lord Claincy Ffnord said:
Therumancer said:
That's pretty much my final word on the subject for the moment. It's not that "nothing EA/Bioware could have done would have made me happy" it's simply that what I, and many others, want from the series and it's creators is rather transparent and hardly impossible
to give us, or unreasonable in the asking. It's EA/Bioware's obstinante refusal to do right by the fans.
Thing is, there's a difference between doing right by the fans and doing what the fans want and in this case IMO by creating the extended cut they were doing right by the fans, actually changing the ending or adding a 'Shepard wins' ending would actually have been worse. Giving the fans a all happy victory ending that contradicts what they've been saying throughout the game because they asked for it is in my opinion not doing right by the fans.
Incorrect, because the overall message of the game is one of being able to triumph despite the overwhelming odds, no matter how bad it gets, you can always have everything come up roses. That's the problem with the endings is they do not thematically fit the rest of the game series. Had the game been more ambigious to begin with you might be right, but understand that even in "no win scenarios" like the Quarian/Geth conflict it is possible to save everyone.
I suppose on it's own it can be argued that the number of irresolvable problems if you haven't played the previous games might lead one to believe those endings fit, but simply put there should be an option for a perfect ending for those who played the entire series.
Understand that Mass Effect was not intended as a work of dark, gritty, science fiction. It was intended as a spiritual successor to "Knights Of the Old Republic" and to be in the same basic vein as Star Wars. That is to say overwhelmingly bad things happening, but good guys who always pull through in the end... at the most basic level.
The situation here is one where EA/Bioware decided to pretty much take a giant dump on the game and those who played it with those endings. Expanding on a turd, doesn't change that it's still a turd.
It's sort of like the Geth/Quarian thing, in general you have to pick which species is more "worthy" of survival due to their mutually exclusive points of view. You have option A or option B. UNLESS of course you played ME2 and have your buddy Legion which allows you to work out a peace which allows everyone to survive and co-exist peacefully.
In that context if you had played ONLY ME3 and had all of these bad things happening, without guys like Thane, Kasumi, Zaeed, and others changing all of these horrible things for the better, you could say having three sucktastic endings and having to choose which one sucked least might fit... for ME3 on it's own. As a series however you might be given 3 choices, but should have an "option 4" that overrides all the rest, which is pretty much in fitting with the series, and also the central message of what happened through the rest of the game. Instead of just "telling off" the Starchild, how about subverting/destroying the starchild or whatever and just completing the mission as intended and having everyone live happily ever after, with Shepard flying off into the sunset as a proper epic hero?
See, the problem is that anyone who feels these endings fit the series, or represent any kind of integrity on the part of the developers obviously haven't been paying attention to the series.
Basically if EA wants to end this and do right by the fans, they have made a good start by elaborating on the three bad endings. Now they need to go and create "option 4" that allows previous actions throughout the series to overcome that no-win scenario like every other one in the game. That's pretty much the only real way to make this right. It also allows the existing endings to remain in the game for those that happened to like them, and if some game developer really believes those endings fit, they should feel free to mention that in interviews that this is what they thought, but otherwise end the series properly.
At any rate, all QQing aside, EA should keep this in mind when next pondering why people hate them, likewise if (or should I say when) Bioware finds it can't trade on it's reputation anymore and that a lot of it's fanbase has eroded, this is going to be the big one, they annoyed people before with some of their previous game desicians (especially when it comes to DA2) but between this and TORtanic, I suspect they have really slam dunked themselves.