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

[Ingmar]

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.

[ajax34i]

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

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.

[Riggswolfe]

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.

[MournelitheCalix]

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.

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

[Ingmar]

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!

[Fordel]

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

[Sir T]

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"?

[MournelitheCalix]

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.

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.

[Ingmar]

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

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.

[Ingmar]

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.

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.

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.

[ajax34i]

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.

[Maledict]

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.

[Ingmar]

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   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?

[Fordel]

The bad part spoils the good part is why.

[Ingmar]

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.  

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

[Rokal]

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.

"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.

[ajax34i]

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).

[Fordel]

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.  

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

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

[Maledict]

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   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?

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.

[Ingmar]

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

[Ingmar]

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.  

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

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

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.)

[Fordel]

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.

[Ingmar]

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.

[Fordel]

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?

[Simond]

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!

Oh for fucks sake stop being such a fucking fanboy.

[Ingmar]

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?

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.

[Abelian75]

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.

[Ingmar]

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.

[Merusk]

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

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.

[Ingmar]

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

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.

[Lakov_Sanite]

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

[Merusk]

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.

[MournelitheCalix]

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.

[Jeff Kelly]

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.

[Jeff Kelly]

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]