  After beating it the first time I thought to myself "that was pretty terrible", and loaded up the most recent save to go see the other two endings.  That's when the kick in the balls came for me - the fact that all three are almost identical with different colors.  Incredibly lazy on their part and it really reeks of them being rushed to get it out the door.

I'm doing a second playthrough now and it's pretty depressing knowing that it doesn't matter one bit what I do.  Let this dude live or die, save that colony or nuke it, cure the genophage or don't... *shrug* doesn't matter, just click any random responses.

As for the possibility of future endings, I don't think anyone is expecting full CGI scenes or all the voice actors returning for more lines.  I'd be happy with just a slideshow of your companions and some text describing how they ended up (yeah, I'm at the "bargaining" stage of grief right now  :heartbreak:)

R.I.P. Marauder Shields:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=467pmIX-oZo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=467pmIX-oZo)  :heart:
He really did his best to stop us from seeing the ending (in fact, I think I'm just going to let him kill me at the end of this playthrough and let that be my ending.)

This isn't art, it's business. You rework until the client is happy, which they apparently are not right now.

Heeeee!

I won't lie. Marauder Shields was probably a better final boss than Reaper Baby. I had somehow forgotten precisely how stupid that was until I redid it two days ago. And yet, I still felt warmly towards it. Because I knew after I finished its stupid fight, I'd have a perfectly decent conclusion to the game.

<sob>

Oh wow. I have a new name for my next mmorpg character.  :grin:

Fuckin' totally.

If I ever get into the Secret World beta, I'm all over that shit.

(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-M-peleOuztI/TbBBYd5f8FI/AAAAAAAABQI/ALU1_FcgJfc/s1600/misery+kb.jpg)

They're in the business of producting art. In this case, a story. Most people don't want a story to pander to them. Especially the Mass Effect series which sold itself on having such things as meaningful choices, philisophical quandries, interesting characters, and yes some gunplay and blue tits.

If you take that attitude, then any artistic creation that is sold as a product is no longer art, it's business, and as such should be altered to satisfy the customers.  Even as one of said customers, I don't advocate telling writers what to write.  At that point they're no longer telling me a story.  I'm just telling them the story I want told back to me.  If these guys were to go back to the drawing board, they wouldn't be thinking about how they want to end the story.  They already did that and we got that ending.  They'd just be pandering to the audience.  Doing fan service. 

And the people who are pissed off right now?  How many of them do you think would really be satisfied if a new ending were put in, and say "thanks for listening to us, Bioware"?  Even ignoring all the people who already hate EA or Bioware, all the Margalis's and Simond's who are making sure their voices are heard about how bad the ending of a game/series they never played has scarred them, even if you just focus on the legitimately upset customers who bought the game, how much do you think changing the end will really change public opinion at this point?  Especially on message boards that aren't exactly known for their forgiving nature?

The story of a AAA vidja game is already design by committee.

I loathe to say it but I agree in spirit with Vel. But in a production this size there isn't a lot of personal vision from the artiste to begin with.


Depends if it costs $10 or $15. :rimshot:

Count me as among those who think it really can't be fixed at this point.  I can't really justify that solidly, and to even try to explain it would require a large wall of text.  I think if I could believe that the ending was just rushed and they wanted to do something else, I'd be excited about a revision.  But I pretty much believe that they intended this and didn't realize how dumb it was (at least the leads didn't... quite possibly a lot of the company silently or less-than-silently hated it), and that kind of ruins it for me no matter what they do.

We're kind of doing apples to oranges here, because most stories/games have a single ending.  FFIII-2 for example had an ending that many didn't like but it was never touted as a game where you could make a bunch of choices to affect the outcome.  Mass Effect since it's inception has always been a choose your own adventure type of game (admittedly, on rails) and they did an exceptional job of tying all your decisions together for the 3 games, until the last 10 minutes.

When I read that there were going to be 3 different endings, I was expecting something like:
A) *happy ending*  Do all the sidequests, keep everyone alive, happy, etc.  Reapers are defeated by the magic space beam and we have a big party on the Citadel
B) *scorched earth*  Everyone dies (including Shepard), Earth etc. are obliterated, but Reapers are defeated by the magic space beam and the few that are left can start rebuilding
C) *bad ending* If you have low war assets and make bad choices on the story missions, the Reapers win and the cycle continues

Instead we got one subpar ending copypasted 3 times.  It's not about altering the "work of art", it's about delivering alternate outcomes like they did for 99% of the series.  People have invested hundreds of hours replaying ME1/ME2 to get different saves ready for ME3.  That's why they're manning the neckbeards.

My suggestion how Bioware can "fix" ME3:


(http://www.emzeeinc.com/images/shepard-pike.jpg)

Designed by a committee, but then so are TV series and movies to an extent as well.  I think there's a decent amount of room for personal vision, it's just that maybe Mac Walters personal vision wasn't particularly good.  Bioware's talent has always largely been in their character work rather than their plot.  I don't think matters were helped any when Drew Karpyshyn left the ME team to work on Swtor and then ultimately leave Bioware presumably to focus more on non-game writing.

The counter to it is that if the information coming out from that app is correct it sounds like this ending wasn't so much "the vision" as "oh shit we're out of time, let's slap something on there and watch the fans make up theories about it."

Sounds like they were out of time due to poor planning though.  You'd think working on something like this writers would generally work out the beginning and the end first and then flesh out the middle.  If time starts to get short you cut out the side quests and maybe trim the main plot where needed.  You don't hold off on writing the end until a few months before release.  So maybe "vision" isn't the right term, but it's the path they ultimately condemned themselves to.

Isn't Writing 101 start with a clear beginning and an end and write everything in between? They did a fine job tying up most everything by the time of the final level.

I would have been extremely happy if they put in the extended "Family" dialog between Shepard and Anderson, complete with "You ever wonder how things could be different... if you made different choices...?" In fact, in my head, that's what happened, because that's perfect.

I'm thinking back to Metal Gear Solid 4's ending and how, to me, that did justice to the entire series and as a send-off.

This is a special kind of lose/lose, because his novels are terrible.

I don't know about terrible, but they are definitely not very good. At all.

OK, maybe they are terrible.

Not really.

A lot of times when writers come up with an end and works towards it things end up not really making sense.

That said, in video game production a common strat is work on the start and end first, since those are the most important in terms of demos and reviews.

Well after seeing some you tube, I'm in the camp that the entire ending after entering the beam of light is a reaper indoctrination  attempt. Anderson is Shepard's side, TiM is the reapers trying to convince Shepard to give up. The only true ending is destruction with Shepard's body alive(?) in the ruins of London.

The only way EA and Bioware can resolve it- a free DLC that explains what happened (the reapers were destroyed in that ending, Shepard was alive, the Normandy never crash landed, the gates did not blow up) and just provides a "here's what happened to everyone" voice over by Shepard (you only need 2 VA's) and a static image of each character/race/planet.

it's not often you see a brand destroyed before your eyes- The Matrix was the last one I can recall, though the Star Wars Prequel's came close, they didn't do it.



The last thing Vega said to me was "do you hear something humming"?


Bioware fell for their own indoctrination.  

I'm pretty sure PA isn't in on it, but hah.

(http://i.imgur.com/48832.jpg)

Nice to see PA has gone full retard in their defense.

I'll answer that comic with another of theirs...

(http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/215499741_EEML7-L-2.jpg)

I'm sure the irony is probably lost.

Gabe and Tycho have always been intellectual snobs with a "holier than thou" attitude. Just look at the pretentious way Tycho writes his articles. He probably thinks it sounds super smart but for everybody that's not twelve and easily impressed it just reads like he fell head first into a thesaurus and hurt himself.

Dismissing the feelings of your fanbase has always been a winning strategy, obviously. So I suppose the "you're only upset about the end because you're entitled and stupid and not smart and well read like us" will probably go over really well.

It would probably also not sound as inane if they'd actually defended a good if controversial end, like say for example the end to 2001. Claiming that the end can only be appreciated by smart and educated folk would work if it weren't such a badly crafted piece of plot holes.

Defending 2001 with "you probably just didn't get it" might be a valid point, defending Battlefield Earth with the same argument just makes you seem stupid and pretentious.

Still even if it is the best piece of fiction since War and Peace or Moby Dick. If people say they didn't like it that's still a valid opinion even if you don't agree.

So they basically make fun of people that probably make up most of their fanbase for basically having a different opinion than them. Probably not such a great idea but what do I know I'm not as smart as Gabe or Tycho anyway.

The PA strip was pretty funny to me to be honest. "And we got you a segway, SPACE COMMANDER SUPREME."

I kinda doubt that they're defending ME3's non-ending for the sake of their phat EA checks to write comics, because at this point with PAX EA not giving them gigs anymore is their loss.

I just think they kinda have shitty taste if you look at the kind of games/writing they're actually into. Gabe in particular is a bigger SW nerd than WUA was.

That's not really the impression I'm getting from that comic strip (and yes I've read their opinions on the ending).  Just seems like it's the topical thing going on in games right now for them to make light of in their usual manner.  Also, note that the caption in the first panel isn't "the ending fans want to see".  Think you guys might be taking a little too much personal offense here.

It was, even then. The fans liked the middle panel so much that they since made "great catsby" comics and also included it into their merchandize.

It's basically their way of telling fans to "stop bitching, you want a happy end anyway, which by the way is totally ridiculous as you can see in our satiric interpretation of it".

If that's not meant to be personal it shows a real lack of empathy and is rather tone deaf.

When you're at the top of the web-comic food chain, you can afford to be a snob at times.

Nobody can "afford to be a snob sometimes" if his livelyhood depends on the goodwill of people and nobody should behave like he is entitled to be a snob anyway.

You can defend your own opinion without ridiculing those that have a different one you know, it's like totally possible to just have a decent discussion about things even on the intertubes.

If you disagree strongly you'll always have the option to say that "while I understand your opinion I don't agree with it". Your opinion sucks because you're a stupid head is not on the same level of rational discourse, though.

That would be like if I read your post and said that's basically your way of telling me "you're fucking wrong you retard", and with that being the case that I should be personally offended that you'd say such a thing to me.  You're reading something between the lines which may well not be there, and then using that as proof that they obviously aimed this three panel comic as a personal insult to everybody upset with ME3's ending.

Eh, the comic was just not funny. There's a decent argument to be made that it's a corporate (or maybe bad writing) apologist straw man but I can't be arsed to make it.

The winter space ending? And one more story about the Shepard?

It's already here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm82gjZDIDU

Heh, linked that 2 pages ago.  Not sure I even was the first.

This is an excellent point that I think people are glossing over. Pandora's box is already open in terms of the "artistic" side of having multiple endings. This isn't like a novel that shipped, and fuck you if you don't like the ending. This is a choose your own adventure book where all your choices take you to the same last page where you end up dead.

The major difference is that a game is fixable. PA can chortle at fans all they want about wanting happy endings, but what fans really wanted was different endings. At the end of Deus Ex, you got choices. Merge, Status Quo, or reset society. Those are wildly different.

Isn't that the same choices as ME3?  You got a different picture with Deus Ex, but they really are the same in the two games.

It's just... it shouldn't have all boiled down to a single choice.  There should have been an epilogue as in Dragon Age or Fallout 3.  You did such-and-such over the course of the game: This is what resulted.  Thanks for having an impact on the galaxy.

I think it's what they were going for, but the fact that the rest of the story was deadlocked into blowing up Mass relays and stranding your crew? Nope, they didn't get the options right.

Honestly I could forgive the ending I got if it made even one lick of sense. Okay final drive to the tower of light to beam up to the citadel I had edi and tali with me. When I got zapped and got up they were on the ground as I staggered to the beam. Somehow in the time it took me to get to the beam and chat with the illusive man edi/tali were picked up by the normandy which then for some reason went hell bent for leather to the mass effect relay to leave the system.

Then the ship crashes and edi and tali are there and fine. So either the ending is not what really happens or there is just some built in whoever you play with the most shows up in the final screen damn the massive continuity fuckups it causes which makes it seem even more half assed.

Blow up the galaxy, and you blow up the relays. Fans are ok with this.
Merge with the Reapers, blow up the relays. Fans are scratching their heads.
Become synth Jesus, blow up the relays. Fans write you hate mail.

The colorblind quote is what got me the most for a good chuckle.

Some of the fan video/images in reaction to the ending have been pretty great.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10001051/1331849716659.jpg)

Heh, the "discussion about the endings" on the internets is changing from uproar to derision.  Then I guess it'll die out but we'll remember the derision.

That's because the internet is on stage 6 if you follow the 7-stages of grief model:  "Working Through" - Trying to find a way to cope.

http://masseffect3-ending-flavors.tumblr.com/

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9999272


 :facepalm:


E: Notes from ME3 Lead "Writer" Mac Walters -
(http://i.imgur.com/bSase.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/tGpU1.jpg)

So basically the ending was a doodle on a piece of scrap paper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rPelM2hwhJA

This really is amusing.

Wow the colors (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=MeAMNXT7-n8#t=245s) (timestamp doesn't stay in embed link, so either open on youtube or move to 4:05)

I was amused. I imagine Wrex's voice in the last panel, and can't help but smile.

Ending was still ass, though.

Casey Hudson on the Conclusion of Mass Effect 3
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/324/index/10089946

It could have been worse. The 'roll credits' song could have been Rick Astley - making this the biggest net Troll in the history of mankind...

"lol, pay us more money if you want closure"

That's how I read it. I'm don't want to see any more of Commander Shepard. The way Bioware implements its stories is getting a bit tired for me.

I keep thinking how they got caught in a lie with their marketing about the ending and its resulting implementation (along with other BS explanations like the Prothean DLC), and how, once the suspension of disbelief and faith was compromised, it would lead all the other things people might be uncomfortable with but never questioned as long the story was good to come rushing to the forefront.

Seems like this guy knew when to get out =p
http://blog.brentknowles.com/2009/08/18/onto-new-adventures/

Yeah, that basically reads as a confirmation of DLC designed to clean up the mess. Lulz.

Hopefully free, or free if you have the online pass. (Like the Cerberus Network stuff from ME2.)

Even on the off chance they'd want to give away free DLC, I don't think MS would let them do it on Live.

They did last game.

See, that's the sort of meaningless PR spin they should have had out on day one rather than ignoring everyone (and trolling via twitter) thereby making the situation much worse.

E:
Yeah, so, about that....
And that.

Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm82gjZDIDU
 :oh_i_see:

They gave stuff away through Cerberus network, which was of course free by buying the game new, but was also available for purchase on xbl.  I'm guessing that was also run by MS in advance.

Nah, their reactions have been following the PR playroom perfectly. Couple of people on BsN and neogaf have even posted about it. You don't respond to a controversy immediately, you bunker down and hope it goes away. If it doesn't you marginalise the complainers (as his post does - only the most ardent fans complained, even the new York times loved it omg!).

Let's face it, we're stuck with the worse ending to a game series made, and we'll get multiplayer add ons and 're-take omega' as DLC. Hopefully when they see the low uptake of the DLC they'll realise they fucked up. I want be buying it and I was dumb enough to buy both alternate art sets for my characters in ME2... (I wanted Thane to look pretty!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbghjn7_Byc

(https://i.minus.com/iYh3OKeN7xfLq.jpg)

Even if "It was all indoctrination!" wasn't the plan, Bioware would be fucking stupid to ignore it as a useful out for a (currently hypothetical) "Okay, here's what really happened" ending DLC.

From their comments it's becoming increasingly clear that the plan really was for the whole game to be a sequence of "endings" (and you can clearly see this is the structure of the game, really), and they seem to have been talking about the end of each planet as an "ending" when they previously were talking about how there aren't just a set number of endings like other games.

It's hilarious that they'd make that decision and then seemingly unintentionally make the final ending bit erase the state of the galaxy.  I would think "The whole game is an epilogue!" and "The end of the game has a twist that changes everything!" should be sort of obviously incompatible ideas.  Heh.

There's no such thing as a series of endings when you are trying to tie them into one story. That's the fallacy at play here. You are either telling several stories independently, or you are telling one story poorly.

I finished the game last night with my renegade femshep. Worst ending since Basttlestar Galactica. I was so let down I restarted the mission to see the different endings instead of playing through with one of my other Shephards. Disappointment cubed. Bioware games went from a 'must buy' to a 'maybe, if word of mouth is good'. Forget starting on any new trilogies.

I didn't cure the genophage and had to shoot Mordin  :heartbreak: and Wrex. I really wanted to know what the fallout of that would be once the krogan wised up. Nope, nothing. Same with every other plotline, no resolution, no closure.

I had six Shephards I'd played through both one and two. That's how much I've enjoyed the series. I'm finding it hard to find the motivation to even go through a second time with my paraqon shep.

Just a very disappointing end to a good ride.

The Online Pass is just the Cerberus Network renamed. It is also free if you buy the game new, entitles you to access certain features, etc. It probably won't be free of course, that will screw with their budgeting something fierce I'm sure.

 :heart:

The sad thing is this is completely Bioware's fault, not EA. Hell, EA are probably the people best in place to *fix* this as they can override the artistic bullshit that was the ending of ME3 because the fans are setting fire to the building.

God forbid one's motivation was to find out who the fuck these Reapers are. "You don't need to know..." Get the fuck out!

I mean, they were essentially emulating Revelation Space. Figures they fucked up their ending, too, just to keep things in line (fucking space bugs out of nowhere in RS).

Thing is, if Shepard is dying, and the last sequence is an indoctrination hallucination, why should we believe anything the Reapers reveal as "what happens next" as true?  It's pretty much mandatory DLC material, so the player can take over control of different characters / teammates, and see the truth of what's happening through their eyes.  Can't just add more Shepard DLC, I wouldn't believe him.

That said, regarding the ending, they probably should have implemented more obvious "hints" that it's a hallucination, in terms of variable voices on the protagonists, deformed / mutating models, fading in/out, missing time passages during conversations, floating about, stronger "oily shadows" overlays, etc.

Also would have been interesting to see just how creative the Reapers could get with the lies about their motivations etc.   I would have liked to see a lengthy discussion happening, where basically you can pick apart whatever reasoning they give, until it becomes obvious they're bulshitting.

Personally I really liked the ending. I've read some of the criticisms and its all just .. meh, the same old stuff, if something doesn't work for you, if your suspension of disbelief is ruined, of course you're going to nitpick all the stuff that doesn't make logical sense. For me it just worked, it was a powerful ending that I didn't feel let down by or feel the need to analyze every detail. Maybe behind the curtain it was as mechanical and stupid as Dues Ex HR's pick-the-button ending, but the magic dust worked on me and I didn't care what was behind the curtain, the emotional payoff worked.

The crack that you're on; share it with us  :grin:

The Reapers do seem an awful lot like the Inhibiters, don't they...  periodically killing off organic life, purportedly for the long term greater good of organic life...

(http://i.minus.com/ie14DsEeoinCT.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/9QKNJ.jpg)


Bioware has created a great ending. in the sense that the ending is taking place as gaming dramaz on the internets.

I guess this is one fan's interpretation of what would have made a good ending.

(http://i.imgur.com/kyCGO.jpg)

I'd rather not discuss the meaning of the end because for me it seems like validating or trying to rationalize something that's broken and was never intended to be underdstood that way anyway.

The "indoctrination" end theory doesn't make any sense though. If Shepard was indoctrinated at the end and the citadel stuff is the reapers trying to fuck with his/her mind then he/she lost. You couldn't trust anything Shepard saw or did on the citadel. It might just be a figment of his/her imagination while he/she lies at the foot of the hill leading to the conduit slowly dying. It would have been a great mindfuck or mission failed end if the final scene wasn't Buzz Aldrin talking to his imaginary grandkid but watching Shepard taking his/her last breath somewhere on earth or the citadel, with an eerie smile on his/her face and the reapers finally closing in.

From a story point of view an indoctrinated Shepard would mean that you couldn't even trust that anything after the squad being hit by reaper beam happened at all.

There clearly was never intended to be any subtext because such a stealth ending always contradicts something that happened before or after (the whole stargazer thing at the end only makes sense if Shepard really did what we saw)

You say that like it's a bad thing. Hypothetical "golden ending" DLC - rebalance the point/score thing so that all the variations of "wake up on Citadel, speak with starchild ghost space wizard, pick colour, die" are explicitly Bad Ends, and the real ending is Shepard going "No, fuck this shit, I reject your reality and substitute my own" then cut to 'gasp of breath in rubble' and carry on from there to the actual finish.

My time in SWTOR is just about done.  I think when I turn off the subscription for a reason I'll just put down "Lots of speculation from everyone at Bioware"

I really did lol.

Poor guy running that twitter.

Wow, that was a bad ending. It really destroyed my appreciation for the series retroactively because nothing I did mattered at all and the ending made no sense whatsoever.

Really, I should have stopped before the final assault and called it quits like people said I should. That way I would have remembered three great games with poignant moments. Any information what the original ending was supposed to be before everybody had a stroke and forgot how to write?

I can assume, since the Arrival DLC showed us that one exploding Gate destroys the whole system, that Shep managed to kill off most of the galaxy. Way to go, hero.

It's not either/or, but there's an unavoidable tension in asking the same mission to be hour five of Mass Effect 3 and hour eighty-five of Mass Effect.  Liara for example seems to resolve really early and then gets sent through the blender.  I understand the effect but it feels odd.

I finished earlier and am still collecting my thoughts.  Really, I'm still thinking, more like gushing incomprehensibly, about Priority: Tuchanka for one.

How I felt after going through with the Mordin conversation three times.  The first and last with my shooting him in the back and feeling awful about it.  The middle with me trying in vain to see if there was some other resolution that I had missed because of the interrupt.  Like I said, I felt terrible, but at the same time I felt good in having stuck to what I thought was right.  And that rollercoaster that got me to the point where I couldn't just feel confident and pleased that Shepard had "done what she had to do" even though no one would admit it, no, it stopped being about the Shepard I wanted around that point.  It was just me.

So, it's from that place that I say that I'm satisfied with the ending.  I got to say, well, maybe we can work this out and jumped into a big beam of light.  That's about as affirmative as I could stand after thirty hours of that.  And I'm pretty sure I'm not going back any time soon and I'm definitely not sticking around for some of the ambient conversations.

E: Spelling.

Thing that messes me up: everyone on the Citadel is presumed to have been killed when it was moved. Aria's likely dead, Bailey's likely dead. That's the strong indicator, at least.

Even if Shepard was indoctrinated -- then what? It's presumed the Crucible didn't help and that the Reapers won the battle for Earth. The galaxy map at the end was completely dominated. Cycle repeats itself.

The "series of endings" is like saying that a television series has a "series of endings", which each episode being an "ending". I guess we could start saying "The Finale Sucks!"

Psst. Synthesis was Saren/Sovereign's masterplan from ME1. Congratulations on making everyone husks.  :awesome_for_real:

http://www.gamepur.com/news/7426-fans-filing-ftc-complaints-against-ea-after-mass-effect-3-ending.html

And we've now cranked the fanboy rage level to 11  :grin:

What the hell is Miranda holding?

Wrex Junior.

I hated the ending so much that I'm not buying DLC or replaying the game. (Probably, the game is so amazing I might still reply and just turn off the console when I Anderson and Shepard finish their goodbyes) but I think this FTC stuff is childish and petty. It's basically a threat to Bioware and I really, really, dislike it.

EA's default Shepard is heading our way!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=alcgX3mjYaY

A Good Review: http://calitreview.com/24673

I wish you had posted that yesterday.  :drill: