Mass Effect 3: It's not the endings, its the final battle (And synthesis)

[sumanoskae]

Looking though the major collection of 'promises' I see plenty of vague hints but nothing concrete, nothing enough to justify going "SEE! SEE! THEY PROMISED THIS!".

*snip*

Already addressed.

The ending is made so much worse by the realisation that they never intended to have satisfying payoff to your choices

Because of my choices, the krogan have a bright future ahead of them, the quarians and the geth have ended their hostility, the rachni have survived, and countless other people have been saved from death.

But if all those choices don't have a specific impact on the war for and activation of an ancient alien superweapon at the end of the game, then obviously those choices never had any impact.

BioWare shouldn't feel bad for disappointing people like you. You've deliberately adopted a completely illogical mindset disconnected from reality simply so you can have an excuse to complain about the game. They really should not have bothered with people who try their hardest to come up with pathetic reasons to cry about the ending.

THANK YOU!

Been saying this about ME3 since I finished it. They never promised varied endings based on your decisions though out them game, only that the decisions you make will make an impact on how the story plays out, and that's certainly true.

Actually they DID promise many varied endings with all of your previous decisions affecting it. Hell, there are multiple quotes of Casey Hudson along with other developers saying this EXACT THING. They promised wildly different endings, pre-extended cut. Before anyone says anything, yes, the endings were wildly different in CONCEPT but in execution they looked practically the same. They didn't go beyond what the Catalyst said word for word. Synthesis: Green explosion, everyone is part synthetic, the end. Control: Blue explosion, the Reapers are being controlled, the end. Destroy: Red explosion, the Reapers are now destroyed ans possibly earth, the end. That was literally ALL the variation you saw so I wouldn't consider that wildly different.

I always find people talking about these 'quotes', yet they never seem to surface, wonder why.

"Experience the beginning, middle, and end of an emotional story unlike any
other, where the decisions you make completely shape your experience
and outcome."

Totally true, when I've talked to other people about their playing experience it's sound like some of us played completely different games based on the choices we made throughout the game.

"[The presence of the Rachni] has huge consequences in Mass
Effect 3. Even just in the final battle with the Reapers."

While I don't remember the Rachni in the final battle itself, it's totally possible that in the EU or lore of Mass Effect they do.

"There are many different endings. We wouldn't do it any other way. How
could you go through all three campaigns playing as your Shepard and
then be forced into a bespoke ending that everyone gets? But I can't
say any more than that?"

Also true, there are far more 'endings' as in on-going plots being resolved throughout the entire game.

"There is a huge set of consequences that start stacking up as you approach the end-game. And
even in terms of the ending itself, it continues to break down to
some very large decisions. So it's not like a classic game ending
where everything is linear and you make a choice between a few things
- it really does layer in many, many different choices, up to the
final moments, where it's going to be different for everyone who
plays it."

Notice the use of "up to the final moments"...
"So it's not like a classic game ending
where everything is linear and you make a choice between a few things" No it's not, I consider the ending everything that happens in Sol and I certainly saw plenty of my previous choices and actions over all previous 3 games so up.
They aren't that hard to find.

Looking though the major collection of 'promises' I see plenty of vague hints but nothing concrete, nothing enough to justify going "SEE! SEE! THEY PROMISED THIS!".

1: I'm going to assume that you have to know that your statement "Completely different games" is an exaggeration, because there's simply no way you're being literal. But you cannot also say that the statement is "Totally true". Discounting imagination, which I think is reasonable, the endings of the game are literally split between A, B and C. Did you really predict when you heard of Bioware boasting of layered and complex conclusions, from either their literal word or their implied intent, that what we got is what they meant?

2: I didn't play the Mass Effect GAMES to hear about how my decisions had impact from a book. You can't expect people to be satisfied that the Rachni (Who were built up from the first game as a big fucking deal) being theoretically useful. This isn't an outright lie, but it sure as hell is misdirection.

3: Really? In a way there are lots of endings because "Endings" could refer to the conclusion of individual plot points instead of the actual ending? You know damn well that the question that sparked this was probably about the ending, the answer clearly refers to playing through all three campaigns and the idea of single bespoke ending (Which they claimed would not be the case). If the employee was referring to this new concept of "Endings" you speak of, there is a lot more they could say, like that that's what they were talking about. I'm sorry, but this idea strikes me as willfully ignorant

4: The choices you get at the ending of the game are determined by your EMS score, nothing else. There is no dynamic variation beyond which crew members walk off the ship in the outro cinematic. You get a choice between 1-3 endings depending on your EMS score, one of 3 things happens, and that is the sum total of your role in the ending. It ultimately doesn't matter weather you get race A or race B on your side, or if companion X or companion Y lived or died; as long as enough of them did, tings remain the same. You could run thought the game in two completely opposing playthroughs, making opposing choices and building different relationships, and the endings will be almost exactly the same regardless. There is no subtly to be had and there are no layers to be seen, the ending ignores most of your choices, and instead grades you based on how much of the game you finished. It is not "Different for everyone who plays it" you do in fact "Make a choice between a few things" (3 to be exact).

P.S: If you want to assume that the "Few final moments statement" was meant to communicate that the book ends of the game would remain the same regardless of what came before, than consider that this might not be such a big deal, if the final moments of the game didn't CHANGE THE NATURE OF EXISTENCE.

The reason the ending is such a bid deal is because it changes the story a great deal, yet gives you precious little information and takes only a fraction of your choices into account; it's an arbitrary ultimatum.

Even if you like the ending, you can't honestly tell me that everybody should have been able to ascertain it's nature based on Bioware's words.

1. Did you follow the plot? No? You you didn't follow the "complex conclusions". BTW I don't exaggerate.

2. Meh, fair does.

3. There isn't a single 'ending', the entire plot of the ME series is not wrapped up in 5 mins, as much as constantly throughout the game. Those last few minutes wrap up the Reaper plot line, would you still be so angry if the Reapers and the Quiani/Geth plot swapped places in the games time frame?

"Experience the beginning, middle, and end of an emotional story unlike any
other, where the decisions you make completely shape your experience
and outcome."

Totally true, when I've talked to other people about their playing experience it's sound like some of us played completely different games based on the choices we made throughout the game.

I'd agree with this about most of the "experience" of the game, say having Wrex and Mealon's data is pretty damn different to no data and Wreav. But the outcome isn't "completely shaped" by your decisions. Whatever you do throughout the game, the crucible is always built, you meant the catalyst and get to choose your colour of explosion. This was mitigated somewhat by the EC, as that did give each ending a different feel.

Of course the crucible is always going to be built, and other key plot points will always happen, otherwise it'd be impossible to construct any kind of narrative.

"There are many different endings. We wouldn't do it any other way. How
could you go through all three campaigns playing as your Shepard and
then be forced into a bespoke ending that everyone gets? But I can't
say any more than that?"

Also true, there are far more 'endings' as in on-going plots being resolved throughout the entire game.

This looks like semantic argueing over the nature of "ending". It is not unreasonable it expect that a quote talking about ending is referring to the ending of the entire game, not resolution of individul plot points. Would you say that KOTOR had 7 or so "endings"? Because events on Taris, Korriban, Manaan, Kashykk, Tatooine and the Leviathan all resolved before the big dark'light choice and showdown with Malak. Just like in ME3, where the Tuchanka, Rannoch, and Cerberus base segemnts conclude theor individual story components, but for the purpose of feeding into the final confrontation in the game's finale.

No on the basis that the over-arching plot line of KOTOR doesn't leave other major plotlines to be resolved throughout KOTOR2.

"There is a huge set of consequences that start stacking up as you approach the end-game. And
even in terms of the ending itself, it continues to break down to
some very large decisions. So it's not like a classic game ending
where everything is linear and you make a choice between a few things
- it really does layer in many, many different choices, up to the
final moments, where it's going to be different for everyone who
plays it."

Notice the use of "up to the final moments"...

What about "be different for everyone who plays it". Obviously there's an element of hyperbole to this kind of statement, but I don't think it is particularly unreasonable to expect more difference in the endings than a colour filter swap (pre EC) after comments like this.

"So it's not like a classic game ending
where everything is linear and you make a choice between a few things" No it's not, I consider the ending everything that happens in Sol and I certainly saw plenty of my previous choices and actions over all previous 3 games so up.
They aren't that hard to find.

If that's how you define the ending then some of your choices can undeniably be considered to feature, what with Wrex/Wreav/Kirrahe's speech and the different allies you have appearing as the fleets report in (note the lack of rachni there). However, it appears that most people (myself included) consider the ending to be the events following Shepard being hit by Harbinger's beam, and after that all your choices aren't referenced, only the EMS score to determine the effect of the crucible.

Then that comes down to opinion [like everything else here].

I rushed though these partly because I'm in a rush this morning, and also because I understand how pointless it is trying to convince you that you're not so entitled as you think.

I did however want to say this.

I few years ago I was a massive Muse fan, followed what they were doing, read all the interviews, tracked down everything they'd ever recorded. For their new studio album, they promised (from the bassists words)"a 15-minute space-rock solo". Instead what we got was about 5 mins of okish classical music and an album that was rather mediocre with only 2-3 stand out tracks.

Did me and all the other Muse fans head down to our local HMV and start demanding our money back?
Nope.
We we're grumpy for about a week realised it was still worth the £10-£15 we paid for it.

Was ME3 worth the £45 I paid?

**** YES!

A lot of the complaints about the ending are completely valid, I'll admit that, but at the end of the day I played a game that nearly brought me to tears at three separate points, got a good few days out of it (a lot more then most A-rated games) and overall was a much better experience then most games that fall in the same price bracket.

I think something that many of the TBME3 crowd overlook is that much of these 'promises' were said while the game was still in development. A game changes so much though development and it tends to go without saying that a lot of the features that's planned for any game never end up in the finished product. Even if you play a demo or a beta of any game it will still have such a disclaimer on it, I think the main mistake Bioware made was not putting such a disclaimer on everything they said.

I cannot believe the zeal behind some of the hate, I often feel like I'm being told 'you can't enjoy this game, you have to hate it and feel disappointed and betrayed'. It's gotten to the point were people seem to be actively searching for the tiniest dents in the crust just to try and justify their hate.

Yes Bioware hinted and this, this and that, but unfortunately these things never made it to the finished product. Some of us got over it, and were still able to enjoy the game anyway. It's about time you got over the fact that some of us still found the game to be 'fun'.

1: Yes you did. You referred to Biowares statement about "Completely shaping your story" as "Totally true", and claimed that different people describe practically different games, and now you've outright said that the broad strokes of the narrative (And thus the most influential) like the construction of the crucible remain the same.

3: That switch would be physically impossible and make no difference, because the Reaper plot CHANGES THE NATURE OF EXISTENCE. No, I am not satisfied that the fate of the galaxy was determined in five minutes. One of the reasons this whole "Endings" theory doesn't work is because you're assuming that all the different plots are of equal importance. The Reaper story is more important than the Quarian story because the Reaper story potentially negates the impact of the Quarian story. And as I said before, do you really think it would be reasonable to expect nobody to be led astray by Biowares comments? There's no reason to believe that they only accidentally promised that the ending would be layered and complex, when what they meant was that the rest of the game would be layered and complex, with the exception of the ending.

Mass Effect 3 is one of the most powerful, engaging and hauntingly beautiful things I've ever laid eyes on, but the ending is a piece of shit; These statements do not have to conflict. I never said I didn't enjoy ME3 or that I regretted playing it, you said you didn't understand why people were disappointed in the ending, and I told you why. I'm not telling you how to feel about the ending to Mass Effect 3.

You know why everybody was so disappointed in Bioware, despite how commonly games fall short of their promises? Because this is Bioware we're talking about, it's precisely because they've done so right by so many, that the rest of the game is layered and complex, that everybody expected the ending to be layered and complex.

I remind you that before ME3 came out, lots of people were expecting it to suck, there were whole forums discussing how Bioware had fucked up, was going to fuck up, and was currently in the process of fucking up. And yet when the game came out people were still disappointed, why? Because it wasn't just the trailers and the market that promised the ending to live up to the rest of the game, it was the game itself. Because the rest of ME3 is so great, people expected the ending, which they figured Bioware would pay especially close attention to, would be the same way.

I never said anything about how you should feel about the game, it was you who expressed a lack of understanding for people who were disappointed in the ending, and I told you why. If someone told you how you should feel, it wasn't me.

Bioware did more than hint, the things they said were said with the intention to make you want to buy the game. Advertisement is not the place for misdirection. What made you assume I cared weather you liked the game? I expressed that I thought that expecting the ending to be better was perfectly reasonable, and you argued that it wasn't, that the way people feel about the game was nonsensical, and that people should "Get over the fact that some of us found the game to be fun"

Honestly I'm kind of offended that you assumed (Based on how you "Feel" from what I understand) that I'm invested in how much or how little you enjoyed the game, that you assumed that I didn't like the game (Presumably because that's what everybody else claims), and I'm most offended by you telling me how I should get over my petty need for you to suffer, (Which you fabricated) about how I should feel, after you JUST finished complaining about people telling YOU how to feel.

This entire conversation you've said that people should have interpreted Biowres statements differently, or that they should have expected the ending to be arbitrary and unchanging, because you consider the ending to be the entire game, so why shouldn't everyone else? It was apparently worth the money you paid for it.

Do you not see what the problem with this is?

 

[SAMAS]

Probably the worst ending to any piece of fiction, ever.

Um, NO. No, no no!!

Okay, you're angry and disappointed about the game's ending. I won't try to defend it (hell, I might agree with you). But let's drop the Hyperbole, okay?

Mass Effect 3 doesn't even have the worst ending in video games, much less fiction.

Hell, it has an ending, which puts it ahead of a lot of games.

http://dakkster.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/a-winner-is-you1.gif

 

[dystopiaINC]

That doesn't answer my question. I was asking how they managed to sabotage a system overseen by an ancient, incredibly powerful sentient AI without even noticing the AI is there. I get that they went for the Keepers rather than the AI itself, but you're telling me that the Catalyst had no idea how to fix this, or even what to tell the Reapers? It didn't even think "Well, I can't fix this, better give Sovereign a heads up. Maybe tell him about the Conduit that the Protheans used to invade me".

My guess was that it was in sleep mode, much like the other Reapers in dark space were, waiting for the next cycle and to conserve energy. Face it, even for an AI, 50,000 years is a long time.

Once it woke up from the invasion, and noticed the Crucible being constructed, realized "Oh wait, they might actually pull this off - I'd better move somewhere more defendable." and probably either used the Mass Relay next to it to move, or moved itself since it is a Mass Relay itself and made the technology.

As for the keepers, various mails and such in the game hinted that no one ever really knew how they work. The most the Protheans could do was disrupt the signal for activating the Citadel mass relay, not the basic functionality of the Keepers themselves. And done after they had harvested everyone, so they probably reverted back to their sleep cycle and thus unaware, until the monitor for the galaxy, Sovereign, tried to activate them for this cycle that they realized something was wrong.

I dunno...

I mean, this is another case where I could probably buy all these things if anyone actually mentioned them in game. As it is it just feels like a mess. Your very post starts with "My guess", for instance. Nothing about it makes me feel like this was some master stroke twist at the ending, it just feels like a clumsy, incomplete ending to me that raises more questions than it answers. To be honest your point about the Protheans fiddling with the Keepers reminds me of this:

Spoiler: Spoiler for image

So the Prothean scientists understood the Keepers well enough to specifically disable one part of their 'programming', the part that lets them receive the Reaper's signal, without damaging any other part of their functions for maintaining the Citadel, or harming the Keepers themselves, but they didn't understand them well enough to actually figure out their wider purpose within the Citadel, or what created them, or what the thing they maintain even is.

That is a very specific level of understanding.

Now this may just be me, but the catalyst seems for the most part neutral to it all. he created the first reapers and the cycle but from then on pretty much let harbinger and the reapers run the show from there. he tells us he can take control if he wants, but he active helps you defeat the reapers. why would he do that? the leviathans DLC stated that the mission they created the catalyst for was to find a way to end the wars between organic and synthetics. the leviathans had up raised hundreds of civilizations across the galaxy and on a large portion of those worlds the civilizations there had been lost because they all created AI's that turned on them and wiped them out. they were losing their slave planets one by one and the catalyst was created and tasked with finding a solution.

the solution it found was that it was inevitable, you couldn't stop the synthetics from uprisings, so the best course of action was lose prevention, the world lost to synthetics were lost entirely, art, culture, technology, genetics. All lost in the synthetic purges, the Catalyst became a lost prevention system that had the reapers become living Archives of lost civilizations formed by the genetic martial of billions of people similar to legion's hive mind in a way, billions of minds melded into one entity.

the catalyst in me3 to me seemed like it WANTED organics to find another way, he was impressed by how far this cycle had come, and he had always wanted a better solution but was doing the best he could with what he had. and that's where the crucible comes onto play, it modified the citadel and gives the catalyst the power to do find a new solution.

Honestly i kind of like how i have it in my head, to me this ^ makes sense, and more than any indoctrination theory does anyway...

 

[AD-Stu]

The Codex entry on Reaper variants [http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex/The_Reapers#Reaper_Variants] addresses this - it is believed that the Reapers choose one species to be converted into a "capital" Reaper, while the other harvested races are converted into the lesser Reaper-Destroyers. The Reapers evidently decided that humanity would be the race that would be processed into a new capital-class Reaper.

After all, Anderson in the final mission theorizes that they're transporting humans to the Citadel to process them into the new Reaper.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's an ME3 Codex entry, right?

My whole point is that this part of the lore and the story is a mess and it seems to be as a result of the change in writers - there's a whole bunch of foreshadowing for the ending Drew Karpyshyn had in mind (including the dark energy stuff, the human DNA stuff, the human Reaper and the Collectors specifically targeting humans). All that material either doesn't reconcile with the canon ending or it's just ignored by it. Stuff like the ME3 Codex entry you've quoted are (IMO) just half-arsed attempts to fill some of the resulting plot holes.

I found that accepting the fact that the writers screwed many elements of the story up so badly that they couldn't rescue all of them by the end helped to cure a lot of my headaches with regard to the game.

I think of it as kind of like trying to make sense of the climax of The Stand - you could read and reread the section over and over and over again, discuss it until you're blue in the face and still not know what's going on. Or you could just accept that Stephen King wrote himself into a corner, have a giggle over how blatantly awful his 'solution' to it all was and move on.

Just so there's no confusion, BTW, I'm writing all of this as someone who loves these games. I've been gaming for close on 20 years and it's my favourite series of all time. So I'm not saying this as someone who just wants to dump on Bioware or the series.

That doesnt solve the problem of how exactly are the dead corpses on, say, The Citadel corridor before meeting TIM, are going to be procesed. They can make it into liquid to preserve the body (barely) but not the mind or knowledge because the brain is already gone because of descomposition, to make a worthy candidate for Capital Ship Reaper.

Catalyst explicity says at (19:16) that "WE harvest your body, your knowledge, your creations. We preserve it. To be reborn into a new reaper". He also mentions at (17:05) that "Reapers harvest ALL life, Organic and Synthetic, before their are forever lost to this conflict".

Actually that's a problem that (AFAIK) the series does have a consistent answer for through all the various plotlines. If I remember correctly the Reapers / Collectors are always primarily interested in the DNA of the species. It makes sense (to me at least) that the DNA is just as usable in a liquified goo form as it would be if they preserved the brains or bodies or whatever. And it's through the DNA that they hope to preserve the bodies, knowledge and creations of the species.

Whether DNA actually has the magical properties required to fulfill that purpose is a metaphysical question that I'm not really qualified to answer. But it has a consistent in-universe explanation at least.

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

All the problems with the ending is tied up in the Catalyst. His appearance opens a hundred unanswered questions and contradictions about Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2, and reduces Shepard to a chump that does his bidding, and it also introduces a lot of tonal and thematic dissonance. Instead of the story that the previous 2.99 games was about, overcoming overwhelming evil and odds through the power of cooperation and friendship, you end on helping the antagonist fulfilling his original goal. Instead of following up on the theme that had been brought up several times during the story, i.e.: "Assuming you have the right to rob other people of their self-determination and decide what is best for them is a really shitty thing to do, and it makes you Chairman Jerkass of the Generally Terrible People's Union", the ending disregards that and tell you, "But hey, it is completely okay if you do that shitty thing, because the leader of the enemy told you so!"

To sum it up in the shortest terms possible:

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

You still end up applying a solution to his problem with one of his methods. Someone summed it up pretty good:

What I continue to despise in every ending is the way in which they rob each of the conclusions of any meaningful poetry.

Destroy: I will not bow to the vile mentality of the Reapers, I will not allow myself to become like them - except-for-this-exact-moment-when-I kill-one-whole-legitimate-form-of-life-in-order-to-preserve-another-thereby-proving-the-whole-thesis-of-the-Reaper's-valid...

Control: Congratulations Shepard, you have defeated the arrogance of Saren, the egotism of the Illusive Man, the pride of Harbinger, and overcome the self-righteous presumption of the Reaper King... So how about you just try on his crown on for a second. Oh, that looks spiffy indeed. Wow. You look really good in that. You can pull that off. ...Hey, want to rule the universe? You totally can... That would in no way be exactly what every other villain in this narrative was trying to do the whole time.

Synthesis: It is important that we learn racism and intolerance is wrong, so we'll just take away the whole notion of racism. We won't overcome it; we won't learn to appreciate why evolving beyond such imagined barriers are beneficial. We'll just skip that step, impose it on everyone, and not worry that the beauty of the message was utterly ignored.

Refuse: Well, isn't that nice: you made a little speech about valuing autonomy. But hey, it doesn't matter, because you're a weak, weak dog who failed to act when you could have and condemned all sentient life to extinction. ...So how ya feel about that freedom now, clown?

Every one of these vapid conclusions makes a powerful statement ? and then immediately contradicts it. It's like some weird bait-and-switch, except that if you play along you become morally compromised for the precise reason you fought so long do what's right. You end up shadow boxing with your own morality, never able to appease that gnawing doubt in your heart, because the clumsy nihilistic illogic the creators of this fiction employed frustrate any chance at making meaning, let alone reaching a state of resolve.

 

[King Billi]

All the problems with the ending is tied up in the Catalyst. His appearance opens a hundred unanswered questions and contradictions about Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2, and reduces Shepard to a chump that does his bidding, and it also introduces a lot of tonal and thematic dissonance. Instead of the story that the previous 2.99 games was about, overcoming overwhelming evil and odds through the power of cooperation and friendship, you end on helping the antagonist fulfilling his original goal. Instead of following up on the theme that had been brought up several times during the story, i.e.: "Assuming you have the right to rob other people of their self-determination and decide what is best for them is a really shitty thing to do, and it makes you Chairman Jerkass of the Generally Terrible People's Union", the ending disregards that and tell you, "But hey, it is completely okay if you do that shitty thing, because the leader of the enemy told you so!"

I'm sorry but how exactly at the end are you helping the antagonist fulfill his original goal? He lets you destroy or control the Reapers if you want..? Do you just mean in regards to the Synthesis ending? If so then I think the solution is obvious... just don't pick that ending. If saving the lives of countless lives across the galaxy isn't worth robbing people of their self determination then don't do it. You do have other options you just have to be prepared to pay the cost they demand.

Why do people seem to think that the Synthesis ending is supposed to be considered the "good" ending? None of the endings are good, they all suck and they're supposed to in a way... I can't imagine the final decision was ever supposed to be an easy one with a clearcut good and bad outcome. You're going to have to face the truth that something you value is going to be lost to ensure the Reapers are stopped, It all comes down to what you are ultimately prepared to sacrifice to save everyone?

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

Stop being a defensive jerk. It gets you nowhere here.

And blatant lies do?

What do you value more - someone who merely bashes the ending, regardless of how delusional their attacks may be; or someone who actually tells the truth, regardless of how inconvenient it is for you?

If someone can't be bothered to tell the truth - especially in cases where anyone who's played the game would know it's a complete lie - then they don't deserve an iota of respect. They're liars, lying solely with the intent to slander a game and deceive others.

Oh, cry me a river! You keep beating the silent majority drum, despite it being blatantly obvious that you know nothing about how costumer behavior or statistics works.

Long story short, that BSN user is merely whining because every option has its benefits and downsides. It's a morally-difficult decision, with an impact that will affect all life for generations to come.

Colin "drayfish" Dray is a professor in literature IRL. I would say he have a better grasp on these things than you.

Destroy: Apparently wiping out the Collectors wasn't a problem back in ME2. Why the double standard in this case? Oh wait, it's ME3, that's why. Wonder if that person whined about having the option to cause the extinction of four different races throughout ME3?

Oh, yes you can do those things, but you seem to miss the part where the games makes it pretty clear cut that you are an asshole, traitor, and psychopath for doing that short of thing. Killing off the Geth means you have to brutally and overtly murder Legion, an ally and friend, and the same thing goes for the Krogan with Mordin. And sacrificing the Qurian makes Tali commit suicide.

Who said that Shepard would "rule the universe" simply because they take control of the Reapers? Where does it imply that Shepard uses the Reapers to enforce their will upon the galaxy, other than acting as peacekeeper and rebuilder? To put it simply, the argument assumes something must be true solely so it can whine about the assumption.

I could write something about this, but I have already written a lot and your attitude seems to indicate that I am mostly wasting my time here. I am just going to leave these:

Synthesis: Where does choosing Synthesis invariably mean that you agree with the Catalyst's views? What if someone sees the value in organic/synthetic unity and feels that all life would benefit from that unity? This is just taking another assumption on the player's behalf in order to complain about the assumption.

It just seems like you are ignoring the subtext and the themes of the series here. So far very example the examples of an overt fusion of organics and synthetics has been portrayed as an abomination, like the husks, Reapers and poor David Archer. Or associated with willing giving up your soul and succumbing to madness, like the Illusive Man and Saren, y'know, the villains.

The fact that Synthesis ends up working is, seen from those examples, essentially a huge fluke. Even if you meta-game it.

Refusal: To put it bluntly, Refusal is based on the ending-bashers who demanded that they get to throw away everything they've worked for in the third game. So it makes perfect sense that Shepard should be hypocritical and self-contradicting in Refusal.

That was at best a gross misinterpretation on Bioware's behalf on what their costumers wanted. I can only speculate whether or not pettiness was involved on Bioware's behalf and if it was a wilful misinterpretation; but what most people wanted was the option to make a rousing "Get the hell out of our galaxy!" speech ending in a heroic last stand for Shepard and the forces of the galaxy. Because that would be the kind thing Shepard actually would do, and what 2.99 of the game told us was the right thing to do.

What it ending up being came across as glorified game over:

Shepard: "Uh, what you are doing is kinda wrong? ...I guess?"
Casper the Genocidal Ghost: "HOW DARE YOU! I SHALL DESTROY EVERY YOU HOLD DEAR!"
Shepard: *stares blankly like an idiot while everyone dies off-screen*

It just comes as a thin-skinned game master ending the session by killing the party out of spite and shouting for people to get the fuck out of his parents' basement, because they dared asking critical questions.

Of course, I fully expect you to do dismiss this point with some more self-righteous ranting and raving about how all the "ending-bashers" are "idiots and lairs" for not getting it. Or something like that... [http://youtu.be/jTpWzg4aiEU?t=1m9s]

And again, I must repeat that it is the whole idea with the Catalyst that is the basic problem. All problems is tired up in his existence. He should have been cut out like the malevolent tumor he is on the series. Had the Crucible just been a normal super-weapon without any last-minute twists, most people would have been satisfied. But instead it was decided to feed the cancer. And the bottom line is that franchise is effectively tainted if not in the process of dying.

 

[Cooperblack]

Still don't understand why the Catalyst(and by proxy the reapers) would see "Control" or "Destroy" as an solution, I get that Synthesis apparently has been what the reapers have been working towards...in some strange weird space magic makes little sense kind of way - But Control and Destroy deals directly with the reapers being the problem, In fact it's a complete 180 from the organics and their desire to build synthetics is the problem as stated by the catalyst.

So why would control and destroy be seen as a "solution" by the catalyst when they don't even address the organics building synthetics problem that the catalyst and the reapers are combating?

Destroy/Control treats the reapers as being the problem - needing new leadership(control) or just needs to go away entirely (destroy).

 

[JellySlimerMan]

That doesnt solve the problem of how exactly are the dead corpses on, say, The Citadel corridor before meeting TIM, are going to be procesed. They can make it into liquid to preserve the body (barely) but not the mind or knowledge because the brain is already gone because of descomposition, to make a worthy candidate for Capital Ship Reaper.

Catalyst explicity says at (19:16) that "WE harvest your body, your knowledge, your creations. We preserve it. To be reborn into a new reaper". He also mentions at (17:05) that "Reapers harvest ALL life, Organic and Synthetic, before their are forever lost to this conflict".

Actually that's a problem that (AFAIK) the series does have a consistent answer for through all the various plotlines. If I remember correctly the Reapers / Collectors are always primarily interested in the DNA of the species. It makes sense (to me at least) that the DNA is just as usable in a liquified goo form as it would be if they preserved the brains or bodies or whatever. And it's through the DNA that they hope to preserve the bodies, knowledge and creations of the species.

Whether DNA actually has the magical properties required to fulfill that purpose is a metaphysical question that I'm not really qualified to answer. But it has a consistent in-universe explanation at least.

They......"hope" to preserve the bodies?? they dont know already?? they have been murdering people under the weird notion that liquifing and storing that in a Reaper = preservation??

And again, if they preserve everybody, why care about the genetics? Why care about storing the "best" for a Sovereing Class Reaper and everyone else in a Spider Reaper, when a S.C.R is a much more powerful shell to preserve everyone?? is the DNA somehow a factor in preserving minds and experiences?? Even if we remove DNA of the equation and say that they only pick an specific race to preserve, then why Reapers even bother in making inferior Husks with the precious humans?? they may no longer have memories or knowledge, but at least the bodies would be useful candidates for preservation (without brain or not).

You see, knowing that DNA is a factor is ok, but if we dont know why WHY it is, then the antagonist has no logic in its motivation other than a vague sense of "destroying the brain into a liquid means that i can preserve you". And, just like Dark Energy, its foreshadowing that went nowhere.

Its bad storytelling when the audience has to guess the motivations of everyone (they should be paying us for filling the blanks at this point)

(13:21 to 16:18. Its an old video before ME3, so the answers on ME2 arent enough)

And now, on ME3, since we dont know why preserving is considered a "good" solution to the Reapers, we cant trust The Catalyst enough to make a hard choice with the options presented. Why not, instead of forcing everyone to be preserved, try this:

1)Killing, controlling or preserve the Synthetics as soon as they rebel. Leaving the Organics alone.
2)Give Organics the means to defend themselves against Synthetics? like genetic upgrades or weapons that the Reapers give to the Organics, and that the Reapers can are ONLY used against Synthetics and not against other organics? The weapons would have an emergency off state that the Reapers could trigger by sending a signal and make the weapons desintegrate with internal Nanomachines, to make sure that not only the organics dont use it against others, but also that they dont get the chance to reverse engineer it.
3)Telling the Organics: "Dont make robots, they may kill you. Stick to genetics or non sentient computers. Oh, and dont open portals to other dimencion because The Orz may "smell" you"
4)Be a "Galactic Body Disposal Service". Just like how the Keepers on the Citadel take the corpses to who-knows-where, the Reapers could leave organics and synthetics on their own bussiness, but rescue the people at the verge of dying or already dead, to preserve them when they become extinct with conflict or naturally.

But of all those apparently werent good or efficient solutions. In fact, Reaper intervention was what made The Geth become the heretics and kill organics to help Sovereing

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

The game revolved around the construction of a superweapon because it was made clear throughout the entire series that there was no way to defeat the Reapers in conventional warfare.

That's not what most people wanted. Most people weren't delusional trolls who didn't pay attention to anything in the series.

if you twisted people's words any harder, you'd metamorph into mitt romney, i swear to god. There is absolutely no discussing with you, because you instantly call anyone a troll and a liar who doesn't agree with you and bow down to me3 like it's a piece of fine literature. (Which it wasn't, not in any sense of the word, considering all the plot holes and the fact that they had to reexplain themselves shit tons of times to cover up all the inconsistencies)

Please tell me, why was saren/sovereign destroyed by "conventional weapons", when apparently that wasn't possible? how about the collectors? no? how about all the reapers that get absolutely butt fucked during me3?

shepard through the first and second game and parts of the third even, would just say "screw that noise" to what the reapers were saying and put his/her fuckin boot down on those fuckers. Hell every villain of all time has said "you will not defeat me!" yet, low and behold, that's what happens.

also, how do you know what most people wanted? are you some reaper, who knows the decision of a collective population? there is a reason why this was one of the BIGGEST if not the biggest backlashes in video game history, is because of the massive amount of people who were pissed off by it. that takes numbers, not some "silent majority" who supposedly liked the ending.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

It just comes as a thin-skinned game master ending the session by killing the party out of spite and shouting for people to get the fuck out of his parents' basement, because they dared asking critical questions.

This is what it really is, in terms of a game-master analogy.

Beginning of game:
GM: Heroes, you must obtain and use the Device of Plot in order to end the conflict and obtain peace. The enemy cannot be defeated without it!
End of game:
GM: How shall you use the Device of Plot, now that you have reached the end of your path?
Players: But none of these options are perfect choices! None are exactly what we want!
GM: You've come this far, you must resolve the plot.
Players: No, we refuse to make a difficult decision in a game about difficult decisions!
GM: *facepalm* Very well... *rocks fall everyone dies*
Players: What the hell was that all about?!
GM: Exactly what I told you at the beginning of the game. You don't like it, tough luck.
Players: *run off and jump on the internet, spreading a completely delusional version of what happened in the game and slandering the game master*

If anything, the Catalyst saying "SO BE IT" in the Refusal ending is it not caring that Shepard has suddenly turned into an idiot that's afraid of making decisions that impact others, that can't be arsed to choose an option where there isn't a sunshine-and-flowers choice.

Shamus did a similar analogy on Fable 2 story. And he didnt like that Deus Ex Machina worked either:

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2109

Spoiler: Spoilers for Fable 2 EndGame as presented by Shamus on that link

After playing with sis and romping around the farm, you go to bed. You are awakened in the night by music. You leave the farm and head down the road. Eventually you come to the music box, the one that fizzled at the start of the game. As you pick it up, you hear your sister say, ?You?ve passed the test. Your reward is the opportunity to face your enemy, and the means to destroy him.?

Suddenly, you are back in the real world, at the entrance to the Spire. You?re holding the music box.

Never is it explained how you survived a point-blank shot to the face. Or what that dream world business was all about. Or how you got to the Spire. Or what ?the test? was, who issued it, who judged it, what it judged, or why you passed.

It is the quintessential Deus Ex Machina: Suddenly, you are winning for no reason.

Victory was taken from you by writer fiat. Now it?s being foisted on you by writer fiat.

You enter the Spire. Lucian has re-created the Ultimate Ceremony of Ultimate Destiny here in the tower, with the other heroes around him and himself in the center. Colorful beams of light pour into him, although as before it?s not really clear what the beams are doing. You walk up to him and are prompted to press a button. When you do, the music box takes away the colorful beams coming from the other heroes, leaving him vulnerable.

It?s the classic tabletop gaming trope: The entire game is just the author wanking off as he pits his Ultimate Evil Guy against His Ultimate Awesome Weapon. You win not because you were brave, strong, or resourceful, but because you did what you were told. The artifact did all the winning for you. I actually don?t mind not having some crazy multi-stage boss fight, it?s just that this moment was scripted in such a way as to take all of the drama out of it. At the very least, the player should have some idea what the heck this box is and what advantage it will give them before they hit the button.

You can then shoot him once and win the game. He falls and dies off screen.

I hope. Note that you?ve been shot by Lucian twice and fallen out of his high window. Here, you shoot him once and he falls off screen. (And if you angle the camera just right you can see there is water below.) Since you survived a bullet and a fall, it makes sense that you?d want to double-check Lucien and make sure he?s done. But once he falls out of view, he?s forgotten and nobody speaks of him again.

Whatever you do, do not waste time listening to what he says, hoping that some logic will emerge from this wreck of a character. If you take too long, Reaver will kill-steal the final boss from you and no that is not a joke.

Theresa will then teleport in?

Give me a break.

?and stand where Lucian was standing. She says the Spire is now ready to deliver a wish, and as the big hero you get to make it. Will you:

Bring back to life everyone who died in the making of the tower? Thousands of people.
Bring back your loved ones. Your sister, your family, your dog.
Get a big bunch of money. According to Theresa, it is ?more wealth than you can possibly imagine?, etc.


Lucky for us that the hero arrived once the Spire was ready to make with the wish-granting, but before Lucien actually made his life-long wish. That can?t have been a very large window of opportunity.

Before you get all click-happy and make your choice, know that:

Those ?thousands? of people never actually appear anywhere. You just get a generic letter from ?The People of Albion? thanking you for bringing their loved ones back to life. And good points. I saw no other difference in the gameworld when contrasted with the other endings.
You don?t actually get to see your sister again. I wanted my sister to come back and live in the Castle, like she wished for at the beginning. No, you just get a letter saying she?s happy and doing fine here in not-part-of-the-reachable-gameworld-ville.
?More money than you could imagine? is blatant false advertising. You get 1 million. There is actually a property in the game that costs 1 million (Castle Fairfax, Lucien?s old home and where sis wanted to live) so it?s entirely possible to make this wish and be broke five minutes later. My evil character has just finished his trip to see the Shadow Dudes for Reaver, and he?s got 6.8 million. A million bucks isn?t really enough to tempt him into giving up his beloved killer black dog. There is just no reason to pick this.

And while we?re at it: I can bring back thousands and thousands of people I don?t know, or a couple that I care about? How does that work exactly? Why can?t I wish for the return of ?everyone killed by Lucian?? Surely adding my few people onto the Spire Death Tally isn?t going to push the magic wish machine over some arbitrary limit.

Actually, screw that: My wish is for Reaver to drown in his own urine. Or maybe I want to do that ?nuke the world? thing that the last guy wished for. Or maybe I?d like to have my youth back that Reaver stole from me.

The wish made, Theresa then teleports the other heroes away. Reaver poofs away to the other side of the world and nobody asks if you would like to, you know, settle up with him. In fact, nobody ever mentions your lost youth, ever.

Because nobody cares. This story isn?t about you. This is a story about the writer?s ultimate evil bad guy versus his author-insertion know-it-all and his Artifact of Mysterious Destiny. You are a supporting character ? a silent one at that ? and what you think or feel is unimportant.

Theresa then declares that she owns the Spire and teleports you away. ?Begone?, she tells you.

And so the story ends with the writer laughing at you. ?Ha ha! I got you! You totally fell for it! She totally pwned you, dude!?

If you were wondering why your character obeyed this idiot woman no matter how much her goals ran contrary to yours, now you know: The writer didn?t actually have the brains to outsmart you, so he simply railroaded you into doing stupid things.

If you actually want to outsmart a player then you need a good writer with a fine touch. And then you can fool some of them. (You?ll never fool all of them. You can?t beat people in aggregate.)

Allow me to present the first ever Twenty Sided Goldun Riter award for egregiously bad storytelling.

And i remind you, once again, that this fellow Escapist did an analizis on the whole series of ME. He reached a similar conclusion.

 

[Atmos Duality]

9 pages of circular argumentation and "what if" reasoning...
Maybe this was EA/Bioware's master plan:
Shit the bed so hard with ME3's endings that people will be talking about the game for months (if not years) after release.

Which game do we remember more: The great game that finished on a high note, or the great game that bombed at the last second?

Controversy, ladies and gentlemen.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

9 pages of circular argumentation and "what if" reasoning...
Maybe this was EA/Bioware's master plan:
Shit the bed so hard with ME3's endings that people will be talking about the game for months (if not years) after release.

Which game do we remember more: The great game that finished on a high note, or the great game that bombed at the last second?

Controversy, ladies and gentlemen.

Dont you mean: "LOTS OF SPECULATIONS FROM EVERYONE"?