BioWare "Considering" Calls for New Mass Effect 3 Ending

[JoshTheater]

You know what I really don't understand about this whole movement to get a new ending? What makes anyone think that even if BioWare DOES make a new ending, that it will be the ending you hoped for? If they couldn't provide a satisfying ending with their original plan for the story (which I'm sure they put an enormous amount of thought and effort into writing, or at least as much as they were capable of), what makes you think they'd be able to do better a second time around?

If anything, a new ending would feel tacked on and just be total pandering. They wouldn't be giving you their idea for the ending, they'd be giving the fans a footnote cobbled together at the last second based on what they've been told the ending should be, and it wouldn't feel like a natural part of the story they spent so long developing at all. You'd be better off just writing the ending you were hoping for yourself and then pretending it's the actual ending that was in the game.

If you're so upset about the ending of ME3 to the point of wanting to do something about it, then simply stop supporting BioWare with your wallet. If you're not willing to do that, then you should nut up and accept the fact that getting a shitty ending is just one risk you take by being the customer of entertainment. Sure, express your frustration to your peers about how disappointed or angered you were, but to expect the creators to change the ending because you didn't like it? Imagine if that sort of thing was allowed in any other medium, if people just allowed filmmakers to retcon the shitty ending of their movie after hearing everyone say how shitty it was, or if musicians could re-record albums they already released because the original sounded like shit? That's encouraging a low standard of quality...you're saying artists can get away with selling a poor product at first as long as they're able to fix it based on feedback later and then sell you a whole new product. That's madness.

I understand that the Mass Effect games are incredibly immersive, I love the games and have become totally emotionally involved while playing them. But at the end of the day, entertainment can fail to meet your expectations...this isn't a new concept. When it does, you need to step back and realize that it's only entertainment, and that perhaps you don't need to place as much importance in it as you might want to. Expecting creators of art (and the Mass Effect games are excellent examples of games as art) to tailor to your every whim, instead of crafting the story that they wanted to craft as an artist, contradicts the whole idea of art in the fist place. When you do so, you're acting entitled and childish.

This is the sort of silliness that causes people who don't know any better to look at the gaming community and say "What a bunch of nerds."

 

[teh_Canape]

I'm fine with the ending I got, granted there's some questions unanswered for me, but it was good enough for my experience with it

Spoiler: speaking of the ending

I find it pretty silly of people saying that the "destroy the reapers" ending, which also kills the geth, is bad because they put so much effort into saving the geth only for them to be destroyed as well
it's not bad, it's the catch
you can save the galaxy from being exterminated but you will exterminate an entire race to do it

I agree, with most choices throughout the series, there is usually a few choices in which there will be a catch. i.e. Curing the genophage, but losing the support of the majority of the Salarian fleets.

OT: All I can say is that Zeel is probably going to have to eat his words if his last thread was any indication. At least for now.

hell, even earlier in ME, when you could get the cure of the genophage but it was done so that the newborn krogan would basically be slaves to the reapers to a genetic degree

 

[The Wykydtron]

I'm down with the idea of open and productive communication with fans [although runaway incivility rarely seems far behind] but I still think the idea of demanding a new and "better" ending is ludicrous.

Please, explain why? As a customer it's Your duty to demand that the product You buy is of as good quality as it's advertised. If You pay for a 60$, so called "tripple A" title why should You be satisfied with something that doesn't meet Your expectations? When You buy a fancy TV that cost several thousand $ and find out that you can't change channels with a remote are You just accepting it is a "innovative, artistic expression"?
The game lacks an epilogue, an integral part of storytelling and writing. As customers we aren't slaves to companies and frankly if a company does something wrong we should yell about it, so next time they will think twice before making same mistake.

AH! Loss of enjoyment! That's what that's called! Two years of business school finally pays off! You can sue for that!

Oh and using an actual physical example when compared to an intellectual property really doesn't work. Yes if a TV has doesn't recognise its remote you can get a replacement (Sale of Goods Act 1979) but this is an experience people are trying to sue for. How do you debate or indeed judge, the quality of an experience that differs from person to person?

Honestly I think if this was an English court case it would get either dragged out for ages or thrown out in half a second. Probably the latter.

You can't apply standard Good/bad working/broken principles to an IP, it just simply doesn't work. You could have one person say it's a damn masterpiece yet the next says it's an utter mess.

You'd also need to decide on what exactly is wrong with it to claim for... It has "no closure" or it has "no epilogue" sounds really, really bad in court.

Really the major thing wrong with this whole lawsuit thing is that how do you measure the extent of the "damage" inflicted or indeed if there was anything wrong with it at all. Something disappointed you, so sorry, no you cannot sue for it. You set your own expectations

If this gets through and wins (it won't) fuck me everybody is gonna be suing every writer, artist etc etc in town. That's how the British legal system works. You take past cases, look at who won there and apply it the present case (very basic version).

"Oh look Bioware lost to rabid fanboys due to a "crappy ending" bam the benchmark is set. *cue lawsuits against Lost, The Sopranos ect etc.

Overall, it was as advertised and is of good quality. I fail to see the logic here (as a certain red coated devil once said)

 

[Canadish]

Good thing I didn't pay for the Mona Lisa

/thread.

Though saying that, the Mona Lisa does have a smile.
That's what many people find makes it such an enduring classic...
And the fact Mass Effect 3 clearly wasn't treated as a piece of art by the developers.
Considering the original vision was admittedly compromised by them with the folded in multiplayer...and the fact artist's don't sell 2/3 of the painting to you and then expect half the price again on top to fill their pockets...

Poor analogy on the original posters part I think.

I'm just staying away from any and all EA products in future. They just abuse their customers way to freely. I really hope the Escapist and other gaming media sites avoid using EA ads and refuse their early promotions in future.

Between the ruination of both Dragon Age and Mass Effect, as well as the long list of other talented studio's and fantastic franchises that have all been liquidated and destroyed, and their new policies on mandatory multiplayer, cutting content for early DLC, the horror stories of abuse to their employee's, talks about selling individual clips to players in micro transactions...

They're just scum.

No new ending for Mass Effect is going to change that.

 

[Avatar Roku]

For the most part, the fans aren't asking for the endings to be changed. They are asking to get endings where all their choices, made over the span of three games, will play out before them. They don't mind the current endings being kept. All they want is a chance to stay true to the whole adventure and fight the impossible odds. Not be constricted to a color choice.

Picking the red or blue color choice is what its amounted to in the past 2 games as well honestly.

Don't get me wrong, I like Mass Effect but the choices you make only have superficial impacts on how you play through the last 2 games. I never really felt that you to to experience the impacts of most of your choices. In the second game a lot of your choices from the first game end up only getting brief acknowledgement in the form of emails from people...I mean jeez emails? Show me, don't tell me. Its an interactive medium isn't it?

It was simple, binary choices in the previous games, but they at least were led up to. This one just came out of nowhere.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

BioWare, don't kowtow to a minority of whiners. You can't please them all; it is all rather silly anyway. Be strong in what you created; it is just fine.

Stick to your guns and you will get more respect, I know I will respect you more. You make the games, we don't. The players only play them, if they don't like what you do, they can go somewhere else. It won't be a problem because you won't lose that many players.

 

[sumanoskae]

If Da Vinci decided to change the Mona Lisa, for whatever reason, isn't that his right? In the example you gave, you suggest that power is held somewhere other than with the artist. That isn't the case.

A "demand" is still a request, by definition. Requesting better work from an artist isn't whining, it's the only positive response you can give to poor art.

Do you think Da vinci expected people to never voice their opinions on his work?

EDIT: It's also worth noting that to assume even BIOWARE liked this ending could be false. There are lots of reasons they might have ended up writing an ending they weren't proud of but had to use anyway. Consider not only how limited and contradictory the ending is to the rest of their design philosophy, but also how little it has in the way of production value compared to the rest of the game. It's basically a palate swap. This would be the last cutscene of the FRANCHISE, doesn't it strike anybody as strange that THIS is where they decided to cut corners?

 

[Seatownstriker]

All I gotta say is read the codex on Indoctrination, then watch the ending. I'm sure they planned closure, just not in a way everyone expected. And the doesn't mean its "wrong" or "needs to be fixed".

 

[grigjd3]

Ok, I don't think they should change their ending, but comparing it to the Mona Lisa is ridiculous and should be treated as such. One is a small portrait that happened to catch a lot of attention for the emotion shown by the subject while the other is a play-tested and process developed video game with a massive advertising budget paid for by one of the biggest video game corporations in existence. This "high art" mentality is a load of crap. I've been coming to The Escapist because you all tend to show a little self control and forethought. This, however, is getting old. Game developers who work for large production companies are NOT comparable to da Vinci and suggesting that this is anything other than a commercial enterprise is ridiculous.

 

[krellen]

I'm down with the idea of open and productive communication with fans [although runaway incivility rarely seems far behind] but I still think the idea of demanding a new and "better" ending is ludicrous. I don't really have a stake in either side of this debate, although I think it's absolutely fantastic that the Retake Mass Effect - Child's Play [http://retakemasseffect.chipin.com/retake-mass-effect-childs-play] donation drive has so far raised over $67,000, but you don't paint a new smile on the Mona Lisa just because the original's a bit flat.

Professionally speaking, Mr. Chalk, this paragraph has no place in your article. Your commentary on the news is welcome, but it belongs in the same place as ours: in the comments.

The Escapist has a place for opinion columns, over in the "Features" (or "Videos") section. Your news reporters should stick to reporting the news.

 

[PeterDawson]

Yes, a video game and a painting are easy to compare since you spend hundreds of hours going through every detail of the painting, and its previous sister paintings, only to discover they were all secretly created using feces instead of paint. You want Da Vinci, not the works of Colin Mocherie (if you get this joke, good on you).

 

[Undead Dragon King]

As our favorite Drell assassin would say:

How interesting.

 

[AbstractStream]

Even though I didn't like the ending, I'm not for changing it either. Adding onto it would be nice though. We'll just have to wait and see what Bioware decides.

Watching Jim's new video has made me feel a whole lot better about this mess.

 

[Doug]

I'm fine with the ending I got, granted there's some questions unanswered for me, but it was good enough for my experience with it

Spoiler: speaking of the ending

I find it pretty silly of people saying that the "destroy the reapers" ending, which also kills the geth, is bad because they put so much effort into saving the geth only for them to be destroyed as well
it's not bad, it's the catch
you can save the galaxy from being exterminated but you will exterminate an entire race to do it

Spoiler

I would agree with you, but the child-god thing does an extremely poor job of saying why it's necessary. In fact, -why- is it necessary? In fact, why can't you say to the child-god thing 'umm, hate to blow a bubble in your 'solution', but we managed to get the creators and the created to calm down and play nice with each other this cycle. I don't see you're logic as being proven'.

As for the Geth and EDI needing to die, why? How? Sure, he's bound to have some form of off switch for the Reapers for this very scenario, but how is he going to kill all Geth and EDI in a single go?

It's bad because the logic either isn't their at all, or is poorly described at best.

 

[Jodah]

I honestly don't have a problem with demanding a new ending. Let's face it, it is extremely difficult to get the numbers to make such a demand. I can only think of one time the online community has been up in arms to such a degree and that is the real name on forums nonsense Blizzard tried. It's not like it is just a handful of people complaining. The vast majority of those who played ME3 are upset.

This isn't something we will see every time there is a controversial ending. This is something we will see when a developer truly does something spectacularly stupid. Everyone knows how difficult it is to unite the online community. It takes something truly remarkable to do it. To me, those are the things that should be challenged.

 

[scorptatious]

I'm fine with the ending I got, granted there's some questions unanswered for me, but it was good enough for my experience with it

Spoiler: speaking of the ending

I find it pretty silly of people saying that the "destroy the reapers" ending, which also kills the geth, is bad because they put so much effort into saving the geth only for them to be destroyed as well
it's not bad, it's the catch
you can save the galaxy from being exterminated but you will exterminate an entire race to do it

I agree, with most choices throughout the series, there is usually a few choices in which there will be a catch. i.e. Curing the genophage, but losing the support of the majority of the Salarian fleets.

OT: All I can say is that Zeel is probably going to have to eat his words if his last thread was any indication. At least for now.

hell, even earlier in ME, when you could get the cure of the genophage but it was done so that the newborn krogan would basically be slaves to the reapers to a genetic degree

But you couldn't choose whether or not to get the cure. Shepard's mind was pretty much set to destroy the cure if it meant preventing Saren from raising an army of indoctrinated krogan.

You could choose whether or not to kill Wrex though. As he opposed the idea of destroying it.

Speaking of which, has anyone else seen what happens if you sabotage the cure with Wrex alive? Made me really sad...

 

[N_of_the_dead]

How can the game be compared to the Mona Lisa when that is a finished piece of work yet bioware says they are still making new things for ME3? I get the ending was finished but I'd compare that more to if Leonardo da Vinci finished the Mona Lisa by putting a straight line instead of an actual smile.

 

[gundamrx101]

I'm still a firm believer of the indoctrination theory.

If Bioware manage to pull off what I think they're pulling off, it will be awesome.

I think it would be silly for them not to run with it honestly. Most the work is done for them.

Exactly. If that wasn't their idea to begin with, they'd be foolish not to follow up on it and claim that it was always the case.

I have never seen a more compelling conspiracy theory in fiction before. There is so much evidence! :O

Yeah, I think there's too much evidence for it to be just speculation.

I just want to some damn closure, I don't care if Shepard has to die for it.

The thing that sticks in my craw with this one is that the main write of ME3 resigned just before ME3 was released. I still simply cannot belive that there is not a connection there. One I have not seen others really highlighting yet. I don't think there was a good plan, I think he quit over the ending and Hudson's reluctance to change it. My 2 Cents anyway.

You might be onto to something, the original ending Drew wrote revealed the Reapers to be combating the spread of dark energy and that without their interference, Dark Energy would spread and wipe out ALL existence. So detailed in the original script leak you had a multitude of choices that boiled down to allowing the Reapers to harvest everyone so they can be prepared to combat the surge of Dark Energy, work alongside the Reapers, beat the Reapers and leave fate up to chance, or damn everything just to sooth your own ego.

Script leaked, bioware changed it and then Drew retired.

 

[Doug]

I'm fine with the ending I got, granted there's some questions unanswered for me, but it was good enough for my experience with it

Spoiler: speaking of the ending

I find it pretty silly of people saying that the "destroy the reapers" ending, which also kills the geth, is bad because they put so much effort into saving the geth only for them to be destroyed as well
it's not bad, it's the catch
you can save the galaxy from being exterminated but you will exterminate an entire race to do it

I agree, with most choices throughout the series, there is usually a few choices in which there will be a catch. i.e. Curing the genophage, but losing the support of the majority of the Salarian fleets.

OT: All I can say is that Zeel is probably going to have to eat his words if his last thread was any indication. At least for now.

hell, even earlier in ME, when you could get the cure of the genophage but it was done so that the newborn krogan would basically be slaves to the reapers to a genetic degree

But you couldn't choose whether or not to get the cure. Shepard's mind was pretty much set to destroy the cure if it meant preventing Saren from raising an army of indoctrinated krogan.

You could choose whether or not to kill Wrex though. As he opposed the idea of destroying it.

Speaking of which, has anyone else seen what happens if you sabotage the cure with Wrex alive? Made me really sad...

I didn't destroy the cure myself, but I'm impressed with that cutscene.

This is partly what annoyies me so much about the ending; most of the game was superb, and scenes like that really impress me with their emotion - alot of questions where answered and many plot threads where resolved.

But then the ending undoes quite alot of the work you did and is wholly unsatisfying. To use the Mona Lisa analogy, its like they where nearly finished with a masterpiece, and then out of the blue, they had a fit, splashed random colours in the final corner, and fell over. Then the landlord just sold the painting as was when clearing out the body.

I loved Mass Effect 3, it really delivered on alot of stuff I wanted, but it spoiled it all with the nonsensical ending. Maybe no ending would have been satisfying - after all, its the climax of 3 games over 5(?) years; but honestly, this is pretty poor, and they could have done a much better job.