Mass Effect 3 Director Addresses Ending Controversy

[dalek sec]

Apparently I HAVE been living under a rock, because this is the first I've heard about any controversy...

Likewise, all I know is that everyone's throwing a hissy fit about the endings. Can someone please explain what's the problem's with the endings exactly? If there's spoilers just put them in a spoiler box please, I don't mind hearing about them.

 

[Emiscary]

Sometimes I figure if Bioware is primarily concerned with the opinions of game reviewers they should be marketing their games to the 45 year old advertising executives who dictate their opinions.

 

[1337mokro]

You wanted to give an uplifting bitter sweet ending and validate the sacrifice and action of your players?

Then why did you make 3 identical endings in which Shepard not only dies, but for some reason all the mass relays explode, instantly incinerating all life in the system they are in or sterilize the species that didn't get caught up in the blast by radiation.

Is that the reason why you had Joker chicken out from the fight, go down to earth and rescue everyone EXCEPT you and crash land on a random jungle planet. You know what. My Shepard is kinda pissed that Joker chickened out on him. My Shepard is also kinda pissed that Tali just jumped in the ship with him and left him behind. What the FUCK was that?

Is that a bitter sweet ending? No, you know what a bitter sweet ending would have been? Shepard getting tortured to death because he wouldn't abide by the God Child's broken logic. At the last second putting a bullet through it's central processor. Killing it and the reapers, but ultimately dying himself and observing the hard won victory, with casualties depending upon the war assets you gathered.

None of your choices are taken into effect at the end, whatever you did in the past 2 games, completely ignored. You could just twidle your thumbs gather no war assets and finish the game. Sure Earth gets destroyed, but you know what? That's a better solution than Stranding a few billion aliens together with a few billion humans on a desolate scorched planet. I'd rather finish them quick than have em starve and cannibalize each other.

 

[hermit purple]

There are a lot of fictions, especially sci-fi, that pull one or two Dues Ex Machina. But I never would've dreamt that Mass Effect 3 would literally pull one out. A god actually came out of a machine and offer you 3 plot device to solve every problem, short of raising the undead. This may have been the storytelling convention in ancient Greece, but not anymore.

 

[Gather]

I'm would have loved the Crucible being a Reaper plan to screw the organics thinking "they have a chance" so they can focus all their efforts onto creating something that does nothing...

Then Shepard walks up and dies at that pivotal point and you get a cut-scene of the Reapers lazering everything and winning the war admiral Hackket talking about (Depending on your war assets) "We have learned our lesson and have sent out a message for the next generation. They shall not suffer the same mistakes we did."

And depending on your warscore would indicate how long they held out... And it skims over a backdrop saying "The human race were considered to be the Protheans of next generation."

 

[anthony87]

Wow, so many "fans" are just complete idiots and fail to look beyond the pretty colours and look at the long term consequences of Shepard's choices

Well then kind sir, please enlighten us "fans" who unlike you are apparently idiots.

 

[XDravond]

****WARNING MINOR SPOILER AHEAD*****

"See, the reason people complain is because they just don't understand the ending. By picking the synthesis option you reveal the true focus of the entire trilogy.
Joker finally gets laid."

Found it on RPS about same topic, witch means two things.
1.Bioware understands marketing, this is just nice free PR... and
2.Finally someone understanding ME...


And why am I laughing about:
"We're gonna fix ME ending with DLC, only 4,99$ or stupid* amount of points"?
*(need 400 points, only 300 or 500 points available to buy, kind of stupid...)

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

For us and for you, Mass Effect 3 had to live up to a lot of expectations, not only for a great gaming experience, but for a resolution to the countless storylines and decisions you've made as a player since the journey began in 2007.

It did, Mr. Hudson, but it fell short. You didn't resolve anything of substance. What happens to Earth? What happens to the Korgan and the Quarians? What happens to Thessia? What happens to the crew? What happens to Shepard? You didn't resolve even one of these.

So we designed Mass Effect 3 to be a series of endings to key plots and storylines, each culminating in scenes that show you the consequences of your actions.

But you didn't design that. You designed one ending with three different coloured energy discharges. I appreciate what you are saying...the end of the Quarian/Geth story culminated in a mini-ending of its own, but it didn't really. What happens in this instance *after* the Reapers? Show us the future of the Quarrian homeworld, based on our choices. Show us the Krogan teaching their kids. Show us the Asari rebuilding. Show us Jack returning to the Academy. Show us Miranda with her sister. Show us Javik after he's had his vengeance.

We always intended that the scale of the conflict and the underlying theme of sacrifice would lead to a bittersweet ending-to do otherwise would betray the agonizing decisions Shepard had to make along the way. Still, we wanted to give players the chance to experience an inspiring and uplifting ending;

Bitter-sweet, okay. A conflict of this magnitude and te unbroken cycle over countless millenia, I can get behind. But you didn't do that. You didn't give us anything. You betrayed *every single one* of Shepard's agonising decisions, because you didn't show us the results of a single one (except for which button on the "Ending Machine" we pushed). That was the betrayal Mr. Hudson, that is the cause of the furor.

In Baldur's Gate II even, over a decade ago, simply through text windows we learned what became of our beloved companions, our love interest and ourselves, in the years that followed. We want to see what happens to the members of our crew from ME1, 2 and 3. We want to see what happens to Shepard and love interest. We want to see what happens to the galaxy considering all the choices we made along the way.

 

[4173]

in a story where you face a hopeless struggle for basic survival

You didn't do a sufficient job. "Hopeless" tasks are completed by heroes all the time. Hopeless in a world with (effectively) super-heroes is different than hopeless for me and you.


For fuck's sake. With enough war assests/effective military strength, the game itself tells you, "Allied forces are holding steady and winning battles in key locations."

THAT ISN'T FUCKING HOPELESS.

I realize it is a tiny thing that doesn't mean much, but why would you ever include those words in that context. Hire a fucking editor.

the underlying theme of sacrifice would lead to a bittersweet ending-to do otherwise would betray the agonizing decisions Shepard had to make along the way.

Here's the thing. Those agonizing choices actually lead to different results. You betray those agonizing decisions by making the endings practically identical.

So we designed Mass Effect 3 to be a series of endings to key plots and storylines, each culminating in scenes that show you the consequences of your actions. You then carry the knowledge of these consequences with you as you complete the final moments of your journey.

You mean consequences like ending a 3 century long war and fully emancipating the Geth, only to fucking blow them all to hell a few hours later?

I could go on about these "consequences:" if Wrex/Wreav died in the final push or are stranded on Earth, that would have a big impact on the Krogan race's future. The same goes for Primarch Victus.

(on a related note, I think the final assault should have been a bit closer to the suicide mission in ME2. My team are possibly the baddest motherfuckers in the whole galaxy, they should be right in the shit.)


edit: and that ignores being railroaded by the Catalyst's terrible logic. And the squad members who not only survived the giant death beam, but teleported to the Normandy, before the Normandy teleported into a mass relay.



I really think Bioware's only out is the indoctrination illusion explination (everything between going up the beam until making the final choice is fighting Harbinger's attempt at indoctrination). But if that was the plan, that would mean they deliberately withheld part of the ending for DLC.

second edit: And I'm waiting for an apology for including Kai Leng.

 

[moosek]

Look here is a pretty good rundown on why biowares ending makes no sense. note its 15 pages long. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QT4IUepvrU1pfv_B95oQj0H84DlCTUmzQ_uQh1voTUs/preview?pli=1&sle=true

That document is horseshit. The ending sucks because it makes no sense and it makes no sense because it sucks. There's no hidden plot and nothing can change the fact that Bioware fucked it up. And I don't care if they change the ending, or if they stick to their guns about their crappy ending as artistic justification. Games are the only medium where that is acceptable, changing the content after completion.

The Portal ending was changed over a year after it was released, and people were fine with it.

 

[SolsticeM]

Here is my ending, based on what I played and what I choose to believe happened. Spoilers, obviously.

Spoiler

Everything after Sheppard passes out at the console is a hallucination. There is no Star Child, the relays didn't get blown up, the Normandy didn't turn tail and run. Maybe indoctrination, maybe not. Honestly, I half expect the DLC to start with Hakket's voice waking me up, still slumped in front of the crucible console. Do some fiddly stuff, crucible fires, reapers in the vicinity die, others start to run, continue playing chasing the reapers all over the galaxy winning the war. People who came to the beam with you die/survive as needed, game continues "after the end", closure is gotten. You tell Joker about the dream you had while dying on the citadel, he tell you that it was f'kn stupid, laughs are had, ready the next suicide mission. Oh, and you now limp from now on, cause you got blown up by a reaper for god's sake.

 

[K_Dub]

I just don't understand what Mr. Hudson is trying to get at. Nearly everything he claims is followed by something that seems to prove him wrong.

He claims that he and the rest of Bioware love the Mass Effect universe, and its characters, yet the ending I saw just doesn't follow through on that statement.

 

[Valok]

I really don't understand what he's trying to accomplish with all that crap.

Try to leave ppl even more angry maybe? He sure as hell is managing to do that.

 

[Aircross]

Ha ha ha, more typical public relations BS!

Us: "Could you please explain and expand upon the reasons for A, B, and C?"

Casey Hudson: "Sure, this is why we did X, Y, and Z."

 

[Something Amyss]

Actually, you know what would betray all those agonizing decisions? Completely ignoring them and giving us three "push the button" endings that all give us the same, palette-swapped endings and leave us with absolutely zero closure.

Yeah, I like the fact that they're talking about betraying the decisions we've made.

I sometimes wonder if "I'm listening" is a partial statement. "We're listening...And laughing maniacally."

 

[electric method]

Someone was kind enough to post some thoughts a PR guy had, think he goes by the handle "atghunter", in a few of the threads here and on the BSN (Could be elsewhere too). His thoughts on BioWare's PR response to this are very illuminating.

Whatever my own personal feelings on the endings, or lack thereof may be, having spent the vast bulk of my career in management and running businesses I can honestly say BioWare is in an almost completely untenable position. What compounds it and makes it worse is BioWare, themselves, put themselves into this paticular corner with their marketing and comments about what the game would be. What the ending would be like etc. Having material out there that people can point to and say "this is what you promised, and this is what you delivered", violates a number of good business practices. Most notably one that goes something like; Never make yourself out to be a liar.

While BioWare's PR statements to date are good PR events and pratcies, text book actually, they are exceptionally bad business practices and can only serve to alienate customers at best and cause severe and lasting problems with profit/loss at worst. Again, having material and press statements out there that are in direct conflict with the product delivered makes almost all of the PR maneuvering a moot point.

What drives the vast bulk of any company's sales are repeat buyers. The mantra goes something like; make single time buyers repeat consumers. It's what any business that wants to stay in business does. Another thing that makes their PR maneuvering such a ridiculous business move is they are, in effect, hoping that "maybe it will go away". 5 very, very dangerous words. For every day that passes without a coherent and cogent response, that is devoid of all double speak and, that at a minimum acknowledges that they made a mistake they risk crossing over the invisible line that turns a repeat customer into someone that won't purchase from them again. That time differs from business to business for any number of reasons.

From a purely profit/loss scenario it is in BioWare's best interest to end this as soon as they possibly can. The longer this goes on the larger the fiscal cost to fix it is going to get as well as hurting long term sales of the franchise. Also they will have to weigh what effect, if any, this will have on their other franchises or new IP they have planned.

If it were me, I'd end the delaying tactics and PR shennanigans. It really is a no brainer. Open dialog asking what it would take to make it right, form a consensus of what that is and present it to the customer. From there then make that happen while offering products/services either for free or at a marked discount to build good will while the long term fix is being implemented. The above is fairly standard business practice for customer service and for good reason, it works.

 

[Something Amyss]

I really don't understand what he's trying to accomplish with all that crap.

Try to leave ppl even more angry maybe? He sure as hell is managing to do that.

Bioware: The most epic trolls since Andy Kaufman.

Ha ha ha, more typical public relations BS!

Us: "Could you please explain and expand upon the reasons for A, B, and C?"

Casey Hudson: "Sure, this is why we did X, Y, and Z."

Continuing their legacy of questions without answers.

 

[Sagacious Zhu]

Does Bioware not get why people are upset? It's not because Shepard died or sacrificed him/herself; it's because the ending made no sense, came out of left field and offers no closure or any sign that Shepard's sacrifice meant anything beyond that puking Stargazer nonsense that talked about characters we don't know or care about.

 

[Valkyrie1981]

To Hudson,

I understand completely on what your intentions were with the ending, you just failed at even meeting those intentions. I have no problems with killing off Sheppard, however it was the incredibly lack of thought put into the final three choices.

You can take over the reapers

Kill all Synthetics (EDI, and Geth included)

Or take freewill away from EVERYONE and merge Biological and Synthetics.

So where is the morally good choice? When your choices are God like power, Commit mass Genocide, or play evil God and subvert everyone's freewill in merging life? None of them are bittersweet, it isn't even bitter, its down right evil. You want everyone to live with their decisions yet it doesn't matter how good or bad your were, there is no way future generations will look at what you did as a good thing calling you "The Shepard"

Failing to understand these things and saying that you are listening to the players isn't the problem. What you need to do is explain yourself. The ending was so detached to how I played my Shepard, you didn't leave anything that was in character. Example, I brought peace to the Geth and the Quarians after 300 years of war through painful negotiations to make sure all secured their freewill their Soul, but you want me to forsake this? By killing the Geth and proving the Reapers right, or after all that work taking away the freewill of not just the Geth and the Quarians, but of everyone and merging them?!

You can't honestly believe that the Protheans built a machine that would allow them to merge with Synthetics! At what point did you think this was a good idea? I can see the Promethean killing all Synthetics, they obviously hated them, but what the hell is with the other one? Then again their empire was dying they needed this weapon ASAP I bet it wouldn't of taken as long if the Protheans didn't dick around making it multi-fuctionable. All they neded was a ,Our world is ending here is the "PUSH TO KILL REAPERS NOW BUTTON!"

In the end you just didn't explain anything to justify your choices. What people need you to do is justify yourself, not pussyfoot around the issue. Why were these 3 choices made? This isn't rocket science, and because you made these choices, you are now suffering for your actions, and instead of manning up like you ask us to do with Shepard, you are sitting there staring at the options and only pressing the "Avoid" button that will not continue on with the story.

All I ask is for Bioware and you Mr. Hudson to explain why you made these choices, how do you justify them making any sense, How is ANY OF THIS allowing a player to stay in character in making these 3 very evil actions.

From,
Common Sense

 

[Piecewise]

To me it wasn't that it was a bitter sweet ending that bothered me, its the fact that it made no sense, had little to no connection with what happened in the past games and was generally unfullfilling.

An ending that ended with the relays destroyed wouldn't bother me if it made sense. Hell, considering how bad things were a bittersweet, self sacrificing half win was what I expected. But I expected something like the end of the second game; a hard fought, barely won war for survival with terrible consequences. Not...a colored explosion of plot convenience that solves everything with zero effort. IN FACT https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QT4IUepvrU1pfv_B95oQj0H84DlCTUmzQ_uQh1voTUs/preview?pli=1&sle=true goes into insane detail about how literally none of this makes any sense.