Mass Effect 3 ending SPOILERS!

[gee666]

Tell me more of the Shepard

ok ONE MORE story

also what was the point of the citadel defence force if the indoctornation theory is wrong?

Bioware channeling Dallas I feel

 

[Kirosilence]

Consider this

Either Mass Effect 3 has an ending to rival Halo 2 in pure fan rage, or..

Bioware has managed to pull off a coup of unprecedented storytelling. I am sure by now most of you have read the Indoctrination Theory. (http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9727423/1 If you have not)

Opponents to the theory say that "It is an extreme risk", Mass Effect is among the best selling xBox games of all time. It is one of the legendary RPGs of this, or most, generations. Bioware could have put a copy of Superman 64 in every ME3 case, and it STILL would have sold. Because it says Mass Effect 3 on the front.

So, if we are able to suspend the idea of risk, was this bad storytelling, or was the an experiment in true immersion gaming. Case and point, Bioware said that they wanted the ending to be memorable, something that you would never forget. If the ending of your game is literally the WORST feature, and to be honest, I am certain that even Bioware could see that on it's own this ending is bad, why would you hype it? You don't hype The Old Republic (To use another bioware title) based on the idea that it's moderators will ban you for literally anything. You play to it's best points.

That is what leads me to believe the Indoctrination theory. There are a lot of interesting points raised and having played through the ending 3 times (I wanted to see all three colors of explosions) it makes some sense. Why would the colors of the choices be swaped? Why would the "AI" take on the form of a child that Shepard had only seen once, and then had nightmares about? How does Anderson make it to the platform before Shepard, even having hit the beam AFTER him/her. What the fuck happened to the Illusive Man's face?

Bioware doesn't exactly have a track record of NOT explaining what is going on. Hell look at your Codex and you'll see it, they explain everything.

The troubling fact coming from this is the truth might come in the form of pay DLC, meaning ME3 is an incomplete experience on it's own. I do not really like that idea. But if it is true, Bioware may have pulled off the single greatest immersion gaming experience ever attempted.

Bioware, may have indoctrinated you.

 

[Bobbity]

If you look on the BSN, there's a thread showing some intriguing tweets by the official ME account.

I don't know if they're worth putting our hopes in yet, but the tweets are promising enough that I'm slowly coming out of depression (and going into denial - starting to believe the indoctrination theory. :\)

 

[Merrick_HLC]

Consider this

Either Mass Effect 3 has an ending to rival Halo 2 in pure fan rage, or..

Bioware has managed to pull off a coup of unprecedented storytelling.

snip

I don't think it has to be an or. It can be both.
Even IF the indoctrination theory is true, IF it was all planned all along.... it's STILL a god awful way to do things.

First of all, not everyone plays online and can download DLC. (Yes I can, but yes there are still lots of gamers who don't play online, and I was one until pretty recently)

Second of all, it's still selling you an incomplete game & going "Well do more to it later"
Even if it's free DLC, buying the game disc is still paying for an incomplete game if the 'official ending' is something you have to go get somewhere else.

The indoctrination theory would arguably be better than what we got, yes, but I don't really see it as "A coup of unprecendented storytelling" I see it as screwing over anyone who doesn't use online features and unnecessarily pissing off lots of people when they wanted a satisfying conclusion in-box.


Also if the indoctrination theory is true, and it's free DLC.
Good lord wouldn't that be a publishers dream?
"We're selling you this disc, but you can only actually FINISH the game if you have an activated online pass. Not even for multiplayer, you need it to complete the main, solo-player story"

 

[The Aimless One]

I'm just gonna come out and say it:
I've only seen one ending yet, and i thought it was rather fitting.
I hate nonsensical happy endings and I'll take a nonsensical depressing one over the happy variety any day.

Just my two cents i guess.

 

[Deathninja19]

Well the whole fact that the Mass Relays are a way to railroad species to evolve in a specific way in terms of technology. Now that doesn't make sense sense to me that they are doing this cycle to prevent life from evolving to a point where they create aggressive AI and yet they are railroading technology, so are the Reapers forcing life into a position where they create AI thus creating a self fulfilling prophesy? Or am I giving it to much thought and Bioware just didn't put much logic in to this.

So it's not so much conflicting with cannon as the logic of the Reapers make little sense in context of the canon.

That one's easy, actually. The mass relay network was left out there so that new civilizations followed predictable paths of technological evolution, yes, but just in the general sense to give the Reapers a military advantage when the time came to harvest.

The development of synthetic life is posited as inevitable in the ME universe, so giving civilizations a head-start, technologically-speaking, might shave a few thousand years off their lifespan before it's time to harvest them, but it also ensure that the Reapers will know more-or-less what to expect when they come pouring through the Citadel to start with the aforementioned harvest.

It's much the same logic as having the Citadel lying around; predictable technology, predictable center of government, etc etc, basically trying fairly hard to set the parameters any given civilization is going to be operating within.

Yeah but that's my problem if technology becomes predictable (which it can't be but that's an argument for another time) surely the Reapers would realise that AI is inevitable because the Mass Relays are leading tech in to a single predictable path (which again technology doesn't follow a single path but hey sci-fi). If the Reapers want to prevent AI (which they are or at least their leader is, again stupid) why not for one cycle remove the Mass Relays/make them inoperable as an experiment or at the very least leave warnings/reasons for their past harvests.

If they are trying to help the universe they are doing it in the most arse-backwards way possible.

 

[Deathninja19]

http://www.gamefront.com/mass-effect-3-ending-hatred-5-reasons-the-fans-are-right/1

Pretty decent summary of why people are upset.

 

[goose4291]

Just such a bad ending... with nothing that they promised us. Little more needs to be said.

They can be damned if they think I'll buying the DLC like last time.

 

[PrinceBuffoon]

Okay, here's my two cents. Yeah, the ending was bad and I understand why people are upset, but was it really that unexpected? I had it in my mind for the whole game that there was no way humanity was going to survive. Don't get me wrong, I'm pissed off too, but the ending was certainly thought provoking for me. The fact that people assumed humanity would survive says, I think, a lot about us as a species. It's common for human beings to think that we are somehow special in the grand scheme of the universe. That's a common theme in the Mass Effect series: human beings pushing for acceptance, respect and recognition of what we've achieved. Human beings thinking they are just as good, if not better than the other species out there. But we were way behind, technologically speaking; juvenile as a species. In the end, we are recognized by the other species as something greater than they initially thought. But, in a way, I thought it was fitting that things didn't work out the way we wanted.

As great as we think we are, isn't it possible that there's something far greater out there? Something with with an understanding far superior to anything we could imagine? I think the ending shows the frailty of our species that we don't often consider...I need to stop watching Neil deGrasse Tyson lectures.

Anyways, I doubt Bioware was going for something that philosophical and I don't think anyone wanted something like that. I think they just messed up. When I saw that kid from the beginning I was livid. Who wrote that and honestly thought it was a good idea? The community is angry with good reason, Bioware. I really hope you do something about it.

Despite my complaints, I still think Mass Effect 3 was a great game for the most part. I really got sick of that stupid reaper noise though. BWAAAAHHHHHHH. Trying to scan this system, you pricks. Leave me alone.

-Prince Buffoon

 

[KrossBillNye]

Out of all my thoughts of the game only one really plagues me.

Despite the Deus Ex Machina ending my thoughts are, If the Catalyst created the Reapers, what created the Catalyst?

 

[Steampunk Viking]

Ok I've literally just finished the game and I thought I'd drop by and give my two cents. Personally, I was expecting a much worse ending than everyone made it out to be and I actually, after some thought, actually like the conclusion. I have a few theories about this whole thing.

I want you all to bare in mind I chose the "Control the Reapers" ending - I dunno, destroying the Geth after resolving their differences with the Quarian, or turning everyone into independent husks and creating a new race of Reapers (essentially) just didn't seem right.

Right here are my theories:

1) The Catalyst is GOD. In a sense. It chooses what races live and what races die and the Reapers are Angels (with special ones being Arch Angels). This is all metaphorically speaking. The war is Ragnarok.

2) All endings have consequences. To break the cycle, the universe must regress back to their earliest point of evolution and make sacrifices. Anyone read the "His Dark Materials" triogy? Same sort of thing happens there - in order to save all dimensions, they had to shut them away from each other. Same thing applies here.

3) The Catalyst, like God does in many stories, appears in a form most personal to Shepard, in this case the kid. Even if the kid is Shepard's imagination, it's possible that the Catalyst took this form for this exact reason.

4) I've read alot of people say the ending makes their choices redundant - I disagree. When I made the choice I made, I was thinking about how I helped EDI and Joker get together, how I sided with the Geth, how the Quarians would suffer without their suits and how I didn't want everyone to lose everything. If you get into the mentality of it, it will influence your choice.

So who created the Catalyst and the Citadel? It's open to discussion and no-one will have a correct answer. It's like arguing this point with Religion, no-one knows for certain.

It's interesting to think that this all happened because we advanced too far and then things got out of control. It's happening in the world now, technology comes at a price, this ending highlights that. Sure, I would have liked the Reapers to die and everyone else live happily ever after with Shepard having his blue children with Liara. But really, is this ever a choice we get to make?

Anyways, there's my thoughts on the matter. People are free to hate the ending, but it's an ending that made me think, and I like endings that make me wonder rather than just telling me straight. Imagination is a wonderful gift to the Human race, and to not use it, we're merely husks controlled by the Reapers... or do I mean Angels?

 

[Steampunk Viking]

Having said all of that, this ending Drew Karpyshyn came up with sounds more interesting:

http://www.oxm.co.uk/39736/revealed-the-mass-effect-3-ending-bioware-canned-before-release/

 

[wicket42]

Out of all my thoughts of the game only one really plagues me.

Despite the Deus Ex Machina ending my thoughts are, If the Catalyst created the Reapers, what created the Catalyst?

How about this one for you then?

If the catalyst created the reapers, and the created will always destroy the creator, then why haven't the reapers destroyed the catalyst?

 

[boag]

As a space opera, the ending (RGB) does work in some ways, sci-fi this apocalyptic does tend to follow through on it's promise and end just as dark as they can with leaving a small ray of hope for the (distant) future.

Now putting aside all plot holes, in-universe inconsistencies, and thematic arguments for and against the endings. The real problem is that ME is not a traditional work of sci-fi; it is a video game. A sci-fi video game grounded in traditional sci-fi tropes, with some genuinely unique imaginings, but a video game nonetheless.

The point is that the final ending to an epic three part series, which requires at least 60 hours to play through all three, should reflect my decisions and actions as a gamer. This is not a linear game, choices have been given and made across all three games, some being more important than others (and some later becoming meaningless), no two people have played through all three games in the same way. It was a personal adventure, something which gamers invested heavily in, we each owned our own versions of Shepard; I played the ME 1 and 2 about a dozen times each to get all different outcomes.

But not this time, when we were told that our actions would matter more than ever, at a seemingly epic end to an epic trilogy, every player was given one of three very similar and disappointing endings. I did not play these games to sit through a poorly conceived and half arsed conclusion. I was prepared for any outcome, no matter how grim, as long as it was MY outcome, a result of MY actions. Filling up a meter and selecting what color you would like your ending is an insult to every player who has invested their time, money and energy into these games.

I could write down my ideal ending but that would ultimately be pointless. We simply deserved better.

If they wanted to make a Space Opera Ending, then they would have had the Citadel Blow up the Entire Sol System, with everything in it.

 

[boag]

Having said all of that, this ending Drew Karpyshyn came up with sounds more interesting:

http://www.oxm.co.uk/39736/revealed-the-mass-effect-3-ending-bioware-canned-before-release/

That ending I'm on board for. I was wondering what the fuck happened to the dark energy thing. the second game was just DRIPPING with foreshadowing.

Indeed, ive been bringing this point up a lot, the most sensible guess I can ponder is that the Leaks happened and they made a mad dash to rewrite the Ending so that the leaks would turn out to be false.

 

[Yeager942]

How is this game so well reviewed? The ending just leaves such a bad taste in my mouth. I'm not adverse to sad or bittersweet endings, but the total collapse of galactic civilization? What the fuck happens to the millions of alien soldiers around battle scared earth? THEY ARE ALL GOING TO DIE OF STARVATION. NONE OF THEM ARE GOING TO SEE HOME.

Worse of all, everything I did in the series means jack shit. The whole reason I played ME was to experience and have a say in its intergalactic politics, but nothing I did in the past 3 games and 100 hours of gameplay count for anything at all. At best, it was acknowledged by some side characters in conversation, but that was it. I just don't know what to say...

 

[Raesvelg]

Yeah but that's my problem if technology becomes predictable (which it can't be but that's an argument for another time) surely the Reapers would realise that AI is inevitable because the Mass Relays are leading tech in to a single predictable path (which again technology doesn't follow a single path but hey sci-fi). If the Reapers want to prevent AI (which they are or at least their leader is, again stupid) why not for one cycle remove the Mass Relays/make them inoperable as an experiment or at the very least leave warnings/reasons for their past harvests.

AI is inevitable, barring specific measures taken to prevent its creation, particularly when you factor in a wide variety of philosophical frameworks (ie, an entire galaxy full of sentient species). Leaving that aside, AI is also not dependent on the technology of the mass relays; we're in the early stages of developing it right now, after all.

Leaving the mass relays around makes sure that the developing races will probably base specific aspects of their technology (drives, and more importantly to the Reapers, shields and weapons) on that tech, giving the Reapers an advantage at harvest time.

Why not leave warnings behind? Same reason. A prepared galaxy will be more effective in resisting the Reapers, assuming they believe the warnings, and given that the development of AI is inevitable... No point in letting the biologicals kill more Reapers than absolutely necessary.

 

[boag]

Having said all of that, this ending Drew Karpyshyn came up with sounds more interesting:

http://www.oxm.co.uk/39736/revealed-the-mass-effect-3-ending-bioware-canned-before-release/

That ending I'm on board for. I was wondering what the fuck happened to the dark energy thing. the second game was just DRIPPING with foreshadowing.

Indeed, ive been bringing this point up a lot, the most sensible guess I can ponder is that the Leaks happened and they made a mad dash to rewrite the Ending so that the leaks would turn out to be false.

why would they do that? They left the rest of the game mostly the same. Changing a good ending to a shitty one just to "defy" the leaks is stupid.

Well for starters, there was a Prothean that was very relevant to the game plot, at first we didnt even know id the Same Prothean was part of the DLC, but from all points and purposes The Prothean was now the VI that was on Thessia, and his part of the story seems to be greatly diminished.

I am also partial to believe that this whole thing is one big trigger event to fuck over pirates, and that the ending will becoming via DLC. This is of course a baseless assumption on my part.