Bioware forums explode as Mass Effect 3 ending details are leaked. *MINOR SPOILERS*

[SajuukKhar]

The endings make sense..I think what people are fussing over is just the fact that they don't explain how your decisions affected other civilizations after the conclusion. The ending was fine, just no closure on anything that you did to get there.

They shouldn't have to hold your hand and spell out every single thing that happened afterwards

I find it sad gamers nowadays are so adamant in not using their imaginations.

 

[Ravinius]

SajuukKhar you realise that even fallout had screens describing what happened to various communities living in the wastelands.
What wonders me most is the fact that bioware effectively forced itself into creating only prequels and interquels set in the mass effect universe. Or god forbid mmorpg.

 

[Xpheyel]

Except for forcing everyone to be cyborg? Or controlling the Reapers to get all their technological secrets anyway? Your defense only makes sense for the Destroy ending. The other two are the opposite of the self determination theme you're convinced underlies the other games.

Also, originally, the Citadel was the keystone of their strategy. Once the Protheans underminded control of it and started building their own relays, the Reaper master plan should be screwed to hell.

Destroying the relay network would be a great ending if it actually seemed necessary. Since the Reapers apparently don't need them to cross galactic diameters, they just seem unimportant. Except for awkwardly blowing up the setting at last minute for some reason.

They aren't really cyborg, they are beyond both organic and machine. Also that was a choice made by a member of the galactic civilization on behalf of the galactic civilizations. It was a choice that we made for ourselves. Instead of one the Reapers made for us.

As for the control ending at that point the Reapers are now our technology, they are something we fought for and learned ton control, anything we build with them now will be a creation of our own.

So because I'm an organic being that grew up in the Milky Way galaxy, I'm qualified to overwrite the DNA of everyone in it! Good to know! I'd put in a line of code that makes everyone not like the ending of this game though.

Seriously guys, I'm totally turning you all into cyborgs if I get the chance. Be sure to say "I didn't ask for this" and pout over your new super powers for me!

For control? So we fought the Reapers', won their technology, including the relays. They get blown up anyway though. It's still completely off the rails of that whole theme thing.

The only way it DOES make sense is if you say the Reapers' influence is so bad it has got to go in it's entirety. But that's more like fanatically extirpating the influence of an alien culture you disapprove of than it is some kind of gateway to self determination.

 

[samplexample]

How can you people hurry through the game just to see the ending and expect it to be good? I did that exact thing just so i could see the ending and assumed the worst for ol shep.
I didnt even get the synthesis option the first time, which i thought was a good choice option, since a ME theme has always been equality of all life. im sure there will be epilogue DLC, but i thought the ending was great. it was either bittersweet or just bitter. im pretty sure the people that werent satisfied were expecting a happy ending where they ride off into the sunset...

 

[samplexample]

also, shep CAN live if ur GR level is high enough. i think the thing people care about is closure with the aftermath and such...which i DO sympathize with. but using your imagination is fine with me. thats what i used before video games!

 

[xnara1985x]

I really hate how to get an ending where shep lives you have to wipe out the geth which I made my allies and probably EDI was well. What really sucks is how can there be any type of spin off or sequel set after this? All the mass relays were destroyed!!! They dont have the tech to rebuild them! It says it can take centuries to reach certain parts of space. What about the fleets you brought with you? I had over 7k in war assets so I got every single possible one that I could and what they are going to starve because some races need special diets (krogans had to take food to the turian planet, because they couldn't eat the food that was there). They say this is a bitter sweet ending, so wrong! This was a complete downer. I cant even play mass effect 1 anymore which was my favorite because of how 3 ends. This truly makes me sad, no video game, movie, tv show, has ever left me with such a feeling before. I implore bioware from the bottom of my heart to release some type of dlc which at least gives us a better ending or some good news before their hq is marched upon and bestow upon them a much greater sense of dread and despair then the reapers could!

 

[sonofliber]

They shouldn't have to hold your hand and spell out every single thing that happened afterwards

I find it sad gamers nowadays are so adamant in not using their imaginations.

man books are sad, with all those epiloges wrapping up what happened after the events and to the people we cared about, they dont leave anything to the imagination


also:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o_C18ytst0

from the looks of it shep is on earth, and at 3sec its that a repear you hear?, because that would mean that shep never got inside the citadel and the endings werent such (since that happens after the detroy ending), could this be bioware cop out for a dcl if people didnt like the ending?

holy shit i do think its a reaper:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKxXqAuPe3E

 

[Ravinius]

The problem with the endings is that there's no earn your happy ending. An ending where races of the galaxy win at great cost but there's hope for galactic civilization and Shephard&co get to live. Instead we get inferred holocaust in pretty much all endings. For me these endings essentially undermine the themes of the series- determination, hope, fighting against destiny and ball crushing badass. Instead we get deus ex machina.

 

[Tuxedoman]

I have a lot of complaints about the ending.
Now, I don't mind the death of Shepard. Having your character die at the end is all fine by me.
What I don't get is this:

1: The biggest of all my concerns, THE MASS RELAYS WERE DESTROYED? Did Bioware not read their own writing? You destroy a Mass Relay in ME2, and in doing so, destroy the star system its in. So, we save the galaxy by wiping out every star system with a Mass Relay, and in turn, all sentient life. In every ending. No matter what.
Grand.

2: What happened to the Normandy? Why exactly did it jump through the relay? And further more, why did Javis get out at the planet? He was with me. Attacking the reaper at the end.
Once again, Grand.

3: If the Citadel was the creator of the reapers, then why did mass effect even exist? Saren's quest was to open up the Citadel relay and let the Reapers in. If the Citadel was concious its self, then why did it need a Turian to do it for it?

4: There is no closure for your actions. Even if Shepard dies, and the mass relays stop working (ignoring the fact they should kill everyone quicker than the reapers would have), there is no explanation as to what happened to the characters we spent so long getting to know.

A new ending wouldn't even be that hard to do. You learn nothing about the reapers motivations until the very end, when that reaper opens fire on you. Heck, from that moment on is when the game's story turns to shit really.

ANYTHING would be better to the ending we're offered. All hope of galactic civilisation gone, the planets that wouldn't have been destroyed by the relays most likely soon going to simply die out due to relying on galactic trade. Just... Bleh.

 

[xnara1985x]

I agree with tuxedoman

 

[Acton Hank]

Except for forcing everyone to be cyborg? Or controlling the Reapers to get all their technological secrets anyway? Your defense only makes sense for the Destroy ending. The other two are the opposite of the self determination theme you're convinced underlies the other games.

Also, originally, the Citadel was the keystone of their strategy. Once the Protheans underminded control of it and started building their own relays, the Reaper master plan should be screwed to hell.

Destroying the relay network would be a great ending if it actually seemed necessary. Since the Reapers apparently don't need them to cross galactic diameters, they just seem unimportant. Except for awkwardly blowing up the setting at last minute for some reason.

They aren't really cyborg, they are beyond both organic and machine. Also that was a choice made by a member of the galactic civilization on behalf of the galactic civilizations. It was a choice that we made for ourselves. Instead of one the Reapers made for us.

As for the control ending at that point the Reapers are now our technology, they are something we fought for and learned ton control, anything we build with them now will be a creation of our own.

The problem is that the issue presented by the Guardian holds no weight. The only examples of synthetics destroying organics in this cycle were remedied (EDI and the Geth being the primary examples and the Geth never actually wanted to kill their creators) rendering the Guardian's point completely moot. There is no evidence suggesting that the use of Reaper tech leads to synthetics killing organics. The only thing it does is make organics easier to harvest when the Reapers show up.

EDI and Geth are but two examples, and those two examples do not provide a consistent pattern, nor do they prove that synthetic life in general can be reasoned with.

If you really think that just because they made peace with the Geth means all possible future synthetic life would be just as accommodating or reasonable then I really have no idea on what to say because..... that is a stretch, and a unreasonable one at that.

And how exactly "is galactic civilization going to be able to exist on it's own strenghts" if you chose the control option, which basically means that the reapers are forced to do whatever Shepard tells them to, including rebuilding the Mass Relays, or the Destroy option where organics could examine the remains of the thousands of dead reapers for their technology, and don't get me started on the synthesis option.
How exactly is this going to "free them from the enslavement of reaper tech"?
You're not making a lick of sense.

Because

1. At the point that Shepard controls The Reapers, they become a tool of the galactic civilizations. No longer are they overlords, ruling over us as setting their own path for us, they our devices for us that we can use to make our own path.

The destination of that path might be the same as The Reaper's path, but what matters is that now we are the ones making it for ourselves using our own tools.

It is the same as The Geth making their own dyson sphere, and the heretic Geth being given a body that does the same thing. Both are the same outcomes, but one is down on their own their own, and one is being given to them, it is not the destination that matters but the path we take to reach it.
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2. As for the merge ending it is true we would not be doing thing on our own, but the Reapers wouldn't be doing things for us either. With the merge ending "we" as we are stop existing, and become "them", and "they" will use "their" own methods, which would be different from both The Reapers and the normal civilizations, as they are both and neither.

They would be doing things on their own, with their own strength, which is the combined strength of organics and synthetics, the knowledge of both, the reliance on neither.
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3. As for the destroy option, yes we could reverse engineer Reaper tech and use it as a basis for future tech, the difference however is that instead of being handed the technology as the mass relays and all technology based off of it were, we have now have the chance to do it ourselves, and make improvements on The Reapers designs, and spread in new directions then the reapers designs.

As it was before we were locked into the Reapers path, unable to advance beyond their plans, now we have a chance to go so mcuh farther and in so many different directions.

1 Therefore the choice of how to aquire certain tech has no meaning, Which means the Control option is no different than the Destroy option, other than the extinction of synthethic life.

2 "As for the merge ending it is true we would not be doing thing on our own, but the Reapers wouldn't be doing things for us either. With the merge ending "we" as we are stop existing, and become "them", and "they" will use "their" own methods, which would be different from both The Reapers and the normal civilizations, as they are both and neither.

They would be doing things on their own, with their own strength, which is the combined strength of organics and synthetics, the knowledge of both, the reliance on neither."

Can anyone explain to me what exactly he is trying to say?, Because it makes no sense the way he wrote it.

3 So again what is the difference between in the outcome between the contro and the destroy options? other than extinction of synthetic life.

 

[Acton Hank]

Except for forcing everyone to be cyborg? Or controlling the Reapers to get all their technological secrets anyway? Your defense only makes sense for the Destroy ending. The other two are the opposite of the self determination theme you're convinced underlies the other games.

Also, originally, the Citadel was the keystone of their strategy. Once the Protheans underminded control of it and started building their own relays, the Reaper master plan should be screwed to hell.

Destroying the relay network would be a great ending if it actually seemed necessary. Since the Reapers apparently don't need them to cross galactic diameters, they just seem unimportant. Except for awkwardly blowing up the setting at last minute for some reason.

They aren't really cyborg, they are beyond both organic and machine. Also that was a choice made by a member of the galactic civilization on behalf of the galactic civilizations. It was a choice that we made for ourselves. Instead of one the Reapers made for us.

As for the control ending at that point the Reapers are now our technology, they are something we fought for and learned ton control, anything we build with them now will be a creation of our own.

The problem is that the issue presented by the Guardian holds no weight. The only examples of synthetics destroying organics in this cycle were remedied (EDI and the Geth being the primary examples and the Geth never actually wanted to kill their creators) rendering the Guardian's point completely moot. There is no evidence suggesting that the use of Reaper tech leads to synthetics killing organics. The only thing it does is make organics easier to harvest when the Reapers show up.

EDI and Geth are but two examples, and those two examples do not provide a consistent pattern, nor do they prove that synthetic life in general can be reasoned with.

If you really think that just because they made peace with the Geth means all possible future synthetic life would be just as accommodating or reasonable then I really have no idea on what to say because..... that is a stretch, and a unreasonable one at that.

And how exactly "is galactic civilization going to be able to exist on it's own strenghts" if you chose the control option, which basically means that the reapers are forced to do whatever Shepard tells them to, including rebuilding the Mass Relays, or the Destroy option where organics could examine the remains of the thousands of dead reapers for their technology, and don't get me started on the synthesis option.
How exactly is this going to "free them from the enslavement of reaper tech"?
You're not making a lick of sense.

Because

1. At the point that Shepard controls The Reapers, they become a tool of the galactic civilizations. No longer are they overlords, ruling over us as setting their own path for us, they our devices for us that we can use to make our own path.

The destination of that path might be the same as The Reaper's path, but what matters is that now we are the ones making it for ourselves using our own tools.

It is the same as The Geth making their own dyson sphere, and the heretic Geth being given a body that does the same thing. Both are the same outcomes, but one is down on their own their own, and one is being given to them, it is not the destination that matters but the path we take to reach it.
.
.
.
2. As for the merge ending it is true we would not be doing thing on our own, but the Reapers wouldn't be doing things for us either. With the merge ending "we" as we are stop existing, and become "them", and "they" will use "their" own methods, which would be different from both The Reapers and the normal civilizations, as they are both and neither.

They would be doing things on their own, with their own strength, which is the combined strength of organics and synthetics, the knowledge of both, the reliance on neither.
.
.
.
3. As for the destroy option, yes we could reverse engineer Reaper tech and use it as a basis for future tech, the difference however is that instead of being handed the technology as the mass relays and all technology based off of it were, we have now have the chance to do it ourselves, and make improvements on The Reapers designs, and spread in new directions then the reapers designs.

As it was before we were locked into the Reapers path, unable to advance beyond their plans, now we have a chance to go so mcuh farther and in so many different directions.

1 Therefore the choice of how to aquire certain tech has no meaning, Which means the Control option is no different than the Destroy option, other than the extinction of synthethic life.

2 "As for the merge ending it is true we would not be doing thing on our own, but the Reapers wouldn't be doing things for us either. With the merge ending "we" as we are stop existing, and become "them", and "they" will use "their" own methods, which would be different from both The Reapers and the normal civilizations, as they are both and neither.

They would be doing things on their own, with their own strength, which is the combined strength of organics and synthetics, the knowledge of both, the reliance on neither."

Can anyone explain to me what exactly he is trying to say?, Because it makes no sense the way he wrote it.

3 So again what is the difference between in the outcome between the contro and the destroy options? other than extinction of synthetic life.

Also about Fappy's argument:
EDI and the Geth may be the exception but this also means that organic life being destroyed by synthetic life isn't a certainty; which means that the Reapers are killing hundereds of billions of people on something that MAY not even happen.

 

[Tuxedoman]

I have hope again.

Yes, this is a utterly unreliable rumour. Yes, the OP types like a down syndrome monkey. But... No matter how money snatching this is on Bioware/EA's part it may very well be a possible conclusion.

http://www.gamespot.com/mass-effect-3/forum/leaked-mass-effect-3-ending-information-spoilers-62208604/

Everything fits. It would explain why Anderson all of a sudden teleported onto the Citadel, why the Catalyst is a six year old child, why the people on board the Normandy have green glowies around them, why no one was killed by the Mass Relay destruction, and more importantly, why when you see Shepard live, He's on earth. Not the Citadel, Earth.
If the Citadel exploded, then he wouldn't be alive. There's no way he could have survived both the station exploding AND re-entry.

Seems Bioware may have been intending to make DLC endings all along. Im not sure if this makes me happier or sadder.
Actually, I am sure. Anything is better than that Endingtron 3000 we were given. Synthesis doesn't even make sense... How can radiation/light/Element Zero turn everything into Organic/Synthetic Hybrids? Furthermore, how does that help in the situation at all?
People can now all see through walls, and the reapers now all have hair. Fan-fucking-tastic.

 

[Acton Hank]

I have hope again.

Yes, this is a utterly unreliable rumour. Yes, the OP types like a down syndrome monkey. But... No matter how money snatching this is on Bioware/EA's part it may very well be a possible conclusion.

http://www.gamespot.com/mass-effect-3/forum/leaked-mass-effect-3-ending-information-spoilers-62208604/

Everything fits. It would explain why Anderson all of a sudden teleported onto the Citadel, why the Catalyst is a six year old child, why the people on board the Normandy have green glowies around them, why no one was killed by the Mass Relay destruction, and more importantly, why when you see Shepard live, He's on earth. Not the Citadel, Earth.
If the Citadel exploded, then he wouldn't be alive. There's no way he could have survived both the station exploding AND re-entry.

Seems Bioware may have been intending to make DLC endings all along. Im not sure if this makes me happier or sadder.
Actually, I am sure. Anything is better than that Endingtron 3000 we were given. Synthesis doesn't even make sense... How can radiation/light/Element Zero turn everything into Organic/Synthetic Hybrids? Furthermore, how does that help in the situation at all?
People can now all see through walls, and the reapers now all have hair. Fan-fucking-tastic.

I'll believe that when I see it. And releasing the true ending as DLC is inexcusable, so unless it's completely free I am never buying anything from Bioware ever again, and neither should anyone else, I mean if we have to pay for a game's ending where does it end?!

 

[Acton Hank]

This

Yes because a person in the future from the Normandy colony, showing that The Normandy colony was able to grow and survive showing that civilization is continuing to a degree, even without the mass relays, doesn't show that civilization is still going?

contradictory much.

How do you know it's from the Normandy colony?! It never implies that.

 

[KillerKaiser]

You mean the one with the importance of your choices?

The importance of your choices comes into pay during the game itself not the endings.

The two most important theme of the series are Self-sacrifice and self-Determination.

If you though Shepard was going to be anything but dead by the end of the series you missed the point.

My only disappointment with the endings is that they put a tester ending that hints he is alive if you achieve certain goals.

The Main theme of the game is SURVIVAL, ie not dying. But I digress. Anyway the game is great but the ending....the ending is like being forced to masturbate with sandpaper. Masturbating is great but the sandpaper takes all the fun out of it and it hurts too.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

...and more importantly, why when you see Shepard live, He's on earth. Not the Citadel, Earth.

If the Citadel exploded, then he wouldn't be alive. There's no way he could have survived both the station exploding AND re-entry.

This is about the one thing I could see supporting the theory of an alternate ending DLC. Because you're right, even in the most woo-tastic scenario possible, Shepard isn't falling off the exploding Citadel and waking up on Earth, a little worse for wear.

I do, however, think it's unlikely that they'd release the full, cathartic ending to their long running series as a separate, and therefore optional, DLC or expansion. Not impossible, but unlikely.

 

[samplexample]

LISTEN UP PEOPLE OF BOTH OPINIONS. i need someone to confirm this first part, but im pretty sure that the true ending is locked on the disc. they are waiting to release it for the biggest twist ever. someone wrote on some bioware forum that they noticed their pc version only took up 11GB or something thike that (specs say 15GB). someone that has pc verson check that...
but as for the ending, i really do think its only part of the true ending. i beleive that at some point (either by harbingers beam during the rush or blood loss at crucible controls) shepard loses consciousness and haluncinates that ending, which is meant to be symbolic.
shepard is experienceing the final stages of indoctrination. shepard has always been around reapers and reapoer tech since the first game. that kid is harbinger, manifested in shepards mind to trick him. besides being creepy, think of shepards dreams... enveloped in flames? with shpeard envelpoed in flames? thats devious.
now think of the chloices shepard is 'faced' with. didnt anyone else think it was wierd that the two 'best' options seemed to mesh with reaper ideology? thats because thats sheaprd's final stage of indoctrination. only by staying steadfast in your goal(since the beiginning of the series) to destroy the reaoers, you break control and survive, which hints that there is more.
either this is direstly implied and just went over everyone's heads, a hint at expansion dlc, or even my overanalyzation, i think people need to concider that maybe bioware plane all of this. after all, is this theory more believable or the fact bioware tried like hell for 8 years to make a great game and "didnt try" at the ending? if you think theyr planning something too, repost this. the bioware forums are blowing up.

 

[DeadYorick]

Goddamnit...I really want to look at the ending but I also don't. Oh the moral dilemmas.

Um...I'm actually psyched. Depressing? FINALLY A GAME THAT HAS THE BALLS TO NOT PULL OUT THE BULLSHIT HAPPY ENDING!

Um loads of games have bad endings...

RPGs tend to do that a lot, have a good ending and a bad ending. Haven't you ever played Clock Tower? Where they'd penalize you with a tragic ending if you tried to complete the game early without solving the mystery. Silent Hill had a butt load of endings and about half of them were tragic.