Mass Effect 3 Spoiler Thread [Spoiler tag free, beware]

[Rokal]

More ending thoughts:

[Sjofn]

ending blah blah

[Nonentity]

ending blah blah

[Sjofn]

ending blah blah

[jakonovski]

Now that I've let it simmer:

[luckton]

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.  The kid says "You only have one choice.  Do it or GTFO."

B) The "Ok, I sorta cared a little" ending.  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.  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.

[cironian]

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.

[Njal]

Now that I've let it simmer:

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.

[jakonovski]

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

[Fabricated]

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*

[Jeff Kelly]

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.

[jakonovski]

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...

[Shrike]

What pisses me off is that it invalidates the effort players put into three games worth of story.

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).

[luckton]

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

[Polysorbate80]

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.

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.

[Simond]

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

[Sir T]

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.

[Pezzle]

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

[Sir T]

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

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.

[Lakov_Sanite]

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"

[Sir T]

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

[Polysorbate80]

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.

[Simond]

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

You mean Mass Effect Online, right?

[Stormwaltz]

Notes on tech and colonization:

[Polysorbate80]

[MournelitheCalix]

On galactic populations:

[bhodi]

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.

[Fabricated]

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


Dunno if anyone will get what this is referencing however.

[Velorath]

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

You mean Mass Effect Online, right?

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.

[jakonovski]

This somehow feels apt:

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

edit: and this

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

[Nonentity]

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

You mean Mass Effect Online, right?

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.

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.

[schild]

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.

[Fabricated]

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

[Merusk]

There's a not-shitty ending in FA3?

[Fabricated]

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.