Confesion of a non-player about Mass Effect 3 (spoiler free)

[DioWallachia]

Yes i haven't play Mass Effect of any related thing to that series..

(waits for the comments that insult me for not playing it)

Done with that? good. Why i don't play it? my reasons are my own for not liking it, i am the kind of person that finds more interesting watching the Red Letter Media videos about Star Wars rather than watching the movies, specially his comparison of George Lucas to Charles Foster Kane of the Citizen Kane movie.

However i find the ending controversy of Mass Effect 3 interesting on his own for his "impact" on the gaming world. So lets start at the beginning in a very short but necessary butchering of the events that lead me to this point.

After hearing some superficial news about "dumbing down ME3" and "Gears of Effect" and "Day 1 DLC = RAAAAAAAAGE" i didn't actually though highly of the ME fanbase even if they may be right about EA following the leader and tampering the development of a RPG series.
Then the game came out and the complains about the endings reached this very forum, i read most of them and agreed that they were badly executed and rushed, and since i am not a fan i therefore don't know about the lore but judge the game on his own merits in the same way that Mr. Plinket judges how the Star Wars prequels failed as films FIRST and the rest later....

.......But then i read the "Indoctrination Theory" about the endings and i understood perfectly the situation, in fact, it seems deceptively easy to understand to the point of being just weird that no fan catched up instantly to what is going on (unlike me). The last minutes of the game have attention to detail that only a fan of the whole series would understand, after all this is why this trope exist:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLawOfConservationOfDetail

So here lies the problem. If Bioware wanted to have a large amount of fans to notice the ending details then why would they alienate them so much to the point of having no fans but newcomers, playing the game and declaring that its ending sucks because obviously they havent been previously exposed to the kind of information that a fan would have? The way i see that most people complain about the ending makes me believe that they were newcomers (like me even if don't play) who complaining CONSTANTLY without being absolutely clear except for very few exceptions. A demographic that wouldn't have appeared if they hadn't dumbed down ME3 and tried to appeal as many people as possible, things that made your fanbase leave the sinking ship before even reaching the endings.

The result is an ending that nobody gets what is the deal about it because its meaning isn't for the new people, its for the fanbase that is no longer there for being alienated of the idea of having their "perfect" game being played by the evils of *!GASP!* CASUALS!!!

But the biggest punch in the balls is that if it wasn't for the Internet age then this "real" ending wouldn't be even on the works. No wait, i take that back, even with the Internet, if the developers had taken more time to answer the endings issue then the fan reaction would most likely be "Oooooh, it was intended all along, yeah suuuuuuuuure buddy. Don't even try to win us over after what you did, you fucking traitor"

Just the mere idea of gamers being THIS irrational and hateful makes me believe that other games had suffered trough this and its one of the many reasons that the developers eventually lose their hope for making a unique game. After all, if a massive response to the endings come from people who dont know anything about the series at all then its more likely that Bioware just give up completely and let EA take decisions for them 100%, why try to leave a mark on the world when the people cant even remember something on a previous game or even something that was shown right in their faces?

Maybe we have so little confidence on games today that even the idea of subtlety in details just escapes our comprehension. We need to lay off the hate before it we become the unwitting pawns of the destruction of all future games.

Thank you for your time.

(Bonus points if you read all this with the Dark Age ending music from Deus Ex 1 or Ozar Midrashim from Legacy of Kain)

Oh and here is the link for the Indoctrination Theory if you didnt already know
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ythY_GkEBck

 

[DoPo]

Thank you, that was a good post and I support it. Although just today I decided to stop caring about spoilers (too many have already been spoiled for me so why bother if other people don't want to respect them).

I sense a flame war coming on, though. Prepare. Somebody might not be pleased with the endings.

 

[boag]

SNIP

Are you assuming that most of the people that complain about the ending are newcomers to the series?

 

[Kingme18]

Please, SOMEBODY just tell me what happened to the Krogans! Did they hyperbreed and take revenge for the genophage or were they inducted into the citadel as a council race? What about the Quarians and Geth? Did they live in peace and coexist on Rannoch? Did the Geth realize that they are superior and wipe out the Quarians?

Oh, wait, it doesn't matter. I could've done whatever I wanted throughout the entire series and the end would still be basically the same.

 

[Jodah]

Some ending spoilers so just spoiler tagging the whole thing:

Spoiler

I can swallow that the indoctrination theory is true but if that is the case the series isn't finished as it is supposed to be. If it was all in Shepard's head then the war isn't over. If Shepard is indoctrinated or dies then yeah, the war is over and the Reapers win. But what about the instance where Shepard survives? What then? Do the Reapers win? Does Shepard manage to destroy them?

This was supposed to be the finish of the series. It was supposed to tie up loose ends and tell us who wins. I can fill in the blanks somewhat but there are some things that just do not work with the indoctrination theory unless future DLC is released.

If this is intended as the true ending, however, the writers should be fired for incompetence.

 

[Mayhemski]

SNIP

Jut to pull one quote out from your tagged bit:-

Spoiler

"This was supposed to be the finish of the series. It was supposed to tie up loose ends and tell us who wins. I can fill in the blanks somewhat but there are some things that just do not work with the indoctrination theory unless future DLC is released."

I thought it was the end game for Shepard's story, not the end of games based on Mass Effects world.

And yeah OP nicely put the whole furore over ME3 from someone who thought Mass Effect was a poor game from the outset is saddening and probably not helpful for the whole industry.

 

[Jodah]

SNIP

Jut to pull one quote out from your tagged bit:-

Spoiler

"This was supposed to be the finish of the series. It was supposed to tie up loose ends and tell us who wins. I can fill in the blanks somewhat but there are some things that just do not work with the indoctrination theory unless future DLC is released."

I thought it was the end game for Shepard's story, not the end of games based on Mass Effects world.

And yeah OP nicely put the whole furore over ME3 from someone who thought Mass Effect was a poor game from the outset is saddening and probably not helpful for the whole industry.

Even if that is the case there is one ending that isn't the end of Shepard's story.

 

[worldruler8]

I thought it was less a end of shepard and more an end with the Reapers. Plus, why would you leave the resolution to the biggest war in Human history open? That's a terrible idea!

 

[Mayhemski]

I thought it was less a end of shepard and more an end with the Reapers. Plus, why would you leave the resolution to the biggest war in Human history open? That's a terrible idea!

@Jodah I defer to you like I say not played don't intend to, but if that's the case fair point

@worldruler8 new game to sell to the however millions that have bought a mass effect game and like the world?

 

[worldruler8]

perhaps, but my point is the entire past 3 games have been building up to this, so it feels very out of place to just not resolve this issue.

 

[DioWallachia]

SNIP

Are you assuming that most of the people that complain about the ending are newcomers to the series?

Feels like it. With all the crap that Bioware put in the past (and EA) with the dumbing down of Dragon Age 2 + the Gears of Effect-ification of the combat en ME3 + the Day 1 DLC it feels like there are no fans left when the show started.
But more importantly, the ending seem deliberately off to anyone but the fans who would have pay attention to the details on the indoctrination subject; Unless the so called "fans" actually were on the game to bang as many chicks as they can and only complained about the lack of happy ending because for them a happy ending is......USING SPACE MAGIC TO TRANSFORM EVERY FEMALE IN THE GALAXY INTO VERY HOT HUMANOID SHAPED BODIES AND BRANWASH THEM INTO A MASSIVE ORGY FOR COMMANDER "THE MAN" SHEPPARD!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

[gritch]

I just recently finished Mass Effect 3 and I have to say I did not find the ending satisfying. I can appreciate an ending that doesn't go the way I had hoped it would - that's up to the artists behind the story. The issue with the ME3 ending is that it just left open some terribly obvious plot holes and made the whole effort leading up the finale feel like meaningless filler.

First for the plot holes: A friend of mine very keenly point out, it had been established in the lore of mass effect that the destruction of a mass relay releases energy about equal to a supernova - more than enough to wipe out all life that happen to be in the system. In fact the galaxy map at the end shows massive energy radiating from the mass relays as they explode. If all mass relays across the galaxy were to suddenly explode this would just a likely wipe out life in the galaxy as a reaper invasion.

This leads to the question of where the hell the Normandy ended up at the end of the game. That planet they crashed landed on didn't seem like Earth to me but how the hell did they get there without using the mass relays? And for that matter how did Liara and Garrus (those were the party members I took with me at the end) end up back in the Normandy after this was all said and done? They followed me right up in till I jumped into the Citadel and then what? Decided to suddenly turn tail and run back to the Normandy? Why didn't they join me to the Citadel? I had assumed they were killed by the reaper beam on our suicide run toward the beam but apparently that was not the case.

I apologize for the ranting. I loved Mass Effect 3 but the ending just really wasn't so great. I can respect the writers and I having different opinions on how to end a games (or book series) but Mass Effect's ending just seemed so terribly sloppy.

 

[Therumancer]

Yes i haven't play Mass Effect of any related thing to that series..

(waits for the comments that insult me for not playing it)

Done with that? good. Why i don't play it? my reasons are my own for not liking it, i am the kind of person that finds more interesting watching the Red Letter Media videos about Star Wars rather than watching the movies, specially his comparison of George Lucas to Charles Foster Kane of the Citizen Kane movie.

However i find the ending controversy of Mass Effect 3 interesting on his own for his "impact" on the gaming world. So lets start at the beginning in a very short but necessary butchering of the events that lead me to this point.

After hearing some superficial news about "dumbing down ME3" and "Gears of Effect" and "Day 1 DLC = RAAAAAAAAGE" i didn't actually though highly of the ME fanbase even if they may be right about EA following the leader and tampering the development of a RPG series.
Then the game came out and the complains about the endings reached this very forum, i read most of them and agreed that they were badly executed and rushed, and since i am not a fan i therefore don't know about the lore but judge the game on his own merits in the same way that Mr. Plinket judges how the Star Wars prequels failed as films FIRST and the rest later....

.......But then i read the "Indoctrination Theory" about the endings and i understood perfectly the situation, in fact, it seems deceptively easy to understand to the point of being just weird that no fan catched up instantly to what is going on (unlike me). The last minutes of the game have attention to detail that only a fan of the whole series would understand, after all this is why this trope exist:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLawOfConservationOfDetail

So here lies the problem. If Bioware wanted to have a large amount of fans to notice the ending details then why would they alienate them so much to the point of having no fans but newcomers, playing the game and declaring that its ending sucks because obviously they havent been previously exposed to the kind of information that a fan would have? The way i see that most people complain about the ending makes me believe that they were newcomers (like me even if don't play) who complaining CONSTANTLY without being absolutely clear except for very few exceptions. A demographic that wouldn't have appeared if they hadn't dumbed down ME3 and tried to appeal as many people as possible, things that made your fanbase leave the sinking ship before even reaching the endings.

The result is an ending that nobody gets what is the deal about it because its meaning isn't for the new people, its for the fanbase that is no longer there for being alienated of the idea of having their "perfect" game being played by the evils of *!GASP!* CASUALS!!!

But the biggest punch in the balls is that if it wasn't for the Internet age then this "real" ending wouldn't be even on the works. No wait, i take that back, even with the Internet, if the developers had taken more time to answer the endings issue then the fan reaction would most likely be "Oooooh, it was intended all along, yeah suuuuuuuuure buddy. Don't even try to win us over after what you did, you fucking traitor"

Just the mere idea of gamers being THIS irrational and hateful makes me believe that other games had suffered trough this and its one of the many reasons that the developers eventually lose their hope for making a unique game. After all, if a massive response to the endings come from people who dont know anything about the series at all then its more likely that Bioware just give up completely and let EA take decisions for them 100%, why try to leave a mark on the world when the people cant even remember something on a previous game or even something that was shown right in their faces?

Maybe we have so little confidence on games today that even the idea of subtlety in details just escapes our comprehension. We need to lay off the hate before it we become the unwitting pawns of the destruction of all future games.

Thank you for your time.

(Bonus points if you read all this with the Dark Age ending music from Deus Ex 1 or Ozar Midrashim from Legacy of Kain)

Oh and here is the link for the Indoctrination Theory if you didnt already know
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ythY_GkEBck

Interesting and well stated, but as you yourself point out, your not part of the community in question so really don't know what your talking about.

For starters this is about more than just the ending, this touches on issues with Bioware/EA going back a couple of years now, and has a lot to do with pent up anger over another game called "Dragon Age 2".

What's more the DLC contreversy thing isn't all that "silly" when you get down to it, it's a ridiculous money grab, and what do you expect? People to just sit there and silently take it? Of course people are going to be upset over that, and are going to express themselves. Truthfully though this was just part of (and contributed to) a fire that had been burning for a while.

The point is the gaming industry abuses the fan base, you can only push so many times before there is a backlash by the majority of people involved. A lot of fan-rage is silly, but what differs here is the scale of the events, and the simple fact that it's quite justified.

Bioware made it clear they wanted to turn Mass Effect from a triology into a franchise, the ending you see here was intended towards that end, and did not finish the story as a whole in a way that wrapped things up. Especially given the nature of the story to begin with.

As a non-player, you might not realize it, but this is supposed to be a work of high fantasy set in space. A bigger than life protaganist, fighting against overwhelming odds and coming out ahead. The kind of ending your seeing here, whether you abide by "indoctrination" or not does not fit in with the storyline as a whole. You cannot say use the ending of "2001: A Space Odyssey" with say "Star Wars".

To put it into perspective, let's say you were watching the original Star Wars Trilogy, and the entire trilogy played out the way it normally does, except when Luke enters the Emperor's Chamber the screen whites out and is replaced by a 70sesque swirl like the sort meant to simulate an acid trip. A rainbow hued platypus appears in the middle of the screen and introduces itself as The Embodiment of The Force, it rambles on about the events of the series so far, the nature of the light and dark sides of the force, and what might happen from here on out, but also says that no matter what might seem to happen it might not be real, like Luke's experiences in the cave on Degobah... and oh hey, is he sure he ever left that cave? Then the end credits roll, after which your treated to a scene of some old geezer walking around with a kid, who is asking for another story about "The Skywalker".

Now, you might stick to your original point, but understand that if that actually happened I'd imagine "Star Wars" would never have remained a pop-culture phenomena, and there never would have been prequels for George Lucas to ruin. The kind of ending I describe above might work for some stories and works of space fantasy, but it does NOT work for the kind of story it was inserted into.

Trust me when I say fans have looked at all the evidence in that theory, and even more, and the bottom line is that none of it matters because it's an ending that just doesn't work for the series, and it does not tie everything up as promised. Granted a "all the Reapers turn into Icecream" solution like Penny Arcade joked about is too silly, but the series is one that should end on a high note, much like the original Star Wars triology did. Sure there might be a lot of trouble coming in the future, but that's something for an entirely differant story and series of games.

This might sound campy, and not paticularly deep, but understand this wasn't supposed to be some dark, deeply profound story, it's a bloody Space Opera. Even the renegade Shepard is doing the right thing in the final equasion. Shepard as a figure pretty much stands shoulder to shoulder with characters like Horatio Hornblower or James T Kirk (ie ridiculously bigger than life even if seemingly humble and challenged in his stories), you routinely accomplish things that should not be achievable by one guy in any remotely realistic view of things, but that's the kind of story this is.

 

[Zhukov]

Uh huh...

I think you're about as wrong as you could possibly be.

The people saying that the ending sucks are not the newcomers. Quite the opposite. They're the people who have been in it from the start and are disappointed to see the series flop in its final ten minutes.

Also, I think the indoctrination theory is complete bunk made up of half-deleted subplots and desperate fans who don't want to believe that it simply sucked. Hell, they're so desperate that they're saying it would be a good thing if Bioware were planning to DLC the ending to their trilogy.

 

[boag]

SNIP

Are you assuming that most of the people that complain about the ending are newcomers to the series?

Feels like it. With all the crap that Bioware put in the past (and EA) with the dumbing down of Dragon Age 2 + the Gears of Effect-ification of the combat en ME3 + the Day 1 DLC it feels like there are no fans left when the show started.
But more importantly, the ending seem deliberately off to anyone but the fans who would have pay attention to the details on the indoctrination subject; Unless the so called "fans" actually were on the game to bang as many chicks as they can and only complained about the lack of happy ending because for them a happy ending is......USING SPACE MAGIC TO TRANSFORM EVERY FEMALE IN THE GALAXY INTO VERY HOT HUMANOID SHAPED BODIES AND BRANWASH THEM INTO A MASSIVE ORGY FOR COMMANDER "THE MAN" SHEPPARD!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I played a Femshep and I still wanted a Galaxy wide orgy

 

[xPixelatedx]

The result is an ending that nobody gets what is the deal about it because its meaning isn't for the new people, its for the fanbase that is no longer there for being alienated of the idea of having their "perfect" game being played by the evils of *!GASP!* CASUALS!!!

Yeah, ok. Lets put a pin in that and move it somewhere else for a moment. Now let us just go by the facts. Fact: Mass Effect is a series based on player choice. The appeal and selling point of the series is seeing how the universe unfolds differently based upon your actions. Of course, you might not have know that, but I'll forgive you since you haven't played the games (the funny thing is I haven't either). Fact: None of the players choices have any impact on the ending what so ever, as all paths lead to only one conclusion. This is the same conclusion if you are a causal who just stumbles upon the third game and starts from there, or a hardcore fan who has already put 100+ hours into the games spanning back to the start of the franchise. With all paths leading to only one conclusion, it is understandable that anyone who invested so much of their life into this story and game is a tad upset that it all had no payoff, not even a nod or wink. There is no reason to play (or re-play) Mass Effect 1 and 2 now, and realistically there is no reason to re-play 3. Why would you re-read a 'choose your own adventure book' when every sequence of pages leads to the exact same ending?

This is why the fans are mad:

Contrary to your belief, logic would say that it is the casuals who are defending bioware, since they have the least to be upset about.

I know what I know of this series through three friends who are far beyond obsessed with this franchise. They participate in fanfics, online fan communities and one of them even makes some of the most well known fanart of the series. I have never seen these three people as upset as they are right now, which instantly destroys your logic, doesn't it?

 

[Savagezion]

I'll let Hitler explain it because I have been dying to post this video.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

Snip

Interesting post, thank you for sharing.

As a big Mass Effect fan I have stopped on several occasions and asked myself if I would have reacted the same way to these endings (with rage in my case) had it been a series I was not so invested in. The answer is that I probably wouldn't have cared. After all Deus Ex: HR had a similarly terrible ending and I didn't really care about that.

So what you're saying about only the newcomers being pissed at the ending doesn't ring true. Newcomers likely won't have the same investment as existing fans and they will only have made one third of the choices current fans have done. So the impact of the endings on newcomers won't be so great and they are more likely to simply accept them.

I started a new game in Mass Effect 3, just out of curiosity, I posed as a complete newcomer and didn't import any previous data. Turns out I can choose my Shepard's looks, gender, background history and even the amount of people he/she had lost in the past. That really thre me for a loop. Those choices, which had been boiled down to a few menu screens, were more or less the entirety of Mass Effect 1, an entire experience that I had REALLY enjoyed back in the day. It is sad that there are some people who will start the series from 3 because they are missing a LOT of context that would enhance the experience.

The reason fans have unearthed the "Indoctrination Theory" (something I support wholeheartedly) is twofold, A: because fans like to over-analyse by their very nature and B: because we so desperately still want to believe that Bioware hasn't just lost the plot. I am a fan of the series and this theory was not the first thing to occur to me, despite having been exposed to the previous two games and all the "evidence" that supports the theory. I raged at the ending like the rabid fanboy I am, just like everyone else.

The rage was a kneejerk reaction but it has since evolved into a more thoughtfull discussion on the possible reasons behind Bioware's recent madness. We live in hope that these "endings" are fake and that Bioware will turn out to be 2012's biggest troll.

I am clinging to the hope that Bioware put in these three "endings" so they could say that Mass Effect 3 was a complete experience. THEN they were planning on releasing the "true" ending as DLC later on. This way they could still make money from DLC that everyone would surely buy while still avoiding the controversy of releasing an incomplete game and charging more money for the ending.

Snip

Thanks for posting that image. It's the best visual method of explaining the "Mass Effect problem" that I have yet seen. This is the point that everyone seems to be missing.

I'll let Hitler explain it because I have been dying to post this video.

That video was EPIC.

Should have known that Hitler would be a Talimancer. I love the part where the terrified girls outside the room say: "Don't worry, we'll make our own ending." lol, I experienced the feelings of every person in this video when I first played those useless endings. Perhaps this is the only context in which we can rightfully say Hitler was right.