Mass Effect 3's Ending Was Intended To Polarize

Warlord211

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Kroxile said:
Its just a bunch of people who have a sad that Shepard actually fucking dies at the end of her trilogy.

Sorry not everything is shit rainbows and vomit skittles in magic fairy wonderland, but sometimes shit just doesn't end that way.

That said; they ought to at least put something in to detail the outcome of the player's choices throughout the game. Other than that the endings were good; leave them alone.
Not even the reason I'm pissed off at the ending. And almost everyone I've talked to about the ending couldn't give a shit if Shepard died or not. Most of us were fully prepared for something like that to happen. The reason that I'm pissed off is that they completely disregarded the choices that I've made throughout the entire trilogy.

I don't see how the same three endings with different colored explosions are "good". In a series that paraded itself as a game where all your choices matter, this is some serious bullshit.
 

Simonoly

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Proverbial Jon said:
Simonoly said:
Why thank you. I really wasn't sure whether I was speaking out of my arse or not. I was so disappointed that TIM wasn't used more at the end. I had no choice but to kill him (even though I've been going for a pure paragon throughout the game which was frustrating). TIM was one of the most interesting characters in Mass Effect. His motives were never made clear and the way he toyed with Shepard was great. Cerberus were a huge threat throughout the whole of ME3, so it was kind of turd how they suddenly vanished and did not factor at all into the various endings in any way.

Of course I think an A, B or C ending structure isn't best and I would have loved to have seen something more complex. Bioware could have come up with a simple algorithm to calculate and give you an ending based on both your choices throughout the series, your total EMS and any choices you make within the last 10 minutes. The game is already capable of recognising your choices from Mass Effect 1 and 2 when you import a character and it adjusts itself accordingly. I don't understand why the ending was not given the same treatment.

Space Jesus was just embarrassing - as were those dream bits. I don't know about anyone else, but chasing young boys through the woods in the middle of night is a questionable activity. Even if it's just a dream.

How do you think the green ending could have been done better to actually fit in better with Mass Effect universe? That one has me stumped. I think I probably would have just removed it.
Yeah, I think the reason TIM and the Reapers WERE so interesting was because there was still a lot of mystery surrounding them. Space Jesus went and removed all of that for us in the most wand-waving sort of manner, the worst way possible. I would have preferred the Reapers to just have existed "because we say so" than try to explain them away with an obnoxious deus ex machina.

I was also going for more or less all-out paragon. Sadly I chose the renegade route with the Quarian admiral when we returned from the geth ship. He tried to blow the damn thing up with us still on it and the paragon option was "I understand." What the hell? So yeah, because of that I got the greyed out paragon option at the end with TIM, sad times.

I know nothing of game design, but an ending akin to Mass Effect 2's would have been welcome. A thrilling assault on an unstoppable enemy which uses all the characters you have got left and pulls together all your choices. That is what I was expecting frankly. Just like you, I can't see why they didn't do it that way. They had already done it once before.

I admit I lol'd hard at your comment about chasing boys through the woods at night! Although I'm playing FemShep so I guess it wasn't as creepy.

Honestly, synthesis might seem like the perfect solution out of the three but it was just outright DUMB. I mean what? If ever there was a more saccharine, happy families ending it was this one. Both organic and machine life melded together into one lifeform and everyone lives happily ever after? That doesn't even make any sense! An entire universe of diverse races is suddenly just merged with what, living technology? How do they reproduce? Does the machine/electronic part just occur naturally? What?! I honestly can't wrap my head around that concept.
When I heard Space Jesus tell my Shepard the reason for the existence of the Reapers, I really did cringe. That whole thing is horribly written. I completely see what Bioware were aiming for, but for me, it's just weak. I agree, I'd have been happier to just be told the Reapers exist because Bioware said so. I was expecting to just find out that the Reapers built the mass relays and the Citadel in order to improve their ability to farm organics. I'd have been happy if they had just ripped off the Matrix slightly and just told me the Reapers were created by an ancient civilisation of aliens, that then overthrew their creators and decided to start farming organics to survive. I know that's not the most original idea, but it's something sensible and much tangible to build upon than the sudden left-field deus ex machina we got instead.

I literally chose paragon options for everything in the game but still had the last paragon option greyed out to me. That was kind of annoying, and I'm guessing you have to do a few other things in a certain way to gain access to the charm/intimidate options at the end.

The Synthesis ending is by far the worse of the three. I don't even know why that exists as an option. All the questions you listed above in relation to that ending are completely valid and I expect the majority of people who chose that ending thought the exact same thing.

And don't think that just because your Shepard is female that she's safe from my inappropriate insinuations on the nature of those dreams! Fully-grown adults should not be trying to snatch children in the middle of night whether they're male or female.........unless, they have either stolen your phone or they have some tasty treats that they won't share. Hmm, I better stop while I'm ahead. Anyway, I do think Mass Effect 3 generally suffers from a some serious case of 'we-don't-know-how-to-fucking-end-this-thing-itus'. Which is most disappointing. I don't think they can really repair the ending with any sort of dlc as the problems are a lot deeper than just showing us how all the alien races are doing after the colourful explosions. For me, it's the implausibility of the endings which hurts this game the most. Luckily everything up until the laser beam to the face was pretty darn good, so I still really enjoy the game.
 

crhoades

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I think you misunderstand that is not what people are upset about people are upset by the fact that all of the choices you made in the previous games mean absolutely nothing they have no impact on the ending you get that and the massive gaping plot holes.
 

Frotality

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backtracking, plain and simple. like tommy wiseau saying The Room was meant as a black comedy.

here is what really happened. They were wholly unprepared to do the "wildy divergent unlike anything youve ever seen totally not an ABC choice" ending they proclaimed from the mountaintop, probably because a team of genetically-engineered super-intelligent hamster people drinking expresso laced with cocaine every morning couldnt fulfill that promise given the development time and EAs insistence on a multiplayer mode (yes i know it was allegedly a port of a cancelled FPS, ports still take time and money).

BUT, they were also afraid of the backlash for having a mostly set ending, and the inevitable nerd rage from those creepy garrus/talimancer types who didnt get the exact, specific fairy tale ending they wanted. they were afraid to commit to an ending because it would inevitably upset a significant portion of the fanbase no matter how it played out.

so the solution? make an ending where nothing is explained, no closure is given, and that is vague and confusing enough to pass as "artsy". people cant be upset with the conlcusion if it functionally doesnt conclude a god damn thing, right?

in short, they shot themselves in the foot, and when it came time to cross the finish line, they threw down a ninja smoke bomb and escaped for fear of not ending up in first place.

...and p.s.

I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO! ive been saying something like this would happen since ME2, and did you listen? no, all you people here and on the bioware forums said i was crazy and pessimistic and to have faith. WELL WHOS LAUGHING NOW?! now the best defense you can up with was "it was really all a dream" which is still admitting the ending sucked!
 

LordOfAllHeSurveys

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Frotality said:
backtracking, plain and simple. like tommy wiseau saying The Room was meant as a black comedy.

here is what really happened. They were wholly unprepared to do the "wildy divergent unlike anything youve ever seen totally not an ABC choice" ending they proclaimed from the mountaintop, probably because a team of genetically-engineered super-intelligent hamster people drinking expresso laced with cocaine every morning couldnt fulfill that promise given the development time and EAs insistence on a multiplayer mode (yes i know it was allegedly a port of a cancelled FPS, ports still take time and money).

BUT, they were also afraid of the backlash for having a mostly set ending, and the inevitable nerd rage from those creepy garrus/talimancer types who didnt get the exact, specific fairy tale ending they wanted. they were afraid to commit to an ending because it would inevitably upset a significant portion of the fanbase no matter how it played out.

so the solution? make an ending where nothing is explained, no closure is given, and that is vague and confusing enough to pass as "artsy". people cant be upset with the conlcusion if it functionally doesnt conclude a god damn thing, right?

in short, they shot themselves in the foot, and when it came time to cross the finish line, they threw down a ninja smoke bomb and escaped for fear of not ending up in first place.

...and p.s.

I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO! ive been saying something like this would happen since ME2, and did you listen? no, all you people here and on the bioware forums said i was crazy and pessimistic and to have faith. WELL WHOS LAUGHING NOW?! now the best defense you can up with was "it was really all a dream" which is still admitting the ending sucked!
That just sounds a little crazy. Besides i really think it was Ea fault for rushing the game. Even after being srewed by EA it was one of the greatest games I ever played. So don't write off bioware off just yet.
 

Sanguinedragon

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zehydra said:
Sanguinedragon said:
zehydra said:
Sanguinedragon said:
zehydra said:
Sesambrot said:
zehydra said:
Wow, they raised $27,000 to change a game's ending? What the hell is wrong with these people? The absurdity and inanity of fandom knows no bounds I see.
You are completely wrong!
First off, in the meantime, they did raise $55,282..

Secondly, they are not doing it solely for the purpose of getting a new ending!
They are mainly doing it for the kids, all of the money raised has already gone to Child's Play, even if the ending doesn't change, they will have helped a whole lot of children!

In fact I would like to ask you to refrain from calling this effort an absurdity/insanity of fandom, as those donations are actually making a difference completely unrelated to the Mass Effect Universe.
Actually I'm in no position to make demands, but I would like you to read a bit more about the subject before posting crap like that!
http://retakemasseffect.chipin.com/retake-mass-effect-childs-play
Look, I know the money is for a good cause, I get that. But the ultimate motive is to get the writers to change the end of a story, and that is bullshit. It's not you, the player's story, it's theirs. Deal with it.

I don't mind donating to child's play. I DO however have a problem with this kind of petition.
you are wrong, It stopped being "their" story the moment they asked us to pay them for it. The moment they said all our decisions would matter , and then gave us this crappy copy and paste crap. If I commision you to make an impressionist painting and you paint me a modernist, I have every right to tell you it is wrong. and I won't pay you
You didn't commission them to make Mass Effect 3. You didn't pay them to make the game, you paid them to play their game.
Wrong. I paid them for a product. Based off previous products and I expect the same quality as I have been paying for and have paid for. My buying and playing the previous titles(over and over) infers that I like what they are doing, not hey change it to mediocrity. Being that this is an inferior product I have every right to complain and demand that the problem be rectified.
And yes I did "commision" this work when I bought and paid for the previous games. That effectively paid them to make this one.
Maybe a "commission" was your intention when you paid the money for Mass Effect 1 and 2, but you can't honestly expect them to know that it was a commission. Money is just money, unless you send them a little card that says "please use these funds for your next game"

"My buying and playing the previous titles(over and over) infers that I like what they are doing, not hey change it to mediocrity. Being that this is an inferior product I have every right to complain and demand that the problem be rectified. "

Would you be just as demanding of the matrix sequels, which were pretty horrible in comparison to the first one?
good god yes.
 

Frotality

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LordOfAllHeSurveys said:
That just sounds a little crazy. Besides i really think it was Ea fault for rushing the game. Even after being srewed by EA it was one of the greatest games I ever played. So don't write off bioware off just yet.
why is it crazy? as i said tommy wiseau already did it, as do numerous purveyors of shlock. its a fairly common business tactic to pass off shitty products as being misinterpreted by you the consumer. hell, if you have it watch the behind the scenes for phantom menace: you see george lucas admitting that he fucked up the ending, then backtracking in a later meeting by saying it was "stylistically designed to be that way" in order to get the editor to shut up and do it his way.

i wrote off bioware after playing DA2 and have yet to see any reason to regret it. i played my friends copy of ME3 after he finished it because i refuse to support them anymore. he said he didnt care what i did with the game when i finished because he didnt feel like playing it again, and god do i know why.

you cant keep blaming EA for everything. EA likely doesnt give a shit what the writers do, as long as they finish on time. considering the quality of the game up until the beam to the face (and it is a very good game up until that point), i find it very, very difficult to believe that this was just the result of not having enough time. time constraints can only limit you so much, and given the visual and cinematic quality of the ending, they had to have had the time to come up with something better than the abomination we got.

at some point you have to accept that part of the ending is the creative intent of someone at bioware.

*and for those saying its about the journey, let me draw you a comparison and show you why that perspective doesnt work. the spirit of this philosophy is realized in something like this:

you and your friends set sail to imagination island. along the way you laugh and love and party and meet monkey pirates and save a princess and generally have a great time. when you reach the coordinates, you find nothing but more water stretching for miles. there is no imagination island. but, you had a memorable and fun time along the way, so fuck it who cares.

and here is ME3:

you and your friends set sail to imagination island. along the way you laugh and love and party and meet monkey pirates and save a princess and generally have a great time. when you reach the coordinates, you find nothing but more water stretching for miles. there is no imagination island. but, you had a memorable and fun time along the way, so... no wait, apparently you were destined to never ever get along with the monkey pirates, so that whole adventure was pointless. and somehow, the princess who was just with you, who pledged herself to you cause, is gone in the lifeboat and she took all your friends and got stranded on an island somewhere, so clearly friendship and love are bullshit because they just up and abandoned you at the most critical juncture. and then your sails spontaneously combust, meaning you are now marooned at sea, so really the whole journey was a bad idea. the whole reason you started this bullshit and even everything you learned along the way are now revealed to be lies. everything you did and your reasons for doing it were wrong in the end.

oh, but you get to choose the color of you near-death hallucination, so theres that.

see, ME3 doesnt just have an unsatisfactory ending, it has an ending that manages to invalidate your journey in almost every conceivable way. all the themes of the series are ignored and violated, plot consistency is violated, the power and impact of relationships, both personal and intergalactic is violated, player choice is violated... the ending just plain violates you. it taints your memories of everything up to that point and makes even thinking about a painful ordeal. even your happy memories are tainted, and made much less happy beacause you just cant ignore the context they took place in.
 

pandorum

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disgruntledgamer said:
pandorum said:
Kroxile said:
Its just a bunch of people who have a sad that Shepard actually fucking dies at the end of her trilogy.

Sorry not everything is shit rainbows and vomit skittles in magic fairy wonderland, but sometimes shit just doesn't end that way.

That said; they ought to at least put something in to detail the outcome of the player's choices throughout the game. Other than that the endings were good; leave them alone.
If your actually good at the game Shepard lives.
LMAO you talking about that 2sec clip at the end? Still doesn't stop it from sucking any less or helps it make any kind of sense. Poor Deus EX ripoff is still a poor Deus EX ripoff regardless of who lives.
do you have the day one dlc there is a hint after that shitty scene that the story is not over
 

Christian Zavrtak

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Actually I believe them absolutely that they were aiming for a ending that diverse. People should be arguing about which end was the right, which was the good decision and which ending was not as good or maybe even plain evil. It is even a nice turn of events that two major characters represent the paragon and the renegade options in away the player would have not thought off.

The whole problem with the ending is in my option simple: Choice and the lack of them. A, B or C seem to be for most players, and in a away for most shepards is fubar. We get in the end 4 solutions for a problem most shepards actually never accepted to be true. And we have to chose than A, B, or C to solve this problem, which we do not believe is true. No wonder players rebell against this, heck it would have been in character for shepard to rebel against this options. It would have been even in character to just shoot himself to avoid this. And actually that was my "ending", simply not to chose. Better luck for the next cycle, we screwed up and our deus ex machina did not work. Someone should leave the pyjaks a note about this little problem.

Paragon and Renegade options were sometimes in the past fascistic or racist. But getting a ending which embrace this simply does not work for most players. Most players simply did not play their character as the paragon asshole which embrace order & law above everything, or that renegade asshole who embraced racism and egoism and a human first attitude above all. This are extremes that were rarely chosen for a full playthrough, at least to my knowledge. And yet we have to chose them. And for the third option others have said enough on that topic:
http://youtu.be/X_QmG57VwZs ;-)

The endings itself are imo only bad executed and not bad in themselves, but we lack options to represent "our" Shepard. That we actually get the feeling that we lose the game in the end, no matter what we did in the past, does not help either. Which reminds me of the prince of persia 09 debacle. Worked for me, but worked not for many others, and could have been solved imho IF there would have been away to just walk way instead of forcing players to close their game to "get" the second ending.
 

Guardian of Nekops

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Sanguinedragon said:
zehydra said:
Would you be just as demanding of the matrix sequels, which were pretty horrible in comparison to the first one?
good god yes.
Then again, we paid a maximum of $60 and made a time committment of, oh, 8 hours or so to experience that whole trilogy, which makes the decline in quality a lot easier to stomach. For Mass Effect, we paid $180, not counting any DLC for any of the three games, and invested hundred of hours into a storyline we were supposed to be able to dynamically affect.

The fact that the final game was excellent, and true to itself and the games that had come before, until the last fifteen minutes also makes this a lot worse for me. The talent, the dedication, the work was there... it wasn't that they tried to live up to the awesomeness that came before and were unable to. The audience was right on board until that final quest, loving every minute of it... and then the last 15 minutes were completely phoned in. Narrative wise, anyway; I don't mean to imply that the production value decreased terribly, so most of the dev team should actually be spared by the lynch mob... credit where it's due.

Again, not only did Mass Effect cost more and therefore deserves to be held to a higher standard, but the quality of failure is much worse. They could have done better with the excellent team they had, nobody doubts that. They just didn't, and that's why it feels like such a betrayal.

That's also why a sizeable portion of the population has just decided to disbelieve those last 15 minutes, hoping against hope that it's some sort of fever dream and a massive prank on the part of Bioware, which will soon be rectified. Man I hope they're right. :p
 

Swiftkillz

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"It was supposed to be stupid and create a dozen plot holes"

does not fly.

The ending invalidated mass effect 1 and 2.
 

Kroxile

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pandorum said:
Kroxile said:
Its just a bunch of people who have a sad that Shepard actually fucking dies at the end of her trilogy.

Sorry not everything is shit rainbows and vomit skittles in magic fairy wonderland, but sometimes shit just doesn't end that way.

That said; they ought to at least put something in to detail the outcome of the player's choices throughout the game. Other than that the endings were good; leave them alone.
If your actually good at the game Shepard lives.
>Implying ME3 was hard.

Get real. I am enjoying my platinum trophy just fine thank you.

Also, the butthurt is strong in this thread. Deal with it.
 

pandorum

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Kroxile said:
pandorum said:
Kroxile said:
Its just a bunch of people who have a sad that Shepard actually fucking dies at the end of her trilogy.

Sorry not everything is shit rainbows and vomit skittles in magic fairy wonderland, but sometimes shit just doesn't end that way.

That said; they ought to at least put something in to detail the outcome of the player's choices throughout the game. Other than that the endings were good; leave them alone.
If your actually good at the game Shepard lives.
>Implying ME3 was hard.

Get real. I am enjoying my platinum trophy just fine thank you.

Also, the butthurt is strong in this thread. Deal with it.
Just having a little fun if you hate the ending you should read this awesomeness on GAME FRONT "5 reasons the fans are right" cannot post link on this smart phone.
 

Clayton Gates

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I have played Mass Effect from the very start, and I personally believe that bioware has delivered on all fronts for Mass Effect 3. I loved every moment of it. From the moment I stepped on tuchanka to the fighting in the perseus veil all the way to the final push on earth...

what the Mass effect community want, What the community that has done more than any other community would ever do, wants. Is an ending, befitting the most loved Video Game Icon of all time (as the reaction has shown you) Shepard. and not just a singular ending, endings that bring closure to all the mistakes and triumphs that many people have made.

Shepard was a malleable icon that has formed to our ideal hero. From the charismatic goodie two-shoes who wins the hearts of the people, to the renegade anti-hero who makes coercion scarily fun, or even the gray area. That's one of the reason's that Mass Effect was so loved in the first place, the player's choices made a legitimate difference. And delivered it in such a way I personally have never seen before.

The little details, such as what a race actually looks like, or what a reporter looks like. Leave that to the nit-picky people who dwell on such things. But the heart of the game, the story, is what people love. That's what Bioware has done to capture our attention. And with not a single detail left untouched (i.e. blasto the jellyfish, just mentioned in Mass effect and Mass effect 2, has a wall sized poster advertising the next "blasto" movie with an elcor partner). And the emotional attachment to the characters, I'd say rivals any novel I have read (and I say this with a book repertoire of more than just harry potter or other mainstream novella).

Bioware should be flattered with the heartfelt reaction that they have recieved. Never have we seen a gaming community of this size (don't quote me here) react as one body to something with this much severity. It's because we want an ending (or more accurately, a variation of endings) that does the series justice.