I'm going to agree with Pumpkin_Eater. Bioware is like an old dog. You loved it, but now all its yapping is getting annoying. better to put it down before it does something irreconcilable like vomiting on your favourite blankey. (Oh wait, me3.)
We understand that you don't like Mass Effect 3. The things you say are deliberately said in such a way that anyone that liked the game is pissed off and then when they proceed to reply back you call them a fanboy. We get that you don't like the game and you are entitled to your opinion but can you please just leave people who liked the game and wish to discuss it alone. Why don't you go find a topic or make a topic about a game that you like and leave the rest of us alone. Please and thank you
This. Your poll can't provide accurate data because the thread question and poll question are opposites, meaning that half of the voters will screw up which they mean.
Anyway...
I will be purchasing Dragon Age 3 when it comes out.
I liked DA2. I liked ME3. Bioware has yet to let me down.
As much as I want to hate them, I can't, and purchasing a Bioware game now just feels like I have something to feel guilty about. Though, if Bioware pulls of another DA2 or...that one ending that I'd rather not talk about, then I'll give up on 'em.
Mass Effect 3's ending was the black eye to an otherwise epic and nearly flawless series. I plan to replay the whole series again, but I'll stop when I get to Earth in ME3 and just pretend the game ends there.
I'm definitely not done with them. I feel like they've done overall amazing work throughout their lifetime. Yeah, they've stumbled, but that kind of thing happens. I hope their next game is Jade Empire 2. That would be AWESOME.
There's nothing they could do to make me play their next game. Even if the game looked good, even if they gave it away for free, I wouldn't trust them because it would be like a drug-dealer giving out free samples to try and make me use Origin and buy DLC after getting hooked.
Make no mistake, all of the complaints I've read are people saying, "I wanted to win and save the galaxy and lead the parade like Jar-Jar at the end of The Phantom Menace. Grow up!
You obviously haven't been reading many complaints then have you:
-Plot Holes
-Disregards players previous choices almost entirely
-Is not what the Devs promised us
-Massive Deus Ex Machina
-No options that many Shepards would pick (Where is a 'Stuff you' option, where he lets the fleets engage the Reapers, and hopefully win)
-Forced destruction of Relays in some endings (Control, why do the Relays blow up?)
-No context as to what happens to the universe after your choice
-Shepard survives a Reaper beam to the face, whilst previously a Reaper beam from a destroyer (About 1/5 of the size of Harbinger - the Reaper that shoots you with its more powerful beam) would kill you if you were anywhere near it
Ask a lot of people and they would be more than happy for it to be required for Shepard to die in the end, just so long as all the other problems are fixed. Make a bittersweet ending if you want, but make it well at least.
2. And the previous games didn't? Also, look at the start of the fleet battle. Depending on the size of your fleet depends the way it goes.
In my first play-trough, I didn't get the Quarian fleet and didn't do almost any side quests. The battle starts, some pew pew, a Reaper comes close to a Cruiser and crushes it with its tentacles.
On the second play-trough, I did every side quest except the one with Kasumi (game bugged, couldn't use the last terminal) and got all major fleets (Quarian and Geth). The battle starts, some pew pew, Reaper comes close to a Cruiser and the Reaper gets destroyed.
I've also noticed some other changes. Smaller changes.
On the first play-trough, only 25% of the hummer guys (don't know the name) survived.
On the second, around 50%.
On the second one it was also easier to come to harbinger because there were less enemies, but that could be just my imagination. Gonna count the number of the bigger one when my brother comes to that part.
Those aren't some groundbreaking changes, but your choices did affect the end.
3. And what's wrong with a Deus-Ex like ending? I would be more surprised if the ending was to different from this one.
4. He was heavily wounded, had barely strength to stand and you want him to do something? He was happy that he has any choice at all. Also, it's not like he could have forced the AI kid even if he was at full health and had a full fleet aiming at him.
5. The signal/impulse/laser that sent the signal that Shepard is in control/destruction/syntheses was too strong for the Mass Relays to withstand. And it also opens a path for the future Mass Effect games that won't have Shepard. They can now take several thousand years later and the change of some mechanics won't create plot holes.
You could also look at it from another side. Those relays were created by the same beings that created the Reaper. Their purpose was to farm organics over and over again. Ending the cycle means ending their domination. End of their regime. As Legion said in ME2, if you give them some technology, they will follow that 1 path of progress. If they still had the Mass Relays, they would still develop according to the Reaper path of progress. By destroying the Relays, they are finally FULLY free of the Reaper. They can develop on other direction. maybe better directions.
Destroying the last remnants of the Reaper regime, the relays, is a symbol of them being finally free.
6. You got spoiled by all the games that explain everything in detail. The game ended, the old man told the story about Shepard to a kid. A new galaxy was born on that day. EVERYTHING is open. Let you imagination go wild.
Also, at the end you can see Joker, EDI and one crew member (Kaiden in my case) lend on a planet with 2 moons/planets/combination of those 2 in the sky. After the credits you see a really similar sky. It could mean that the old man talking is actually Joker and he is talking to his kid/grandchild. It means that they started living on a new world. Without the Mass Relays there weren't able to come back to Earth. They had to start living on that planet.
No other race died as a whole because there were member of every race in some other system than Sol. So even tho Turians and Quarians may die in the Sol system because of the lack of food (afaik not dextro something on Earth), the races are still living.
This is an open ending. It has some clues, but not a story after the main story. People with limited imagination or bias toward the story will hate it. People with imagination or fanboys will love it (tho the second one will love it always).
7. Actually, it wasn't a direct hit. He beam hit the ground several meters in front of him. The shockwave/explosion is what knocked Shepard out. And considering the fact that Shepard already died once and was revived (2 years?) later, crying about him surviving a explosion is kinda pathetic.
And lets not forget the most important think here. Science in Sci-Fi is the same as magic in fantasy. It's just called science.
The ending could be better. Nothing is perfect. But it's far from being as bad as people make it seem.
EDIT:
And I find it funny how for some people an event in the present can retroactively destroy their enjoyment in the past. If you enjoyed the game up until the end, if you enjoyed the previous 2 games, then the ending of part 3 can't destroy that. The feelings you had up until that point were real.
I can hate the ending jet still like the series as a whole because I enjoyed everything up until the ending. Or do you hate every part of the Star Wars series because you didn't like Star Wars 3?
Are you done with a developer because they made 1 big-ish mistake but have made countless great decisions?
EDIT2:
Yeah, I forgot to answer the main question.
No, I'm not done with BioWare. But I also don't buy games because of the developer. I buy games in a case by case scenario. If I like the game, I get it. If I don't like it, I don't get it. I don't care who made the game, I care that the game is good.
So if BioWare makes a game I may like, I will buy it. If they don't, I won't. Same like withe very other developer.
Yeah, after Dragon Age 2 I was pretty much done with Bioware. I still haven't even bought ME3, and I probably won't until it drops a lot in price. I don't even care about spoilers in the meantime, I'll really only be buying it for the character interaction during the game. I don't even care how Shepard's story ends any more. I'll still replay DA1 and ME1, though, the last games Bioware made before they went to shit.
I might still buy some of their future games, but I'll be waiting until they've been out a while and the reviews are in. There's no way I'll be buying anything of theirs again on day one, and I certainly won't be preordering anything.
I never played Mass Effect and Dragon Age II was, to me, only somewhat of a disappointment and not thoroughly terrible as some believe. I think there's still a lot of potential for Dragon Age III, so I will definitely get that.
I was considering getting into Mass Effect recently, but due to the 2 games I'd have to play to catch up and the dissapointment at ME3, I decided not to.
Anyway, I'm not "done" with Bioware, but whether I continue to like their games hinges on Dragon Age III. If it combines the positive additions of Dragon Age II and the things that were lost from Dragon Age: Origins, as they have previously claimed, it has great potential, not to mention the story potential coming from the ending of DAII. There is so many things they can do from there.
Are the people in this thread f****** serious? "The ending of the third game in a series of games I love isn't as good as I want it to be. We should now boycott the developer!" Some of the complaints against Bioware in this thread are that had two "bad" games recently so they are now terrible. Dah f***? How is it that two bad games make them a bad developer? Jesus fucking Christ.
I'm not going to boycott a whole company because the ending of a trilogy got botched - badly botched, heart-rendingly disappointingly botched, but still only the last minutes of the game - the vast majority of ME3 was spectacular for me. I hope they learn something from the outcry of their fans, I hope they even take the time to seek some mutually beneficial remedy for the issue at hand, but I'm not going to leave off considering their products for purchase altogether in some reactionary fashion.
*And for the record, because I know this issue is still volatile: I don't have a position on how the story ends being right or wrong - my main source of disappointment was the lack of epilog material and not having a feeling of "I am done, something accomplished" related to any of the cultures/people/places which I had become invested in emotionally over the course of the games.
I think most people who are Bioware fanboys haven't played RPGs very much, and once they noticed the amount of depth and complexity they immediately fell in love with them.
Three large plotholes? I'll give you two, though a number of minor plot holes also exist. (Many claim the Relays exploding should have blown up the whole galaxy thanks to Arrival, though I don't agree with this as the energy was converted into whatever the Crucible was sending, not an explosion. No energy, no massive explosion).
a) Why did Sovereign need to dock with the Citadel in ME1. Once Shepard loses consciousness on the Citadel after confronting the Illusive Man, the Catalyst opens the station's arms fully. If you choose the control ending and Shepard becomes the Catalyst, Shepard closes the arms of the station. This heavily implies that the Catalyst is in full control of the Citadel. Why then did Sovereign need to dock with the station to override the Prothean virus (That never ended up getting Overidden in the end) and open up the Relay to Dark Space. Why could the Catalyst not do that itself?
b) Joker in Mass transit. There is no reason for this to be possible. The entire Normandy's crew (Exclude Joker and general staff) was on the Ground on Earth. I am supposed to believe he managed to avoid Harbinger and the other Reapers to get down to London that close to the Beam, and then picked everyone up and flew off and ran away, completely abandoning his duty, Shepard, Earth - something every crew member would have had to of done, despite them not even checking whether Shepard was dead or not, and not trying another method to get into the Citadel. Whichever way you look at it, the entire crew of the Normandy chickened out of the battle way early - and I know my crew. There was no way they were chickening out - especially Javik - who only lived to destroy the Reapers by this point and who was on that Jungle Planet post ending - or they somehow magically teleported to the Relays post the Crucible activating. Seeing as they cannot outrun the Crucible's signal in the cutscene, I doubt they could have to make it to the Relay after it fired.
2. And the previous one didn't? Also, look at the start of the fleet battle. Depending on the size of your fleet depends the way it goes.
In my first play-trough, I didn't get the Quarian fleet and didn't do almost any side quests. The battle starts, some pew pew, a Reaper comes close to a Cruiser and crushes it with its tentacles.
On the second play-trough, I did every side quest except the one with Kasumi (game bugged, couldn't use the last terminal) and got all major fleets (Quarian and Geth). The battle starts, some pew pew, Reaper comes close to a Cruiser and the Reaper gets destroyed.
I've also noticed some other changes. Smaller changes.
On the first play-trough, only 25% of the hummer guys (don't know the name) survived.
On the second, around 50%.
On the second one it was also easier to come to harbinger because there were less enemies, but that could be just my imagination. Gonna count the number of the bigger one when my brother comes to that part.
Those aren't some groundbreaking changes, but your choices did affect the end.
No, the choices you made did not affect the end. A 'score' based off how good you were at planet scanning and how much multiplayer you made influenced small things in cutscenes and Dialogue leading up to the ending. The ending itself has nothing to do with your choices, except whether you choose to Synthesise, destroy or control. A numerical score will unlock these options, but that is a result of a collective of how many missions you completed as opposed to your actual choices throughout the games. I could do the exact opposite of my main paythrough yet still end up with the exact same ending. None of my choices throughout either playthrough were reflected in the ending. They were reflected in just how high my score got, but not how things played out in the end.
As for the previous ones, they didn't need to. We knew that wasn't the end of Shepard's story. We forgave it as being just a part of the longer game as a whole - the three games combined - but when it came to the end, there was no payoff for this.
3. And what's wrong with a Deus-Ex like ending? I would be more surprised if the ending was to different from this one.
I didn't say Deus Ex like, I said Deus Ex Machina: God from the Machine. Whilst technicalities make it only valid for one of the endings - synthesise - as only that ending comes out of complete left feild, the term 'Magic Bullet' is still very appropriate. Rather than have an actual battle with the Reapers, you have a battle to allow you to use a magical bullet to wipe out all the Reapers. There is no option for having the might of the galaxy defeat the Reapers - in fact the might of the Galaxy does nothing to defeat the Reapers as far as we can tell - what does defeat the Reapers is a magical device introduced only in the last game.
4. He was heavily wounded, had barely strength to stand and you want him to do something? He was happy that he has any choice at all. Also, it's not like he could have forced the AI kid even if he was at full health and had a full fleet aiming at him.
I never said do something. In fact, I expressed the exact opposite: Do nothing. Rather than jumping into a beam, shooting a vent, or holding two lighting rods, stand tall and tell the kid to go F*** himself with his solution, and let the FLEETS engage the REAPERS. If you have a high enough score, the fleets defeat the Reapers and Earth is saved. If you don't have a high enough score, the Reapers win and the galaxy is F***ed. Would add some variety to the endings, and offer a possibility not to make a choice that your Shepard wouldn't make.
5. The signal/impulse/laser that sent the signal that Shepard is in control/destruction/syntheses was too strong for the Mass Relays to withstand. And it also opens a path for the future Mass Effect games that won't have Shepard. They can now take several thousand years later and the change of some mechanics won't create plot holes.
You could also look at it from another side. Those relays were created by the same beings that created the Reaper. Their purpose was to farm organics over and over again. Ending the cycle means ending their domination. End of their regime. As Legion said in ME2, if you give them some technology, they will follow that 1 path of progress. If they still had the Mass Relays, they would still develop according to the Reaper path of progress. By destroying the Relays, they are finally FULLY free of the Reaper. They can develop on other direction. maybe better directions.
Destroying the last remnants of the Reaper regime, the relays, is a symbol of them being finally free.
A few points to respond to in this.
Firstly, that the energy overwhelmed the Mass Relays. I can accept that for Synthesis and Destroy, but control has no reason to overwhelm the relays. Everytime someone sends out a galaxy wide transmission, do the relays just fall apart? When the Catalyst orders the Reapers to do something, do the Relays just fall apart. It is a Diabolus Ex Machina (Devil from the Machine) to ensure that the galaxy is left without a resource vital for the survival of most of its population, simply for - as you said - the removal of possible plot holes in future titles. Speaking of which, I wonder how they'll handle Synthesis in future games. Create double the assets of everything so that synthesis players actually have their choice recognised, or come up with some reason not to do anything about it.
Secondly, the plot holes in future games. As said above, this is about the only reason to do this - and really there is no reason for this either. It is a cop out now and in the next game - a simple way to deliver lower quality work easier. In addition to that, as I also stated above, they now have more work cut out for them because of these changed. Now they have to find a way to implement synthesis, and implement Control - whilst still keeping what each Shepard would have done with that control canon for each individual Shepard, or destroy, and the loss of the Geth and such. Either that, or they can make a complete cop out and disregard all choices with a simple word or two. It would have been far simpler to put changes in mechanics and lore conflicts there as to a change in technology and understanding. It is another cop out, but a less personal one and one that many would accept.
Finally, being free of the Reapers. No, the galaxy is not. In Control ending, the Citadel AND the Reapers still exist. That is in no way free from Reaper influence. In all endings, you are still not free from them. Read the Codex entry on Reaper Tactics. It covers tactics for fighting the Reapers, but also gives some interesting information. One proposed tactic is ramming the Reapers. The explanation for why this wouldn't work is something along the lines of (But not quite exact wording):
"... ramming at conventional speeds would cost too many ships to be tactically viable. It has been theorised that a ship travelling at FTL impacting would be enough to destroy a Reaper Capital Ship in one impact, however Mass Effect Drives have built in safety measure designed to stop collisions from happening. If the drive detects a sizeable object infront of the craft, even whilst travelling at FTL, the drive will refuse to fire. This safety mechanism has always been a part of Mass Effect drive technology, and has been attributed to the Protheans - just like the Mass Relays"/
Aka: The Reapers designed ALL Mass Effect Drives, and built in those safety measures to stop ramming from being a viable tactic - likely after one race used it against them. The Reaper technology is what ALL Mass Effect Technology is based off in the whole galaxy. You will ALWAYS be under their influence. Even then, is destroying a bridge leading from your territory to a city you just conquered a good move as you are now 'Free of the influence of the enemy that built that bridge'. No, its not. It is a better move to keep the bridge intact and use it
rather than having to build a new one because you didn't want anything your enemy built left standing. Its not about freeing the galaxy from the Reaper's grip - that was done when the Reapers were destroyed/controlled. Its about providing a 100% blank slate for their next game - a big cop out.
6. You got spoiled by all the games that explain everything in detail. The game ended, the old man told the story about Shepard to a kid. A new galaxy was born on that day. EVERYTHING is open. Let you imagination go wild.
Also, at the end you can see Joker, EDI and one crew member (Kaiden in my case) lend on a planet with 2 moons/planets/combination of those 2 in the sky. After the credits you see a really similar sky. It could mean that the old man talking is actually Joker and he is talking to his kid/grandchild. It means that they started living on a new world. Without the Mass Relays there weren't able to come back to Earth. They had to start living on that planet.
No other race died as a whole because there were member of every race in some other system than Sol. So even tho Turians and Quarians may die because of the lack of food (afaik not dextro something on Earth), the races are still living.
This is an open ending. It has some clues, but not a story after the main story. People with limited imagination or bias toward the story will hate it. People with imagination or fanboys will love it (tho the second one will love it always).
What is the point of a conclusion. If you were to not write one in an essay and tell your teacher its 'an open ending' so she can fill in the blanks if she has a good imagination would not get you marks. Whilst serving a different purpose to an essay, the same principle can be applied to stories. An open ending is ok, but too open is bad. I would not be incorrect in saying that the entire galaxy was wiped out by the Crucible's effect, and that it actually massively backfired in the end, but Joker and the crew were saved because that wormhole appeared to take them to another dimension. Sadly, this should be entirely false - and provably so. We are shown basically nothing for the ending, and left to make everything up ourselves. That is not a good ending, or conclusion. Hell, there is a trope on it called something like the 'No ending' - as there isn't an ending or conclusion at all. It is lazy writing so that the devs don't have to put effort into covering the decisions fans made. In a conclusion, you shouldn't need an imagination to enjoy it. You shouldn't need to have to make it up for yourself. A good ending gives you an idea of what happened, but leaves you to figure out and make up the details, whilst an OK ending tells you absolutely every detail. A flat out bad ending, however, tells you nothing and says 'You do the work from here, I can't be bothered'.
7. Actually, it wasn't a direct hit. He beam hit the ground several meters in front of him. The shockwave/explosion is what knocked Shepard out. And considering the fact that Shepard already died once and was revived (2 years?) later, crying about him surviving a explosion is kinda pathetic.
And lets not forget the most important think here. Science in Sci-Fi is the same as magic in fantasy. It's just called science.
I watched my Shepard walk right into that beam. I tried to barrel roll away, I wasn't allowed to. It went straight towards him, and though the screen blacked out before it hit him, I have seen enough Reaper beams to know its firing time wasn't even close to up. The only reason it would have stopped firing would be to spare Shepard - an action that makes no sense. As such, I conclude that Shepard was directly hit by that beam. Lets also not forget that this 'Shockwave/Explosion' you talk about was more than enough to completely disintegrate Shepard when it was shot by a WEAKER Reaper. For all intents and purposes, Shepard should be dead.
For the science and magic thing, I get what you are trying to say and I somewhat agree. Its the reason why in one of the 'Sword' space fight cinematics, where the Reaper Destroyed lands on a Turian frigate and Shoots a laser into it - a laser that takes several seconds to cut through the ship, despite Reaper lasers being able to completely cut through any ship in about a second - I just look past that odd thing. Its the reason why I accept the Reaper's missing all their shots against the Alliance frigates in the early part of the 'Sword' battle, despite them being able to pinpoint target ground units, and other ships and other times, let alone being able to drag their beam of death to actually hit their target should they miss.
Something as blatant as a Reaper beam not killing Shepard with a direct hit - it bugs me. A lot of why is that it is so easy to fix. Have Shepard to a barrel roll and dodge it, still getting hurt by it though. That's acceptable, and easy to do. A direct hit, where you make sure it is a direct hit by refusing to let people dodge it - doesn't work for me.
The ending could be better. Nothing is perfect. But it's far from being as bad as people make it seem.
A lot of this depends on the individual Shepards. For some Shepards, the endings work. It makes sense based off what Shepard would do, his reactions make sense to them, and like the auto dialogue, it sometimes fits together. For other Shepards, they are shoehorned into making decisions they would never make, doing things that they wouldn't do, and told that their Shepard is invalid as he won't be able to finish the game unless he does something he would never do.
A lot of this is also based of the Dev promises:
No ending where you can say 'I got ending A, B or C', but completely varied and different endings based off the choices that you made].
What we get:
Endings A B and C where they are all basically the same, and offer no difference based off your decisions.
Exact opposite of what we were promised. I think being upset is excusable when you buy something based off a promise that you were made that ultimately wasn't kept.
EDIT:
And I find it funny how for some people an event in the present can retroactively destroy their enjoyment in the past. If you enjoyed the game up until the end, if you enjoyed the previous 2 games, then the ending of part 3 can't destroy that.
I can hate the ending jet still like the series as a whole because I enjoyed everything up until the ending. Or do you hate every part of the Star Wars series because you didn't like Star Wars 3?
Are you done with a developer because they made 1 big-ish mistake but have made countless great decisions?
It doesn't destroy your enjoyment in the past, it taints the things that you enjoyed in the past so that you can't enjoy them in the future.
A real life example. Drink some Orange juice. Like the orange juice? Now go brush your teeth with some really minty toothpaste and then drink some orange juice again. The orange juice literally tastes like vomit. You still enjoyed it in the past, however later events ruined it for you (In this case temporarily).
For you Star Wars comparison, it is more akin to 'Han Shot first'. By making Han Solo shoot in self defence, Lucas changed Solo's character. He used to be a badass gun slinger who didn't take crap from anyone, but who later grew a heart and turned from antihero to hero. After that change, he becomes someone who is righteous and will not shoot others because they are harassing them, but instead only act hostile in self defence, removing the transformation from antihero to hero and changing how you view Solo throughout the movies.
Mass Effect Comparison: I now have to view the entirety of the previous games as largely pointless, as what happens at the end of ME3 doesn't change either way, and the two first games events are made largely redundant thanks to the Catalyst controlling the Citadel. Other than that plot hole, the fact that none of your choices in ME1 and ME2 really matter in the ME3 conclusion really draws away the fun of making them. Whilst making them in 1 and 2, you felt you were making a difference. After 3's ending, many no longer feel that they are making a difference with those choices, and all the fun in making them is now gone.
Is it as ruining to the whole series as many make it out to be? IMO no. Does it taint the series thanks to the poorly thought out ending? Yeah.
Dean said:
Are the people in this thread f****** serious? "The ending of the third game in a series of games I love isn't as good as I want it to be. We should now boycott the developer!" Some of the complaints against Bioware in this thread are that had two "bad" games recently so they are now terrible. Dah f***? How is it that two bad games make them a bad developer? Jesus fucking Christ.
I believe it has more to do with the fact that those two bad games were their two most recent games, and there were hints at the change to this bad game style in previous titles, hinting that Bioware have now moved to making crappy action games rather than RPGs. I don't agree with it, but if the next two CoD games were turn based tactical combat simulators rather than fast paced FPS, I think you'd start to doubt whether Infinity/Treyarch were going to be a good FPS developer in the future.
Over the top? Yeah. Completely out of the blue? Not quite.
Oh you cheeky fucker, you reversed thread title and poll question.
Well I'm certainly looking at them from a distance, they will haveto produce one heck of a game to convince me into buying it and I'm pretty sure that is not part of their plan right now.
No, but I have to explain. I was finished with Bioware many years ago: DA:O did not hold my attention to even start moving on the world map, ME2 was an improvement but took a lot of steps distancing itself from me, once DA2 came out I faced the reality that only a stringed marionette corpse remains of a developer whose products I loved. I'm not holding out hope.
Huh? Poll-swapping shenanigans? ... Yay, still got it right. Though 'buy' would be the correct measure of loyalty towards the brand. I still intend to at least play my copies of BG and NWN.
Currently sitting at 31% saying they are done with Bioware. Interesting. It's times like this that I wish The Escapist had a Steam like "Now Playing" list. Ah, who am I kidding? Surely the CoD fiasco could never happen here.
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