Mass Effect Writer Reveals Discarded Ending Ideas
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
While I think the ending we got is awful, I am of the notion that these were pretty bad and it's quite disheartening to think how half-assed their plans for the series was.bug_of_war said:
It wasn't introduced late in the narrative though. There were hints about it in the first game and even more in the second game. Remember the Haestrom star when you went to go get Tali in ME2? She was sent there to study why it was aging so rapidly. That was a tie in for it. They were going to expand on it further but decided not to, but there were still bits of it left in the game.SageRuffin said:
I read about this a while back. The reapers were attempting to stop the end of the universe like what was said in the article, but they ran into some problems.
1) Protheans weren't good enough with biotics and turning them into collectors didn't work out too well.
2) They were probably going to harvest the Asari but The protheans threw a wrench into their plans with the signal and the keepers, forcing Sovereign to play the long game in ME1
3) The human reaper that might have saved everything was destroyed by you in ME2
I personally think anything would be better than the technological singularity plot. The whole game exists on the premise of you performing the impossible, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, etc. You have the option to get the Quarian and Geth to make peace, but star brat comes and says its all for nothing. Bullshit! Grrr.
I do remember the mission on Haestrom. And I also remember that that particular detail died almost as soon as it was brought up.Ishal said:
Like I said to another person, I think while BioWare were planning to make Mass Effect a sprawling series from the outset, they weren't really sure how to after the first game. Kinda like Halo.
And please stop reminding me of the punk-ass little kid...
The truth is ME3's ending would have been fine if they just let you pull out a victory there at the end, no "better" endings but "hey you still gotta die" in an attempt to be edgy, just a solid victory snatch. Everyone would have gone home happy and the themes of the entire series wouldn't have been completely bjorked. They set Shepard up to always be capable of doing the impossible, they stopped the Reapers not once, but twice, three times even if you count some of the ME2 DLC.
If you're going to have your hero die at endgame, it needs to be setup and telegraphed through the whole of series and not included as an 11th hour Mary Sue twist.
Karpyshyn's ideas aren't great, but they're still better than how they handled the ending of the game overall.
If you're going to have your hero die at endgame, it needs to be setup and telegraphed through the whole of series and not included as an 11th hour Mary Sue twist.
Karpyshyn's ideas aren't great, but they're still better than how they handled the ending of the game overall.
this news is older than old. it wasnt entirely formal, but drew talked about the discarded endings more than a year ago.
anyway, just reinforces my theory that they never really planned the ME trilogy if they were coming up with that ridiculous s**t at the end. not half as ridiculous as the ending they went with, but still, it would be a disappointment regardless.
it is often better to be remembered for sucking than to be forgotten for mediocrity. maybe that was their reasoning behind the ending they chose.
anyway, just reinforces my theory that they never really planned the ME trilogy if they were coming up with that ridiculous s**t at the end. not half as ridiculous as the ending they went with, but still, it would be a disappointment regardless.
it is often better to be remembered for sucking than to be forgotten for mediocrity. maybe that was their reasoning behind the ending they chose.
To be honest I think all of these endings are poor. Some may not be as bad as what we saw, but they all have one inherent problem. They are all hell bent on a twist from left field. What was fun about the twist in knights of the old republic is that it was written in from the start, thus all the flashbacks when revealed. Here the writers seem determined on pulling out a plot line from nowhere, which is the only place you can pull out a twist when you haven't written it in from the start.
Here is a radical idea for an ending: the crucible fires.
I know crazy right? But I put this to you: How many of use were so very pleased at the scene where Shepard and Anderson are sitting on a step, that wasn't there before, looking at the earth they just saved? I know I was pleased as peach. Even though there were many a problem, I could over look the relatively small amounts of flaws in narrative coherence because the ending didn't shatter the con world or pull out some contrivance that changes the entire universe with little logic or reason. The reason people were/are so upset with the ending was contrast. There is such quality and such failure in close proximaty that it is incredible. If they just kept it simple and brought the ending down for a nice easy conclusion we would all be talking about what a relative master piece mass effect 3 was.
Here is a radical idea for an ending: the crucible fires.
I know crazy right? But I put this to you: How many of use were so very pleased at the scene where Shepard and Anderson are sitting on a step, that wasn't there before, looking at the earth they just saved? I know I was pleased as peach. Even though there were many a problem, I could over look the relatively small amounts of flaws in narrative coherence because the ending didn't shatter the con world or pull out some contrivance that changes the entire universe with little logic or reason. The reason people were/are so upset with the ending was contrast. There is such quality and such failure in close proximaty that it is incredible. If they just kept it simple and brought the ending down for a nice easy conclusion we would all be talking about what a relative master piece mass effect 3 was.
The ideas he mentioned sound off as endings because they are not actually endings. They are plot points to that would drive the narrative of the game. Basically replacing the crucible magic maguffin, which in my opinion would be great.
All in all it doesn't really matter. They all seem like someone made them up as they went, which is probably what happened, but what needed to change was your choices needed to have consequences. Wide ranging ones, determining missions and the nature of the Reaper conflict, and none of that seems to have been considered.
If they actually went for the stopping organic evolution from destroying the fabric of reality route, it would have made for an actually decent ending. Would have actually given the Reapers a legitimate justification for wiping out life in the universe.
They didn't. This saddens me.
They didn't. This saddens me.
They'd actually laid some breadcrumbs for the dark energy bit in ME2. Now, granted, they wouldn't have been able to just slap a new ending onto what they put out, but they definitely teased at dark energy being a big, potentially cataclysmic, thing in a couple places in ME2 (most prominently, Tali's recruitment mission). More would need to be done with it in ME3 to make proper use of it, but they laid the groundwork for it.SageRuffin said:
Personally, I thought the concept of the ending we got, at the highest level, was fine. It's got a couple issues here and there, but no more so than any of the (many) alternatives that I've seen suggested. They just utterly failed at the execution, for exactly the reason you bring up here. They introduced the Catalyst as the source/controller of the Reapers, a completely and totally new concept, 10 minutes before the game ended. It was deus ex machina of the highest possible order and a complete failure in storytelling. If they'd stopped the game right before that elevator appeared, something like Shepard stumbles over to the control panel and the Destroy ending goes (or have the Prothean VI popup again and offer the choice between Destroy and Control), it would have been a damn good ending, especially with the Extended Cut changes.
And when removing a key/central piece of the storytelling turns it from "utter shit" to "actually kinda good", you know there's something wrong with the author.
No argument there. Like another person said, I think the best course of action would've been the obvious one: the Crucible fires, Reapers get fucked, Joker tries to bang EDI (for some reason) and shatters his entire lower body, the quarians get their homeworld back, my FemShep and Sam get their little white fence, etc etc lolwtfbbq.Agayek said:
A foregone conclusion it may have been, but it certainly beats the shit out of that fucking Starchild.
Eh. Shepard dying is not nearly the issue many people make it out to be. From a narrative perspective, it would have been better for Shepard to die, especially for a paragon Shepard. It would help with the direct parallel they were clearly trying to make between Shepard and Jesus, as well as a significantly stronger emotional impact. Not to mention it would offer a definitive conclusion to the story. It could certainly work with Shepard living, but the story would have been better served with their death IMO.SageRuffin said:
And yes, the Catalyst is problem #1 through 15 or so with the end of Me3.
I just played through all the DLC, and Leviathan. Leviathan, or at least a summary version of the backstory points it introduces, in the launch game would have helped the "Star Child" not seem so out of the blue. I'm not saying its okay, because it was still poorly handled, just not as out there and unexpected.
Yeah, I think it's due to them not expecting it to be such a huge hit, it could also be that they just wanted to make a good single game, realised they had something, and then had to figure out how to continue it. Either way, I'm not too fussed, I'm just looking forward to what comes next.Zachary Amaranth said: