Poll: Your thoughts about the ME 3 ending extension.

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I voted that at this point I really don't care anymore.

I was pretty unhappy with the ending, but honestly, I had fun with the game as a whole. I've since moved on to other games. I'll always remember Mass Effect as a freaking amazing game trilogy with a disappointing conclusion, regardless of what the DLC contains.

I'd like to be optimistic and hope that the DLC makes things right, but realistically I just don't see that happening. It was such a big deal, and we've had so much time to stew over it, that honestly... whatever the DLC ends up being, I can almost guarantee that it won't meet the ludicrously high expectations that people have of it.

I hope I'm wrong, though.

 

[Mikeyfell]

Another Mass Effect 3 ending thread?
It's motherfucking shot time!

Let's just assume for a second that the Extended Cut DLC is the magical cure all for the ending to the game. (Which to the best of my knowledge means Indoctrination Theory) That might not be the case but let's just pretend that it magically fixed everything that happens after Shepard's hit by Harbinger's lazer.

Mass Effect 3 still would not be a good game.

The problems with ME 3 are so deeply rooted in the core of mechanics and storytelling that fixing any one part doesn't change anything.

The problem with Mass Effect 3 is that it's not a role playing game any more. apart from two decisions (How you handle the Genophage, and how you handle the Quarian/Geth war) Nothing you do or ever did has any effect on the game.

Shepard's personality is hardly even up to you anymore. 90% of your dialog choices come down to whether you want to continue the conversation in a happy or angry way. Renegade Shepard isn't even an Asshole any more because Shep treats anyone who survived the suicide mission like his/her BFF (Except Miranda, but honestly did anyone actually let that ***** survive ME 2)


So fix the ending, fix all the little nit picky things that people complain about. Fix Tali's face, fix Diana Allers, fix the quest tracking, fix the controls, fix the Galactic Readiness bullshit, it still won't make the game any good. Because it wasn't Mass Effect 3, it was Corporate Meddling 3: How to Screw a Fanbase.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I don't think the ending will actually fix anything. As long as the space kid is real in ME3 the game will suck, because it kills the entire plot of Mass Effect 1.

I've heard this argument before, that the ending to ME 3 completely negates ME 1's story and I jjust don't buy it. I didn't like Space Timmy any more than anyone else, but he hardly ruined the entire series. Honestly, please explain to me how/why the little punk is so detrimental that he fucks up the first game of the series.

Because why doesn't he simply activate the Citadel himself?

Because he changes the point of the game from:

"Unite everyone and stop the Reapers, regardless of the cost"

To:

"Resolve the metaphysical conflict between organics and synthetics and the fact that synthetics will probably destroy everything".

Not only that, but there is absolutely no way for the space kid to KNOW that synthetics will always rebel against their creators. He doesn't even have a logical argument to assume that something like that will always happen. Or that it would ever happen. Someone had to create the space kid. It was either a synthetic race or an organic race.

But wait? Why would a synthetic race create an entity that would keep synthetics from destroying organics? Wouldn't that mean that the synthetic race that created the space kid and the Reapers doesn't want organics destroyed? If that's the case then the assumption that synthetics will always want to destroy all organics is a false one.

If an organic race created the space kid that doesn't make any sense either. Why would an organic race create a synthetic race of Reapers to harvest all organic life every 50,000 years? Why not simply destroy the synthetic race that threatens all organics? It would be a lot easier and it would make a lot more sense. Or why not make the Reapers come every 50,000 years and wipe out all synthetics instead of all organics. If Reapers want to save organics from synthetics why not just kill the synthetics?

I'll tell you why. Because the entire ending was made in less than 5 minutes. The original and awesome dark energy plot was scrapped to make room for this nonsense. The dark energy plot would also explain why the first race decided to harvest itself into the Reaper form. But when you scrap that plot you have to ask yourself how in the hell was the first Reaper created and why?

Did organics create the space kid and then the space kid decided on his own that the best course of action is to create Reapers and harvest it's creators to save them from synthetics? In that case the space kid is retarded because he is the actual cause of synthetics vs. organics argument. Which is even more ridiculous.

The more you think about the ending the more you realize how stupid it is. What I'm about to say is a fact: people who liked the ending are idiots without the ability to think logically. There is no rational justification for the ending. It simply doesn't make any logical sense however you look at it. So, as I said in an earlier post, as long as the space kid is real and not just some hallucination, the game will suck.

 

[RJ 17]

Oh I'm just making crap up as I go along, because yeah, other than the idea that it was all a hallucination, that's all that is possible to do. That or accept that the ending is to be taken literally, which I flat out refuse. It's just too poorly done, and the hints to suggest otherwise too deliberate.
Just curious, why does the idea that Shepard's story ends before the war (the ultimate conclusion of which would be decided as Shepard's story ends) induce rage?

Heh, two(/three) ways of I'd approach the star gazer - a) hallucination - a manifestation of Shepard's hope (i.e. the player's hope - you are hallucinating too) b) They win out in the end and it is legit. OR (even more far-fetched) c) these are the final moments of a man and his son (or grandson) as a Reaper, perhaps even now century old Shepard himself descends on this last remnants of man. The 'going to the stars' refers to the new state of conciousness one experiences as part of the Reaper. Might even be a heaven of sorts.

Ok, I'm going to stop - this is bordering (actually it stopped 'bordering some time ago) on fan fiction.

And see I'm in the camp that believes the only way for anything to make sense is with a literal interpretation, despite all the atrocious plot holes. The IT does a great job at explaining everything BUT the ending, at which point nothing it says about the ending actually fits with what we see. But I fully admit that the literal interpretation explains even less than the IT does about the ending...and yet it's the only way the ending can make sense.

Case in point: why would Shepard's story being over before the war is over be rage inducing? Well think about it. Assume that the IT theory is true, and that the game perfectly reflected this. There's no holes, no missing evidence, no questions. The IT is the truth. Wouldn't you be pretty pissed off if, after all the adventures you had in these 3 games, you find out "Yeah, Shepard lost. He/She failed to stop the Reapers no matter what you do. It's someone else's problem now. The end." I know I'd be pretty damned pissed off, because such an ending would do even more to negate everything you've done in the past 3 games than the current ending does.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Case in point: why would Shepard's story being over before the war is over be rage inducing? Well think about it. Assume that the IT theory is true, and that the game perfectly reflected this. There's no holes, no missing evidence, no questions. The IT is the truth. Wouldn't you be pretty pissed off if, after all the adventures you had in these 3 games, you find out "Yeah, Shepard lost. He/She failed to stop the Reapers no matter what you do. It's someone else's problem now. The end." I know I'd be pretty damned pissed off, because such an ending would do even more to negate everything you've done in the past 3 games than the current ending does.

Indoc theory allows for the possibility that the ending never really happened, but also allows for the possibility that Shepard can still snap out of it/be snapped out of it and continue the fight. It creates a Tabula Rasa scenario for the ending, and frees you from the constraints of ghost child and the technological singularity. Mass Effect gets all its myriad themes and possible outcomes back.

It's not hard to see why some people cling to it.

 

[Scabadus]

While I'm certainly looking foreward to the DLC, it's less like looking forward to epic storytelling and more like looking forward to a fireworks display put on by Tenpenny and the Toxin General from C&C Zero Hour. As long as you have the forsight to put on a gas mask and stand weeeell back (in this metaphor, meaning "not getting your hopes up") the result is going to be spectacular.

Seriously though, it will be interesting to see what Bioware do with an almost 4 month (ish?) time limit. They say they're only adding what is essentially a final video sequence, but with things like the indoctrination theory just sitting there to be taken, if it wasn't planned all along, combined with points such as the star kid saying that synthetics and organics can never get along, which many Shepards could have disproven by pointing upwards, leaving the other hand free to continue giving the little bastard the finger, means that Bioware would have to be fairly uniquely stupid to only add an epilogue and not alter the ending even a bit.

But then again they actually released the current confused mess instead of firing the writer and keeping a copy for the "how to not make vdeogames" guide, so I guess all bets are off.

 

[Whitewillow]

A friend of mine told me to play up to the final battle and make it up from there myself. That works for me.

 

[RJ 17]

Case in point: why would Shepard's story being over before the war is over be rage inducing? Well think about it. Assume that the IT theory is true, and that the game perfectly reflected this. There's no holes, no missing evidence, no questions. The IT is the truth. Wouldn't you be pretty pissed off if, after all the adventures you had in these 3 games, you find out "Yeah, Shepard lost. He/She failed to stop the Reapers no matter what you do. It's someone else's problem now. The end." I know I'd be pretty damned pissed off, because such an ending would do even more to negate everything you've done in the past 3 games than the current ending does.

Indoc theory allows for the possibility that the ending never really happened, but also allows for the possibility that Shepard can still snap out of it/be snapped out of it and continue the fight. It creates a Tabula Rasa scenario for the ending, and frees you from the constraints of ghost child and the technological singularity. Mass Effect gets all its myriad themes and possible outcomes back.

It's not hard to see why some people cling to it.

Oh I can see why people cling to it. It certainly does do well to trace the entire premise from the first game till the bitter end. It manages to fill in and answer most of the plot holes left by the literal interpretation. However the problem still remains that no matter how you slice it, even best-case-scenario, the game, series, and Shepard's story all end before the war with the Reapers ends. So assuming that everything in the Citadel is a hallucination and Marauder Shields is really Shepard's disgruntled imaginary friend...that still doesn't change the fact that if you fail the test (pick blue or green) you end up Indoctrinated and fail the entire series. If you pass the test (pick Red), then you wake up and are critically injured after getting blasted by Harbinger. You're still in the middle of a battle where your allied forces are being absolutely decimated. There's no "Well the good guys could recover Shepard after he/she breaks free of Indoctrination, patch him/her up, and go on to win." The Reapers were winning the ground battle, the allied forces were getting absolutely decimated. This is what they were talking about when countless leaders told you "We'll never defeat the Reapers in a head-on battle."

The only way I can see the IT actually is if Bioware was taking an EXTREMELY risky gamble in having an ending in which the good guy most specifically DOESN'T come out on top. Just a big "Shepard dies. Fuck you. The End."

And as I've stated a couple times, the biggest thing that disproves the IT is the presence of Star Gazer no matter which ending you pick.

 

[Zac Smith]

I had no problem with the ending, I just accepted it as it was. It's like if I watch the film and I don't like the ending, but enjoyed the 99%, doesn't mean the whole film was a waste of my time. Yes It wasn't perfect, but I've yet to play a game with what I would consider a perfect story arc

 

[rigabear]

Oh I can see why people cling to it. It certainly does do well to trace the entire premise from the first game till the bitter end. It manages to fill in and answer most of the plot holes left by the literal interpretation. However the problem still remains that no matter how you slice it, even best-case-scenario, the game, series, and Shepard's story all end before the war with the Reapers ends. So assuming that everything in the Citadel is a hallucination and Marauder Shields is really Shepard's disgruntled imaginary friend...that still doesn't change the fact that if you fail the test (pick blue or green) you end up Indoctrinated and fail the entire series. If you pass the test (pick Red), then you wake up and are critically injured after getting blasted by Harbinger. You're still in the middle of a battle where your allied forces are being absolutely decimated. There's no "Well the good guys could recover Shepard after he/she breaks free of Indoctrination, patch him/her up, and go on to win." The Reapers were winning the ground battle, the allied forces were getting absolutely decimated. This is what they were talking about when countless leaders told you "We'll never defeat the Reapers in a head-on battle."

The only way I can see the IT actually is if Bioware was taking an EXTREMELY risky gamble in having an ending in which the good guy most specifically DOESN'T come out on top. Just a big "Shepard dies. Fuck you. The End."

And as I've stated a couple times, the biggest thing that disproves the IT is the presence of Star Gazer no matter which ending you pick.

I don't think he necessarily 'snaps out it' and continues fighting. Clearly the blast buried him in rubble (at which point he began his hallucinations, so the theory goes). If you pick red and have a high EMS, he survives the beyond the fighting (on the surface, anyway). As I've said, this is where the faith in Bioware comes in - what they need to provide is the connection between Shepard rejecting the indoctrination and ultimate victory in the space above Earth. I'm sure they can come up with something - perhaps the Reapers were so invested in the indoctrination that the rejection actually physically weakened them. Who knows. Or perhaps I'm completely off bat - but yes you rightly point out that is the missing link that needs to be made for IT to work.

Star Gazer can just be an extension of the hallucination. You pick red - it actually happens. Pick blue or green then it was a hallucination of hope - just like the vision of the Normandy landing on that planet.

snip

As I see it, the star child is just a convenient mouth piece for the Reapers they scrapped together (hence why the voice is a mix of MaleShep, FemaleShep and the child). But the explanation would be the same.
Honestly, I love it; it seems so cold, mathematical and machine-like:
The Reapers sole reason for existence is to ensure organic life continues indefinitely. Sufficiently advanced organic life creates artificial intelligence ? and there exists the possibility that AI will destroy organic life at some point (it almost happened to them). Policing life is too hard and the resource requirements impossible - so the only logical conclusion is that organic life at that technological level must be destroyed. The cycle system makes sure it all happens at the same time, so it can be performed in one convenient, resource efficient invasion.

 

[GameMaNiAC]

Honestly, I'm hoping for a good ending. I'm praying they fix it somehow. Anyhow. I just want to like it.

But then again, a part of me expects them to just feed me more of their bullshit. So yeah...

The ending DLC is the only reason I still have ME3 on my PC.

 

[RJ 17]

Oh I can see why people cling to it. It certainly does do well to trace the entire premise from the first game till the bitter end. It manages to fill in and answer most of the plot holes left by the literal interpretation. However the problem still remains that no matter how you slice it, even best-case-scenario, the game, series, and Shepard's story all end before the war with the Reapers ends. So assuming that everything in the Citadel is a hallucination and Marauder Shields is really Shepard's disgruntled imaginary friend...that still doesn't change the fact that if you fail the test (pick blue or green) you end up Indoctrinated and fail the entire series. If you pass the test (pick Red), then you wake up and are critically injured after getting blasted by Harbinger. You're still in the middle of a battle where your allied forces are being absolutely decimated. There's no "Well the good guys could recover Shepard after he/she breaks free of Indoctrination, patch him/her up, and go on to win." The Reapers were winning the ground battle, the allied forces were getting absolutely decimated. This is what they were talking about when countless leaders told you "We'll never defeat the Reapers in a head-on battle."

The only way I can see the IT actually is if Bioware was taking an EXTREMELY risky gamble in having an ending in which the good guy most specifically DOESN'T come out on top. Just a big "Shepard dies. Fuck you. The End."

And as I've stated a couple times, the biggest thing that disproves the IT is the presence of Star Gazer no matter which ending you pick.

I don't think he necessarily 'snaps out it' and continues fighting. Clearly the blast buried him in rubble (at which point he began his hallucinations, so the theory goes). If you pick red and have a high EMS, he survives the beyond the fighting (on the surface, anyway). As I've said, this is where the faith in Bioware comes in - what they need to provide is the connection between Shepard rejecting the indoctrination and ultimate victory in the space above Earth. I'm sure they can come up with something - perhaps the Reapers were so invested in the indoctrination that the rejection actually physically weakened them. Who knows. Or perhaps I'm completely off bat - but yes you rightly point out that is the missing link that needs to be made for IT to work.

Star Gazer can just be an extension of the hallucination. You pick red - it actually happens. Pick blue or green then it was a hallucination of hope - just like the vision of the Normandy landing on that planet.

And that's actually my other problem with the IT, the belief that everything you see in the ACTUAL ending is just more hallucinations. If Shepard is officially and completely indoctrinated...there'd no longer be any reason to placate him/her. (S)He is already under their control, no more need for mind games, there'd be no reason at all to give him/her the visions of all the Reapers flying away (as when (s)he wakes up to start obeying their commands...(s)he'll...kinda...be able to see them still sitting right there telling him/her to do stuff.) So all the ending "visions" don't make sense except in a literal interpretation.

As for putting your faith in Bioware that they could/will provide a missing link between rejecting indoctrination and winning in the battle above, you forget the fact that 1: every military making up the galactic fleet has already been hit very hard by the Reapers and 2: it has been quite specifically and emphatically stated throughout all 3 games that you can't win against the Reapers in a conventional fight. It doesn't matter how big your fleet is. You might be able to give the Reapers one hell of a bloody nose, but in the end you lose. This is why the Crucible was needed in the first place. If it was such a simple matter as just pooling all the fleets together and meeting the Reapers head-on, I'd imagine that would have been the first order of business.

No, there can be no victory in the space above Earth because the Reapers won't lose an all-out direct fight. It took 3 full fleets to bring down Sovereign, and that was just a single Reaper...and even he only died because his consciousness was inhabiting Saren when Saren died...again. How many fleets would it take to bring down an entire fleet of THOUSANDS of Reapers? Undoubtedly with hundreds (if not thousands) of Sovereign-Class Reaper capital ships.

If the IT is true, then Shepard never reaches the Citadel and all ground forces are annihilated. If no one gets to the Citadel, the Crucible is never fired. If the Crucible is never fired, all hope for this Cycle is lost. Better luck in 50,000 years.

 

[psicat]

As long as they don't change the ending with the extension, just add some closure or whatever people where crying about, then it should be fine. But, I also thought the endings where more than fine as they where.

 

[Aarowbeatsdragon]

im gonna be honest, i love the ending for mass effect 3 and im glad they arnt changing the ending, only adding a few cutscenes and an epilouge.

 

[rigabear]

And that's actually my other problem with the IT, the belief that everything you see in the ACTUAL ending is just more hallucinations. If Shepard is officially and completely indoctrinated...there'd no longer be any reason to placate him/her. (S)He is already under their control, no more need for mind games, there'd be no reason at all to give him/her the visions of all the Reapers flying away (as when (s)he wakes up to start obeying their commands...(s)he'll...kinda...be able to see them still sitting right there telling him/her to do stuff.) So all the ending "visions" don't make sense except in a literal interpretation.

Perhaps interpreting as though they feed all these visions to Shepard in the instant he connects to the crucible (in his hallucination), before he wakes up. As for that Stargazer vision - perhaps created to placate any residual resistance/realisation - after all presumably Shepard would be most useful as not a brainless zombie but as a willing ally (or so Shepard would think).
Furthermore, the player would have no view of what the indoctrinated Shepard sees or thinks - so really it's the player being fed these morsels. Hmm, this would require more thought.

As for putting your faith in Bioware that they could/will provide a missing link between rejecting indoctrination and winning in the battle above, you forget the fact that 1: every military making up the galactic fleet has already been hit very hard by the Reapers and 2: it has been quite specifically and emphatically stated throughout all 3 games that you can't win against the Reapers in a conventional fight. It doesn't matter how big your fleet is. You might be able to give the Reapers one hell of a bloody nose, but in the end you lose. This is why the Crucible was needed in the first place. If it was such a simple matter as just pooling all the fleets together and meeting the Reapers head-on, I'd imagine that would have been the first order of business.
No, there can be no victory in the space above Earth because the Reapers won't lose an all-out direct fight. It took 3 full fleets to bring down Sovereign, and that was just a single Reaper...and even he only died because his consciousness was inhabiting Saren when Saren died...again. How many fleets would it take to bring down an entire fleet of THOUSANDS of Reapers? Undoubtedly with hundreds (if not thousands) of Sovereign-Class Reaper capital ships.
If the IT is true, then Shepard never reaches the Citadel and all ground forces are annihilated. If no one gets to the Citadel, the Crucible is never fired. If the Crucible is never fired, all hope for this Cycle is lost. Better luck in 50,000 years.

See, there the precedent. The broken connection with reanimate Saren brought down the shields. And reanimated Saren was a just a glorified husk. But Commander Shepard... this is the ultimate bad ass we're talking about. Not only that, but this is a bad-ass whose mind is filled with Protean god-knows what. A bad-ass for whom standard indoctrination was not nearly enough; his conversion required an elaborate process spanning all three Mass Effects with a final trick offering the very destruction of the Reapers...

Anyhow, the point is that there is precedent for the process actually physically weakening the Reaper forces - which would allow a victory in space. Yes before it was impossible, but Shepard's choice makes it possible.

Also, a quick point - the Mass Effect wiki informs me that the Prothean scientists who thought the crucible could be used to control the Reapers were indoctrinated. I don't remember that detail, from whatever game.

And if you'd allow me to put on my tin-foil hat for a second: perhaps the Prothean mind-transfer business from Mass Effect 1 is key - perhaps THAT was the real Prothean super weapon - they developed away to use the indoctrination process against the Reapers. Well that would be awesome. But again, pure speculation.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Where is the option for "The ending was fine and the DLC is completely unnecessary"?

I mean it's free content, so I'll take it, but give me more poll options. Not everyone agrees here.

I'd edit the poll, but the question wasn't "Do you think this Extended Cut is necessary?" It was "Are you looking forward to the Extended Cut?" to which there's really only four ahem, 3 possible answers: Yes, No, and "At this point I really don't care."

I can appreciate that you liked the ending...personally I didn't think it was all as horrible as most people did (hence my stating that it most specifically did NOT ruin the entire series for me), but the nature of this topic is simply whether or not you're looking forward to the Extended Cut being released.

I can appreciate what you are saying, but the wording of the choices presupposes that the person clicking doesn't like the ending what with the "Yes" option being "I think they can set things straight", and the "No" option being "Dish out more bullshit".

It's really just an issue of semantics.

To be honest, I actually AM looking forward to it. Even though I am one of the EXTREMELY few people who liked the ending, it was still by no means perfect.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip

To answer your question, the detail about Protheans that wanted to control the Reapers comes out when you're talking to the Prothean VI on Thesia. You ask "Why didn't you guys use the Crucible?" to which he responds "A splinter faction thought we could control the Reapers instead of destroying them." to which you reply "Just like Cerberus." which leads into the bit about all time being cyclical and that the same conflicts repeat themselves - in one variation or another - in every cycle.

As for the precedent you speak of, I'm afraid you're mistaken. Sovereign was only stunned because he was actively inhabiting Zombie Saren via the Reaper implants that Sovereign put into him. Shepard has no Reaper implants. Cybernetic impants, yes, but not specifically Reaper implants. This is why Shepard doesn't obey Cerberus commands unquestioningly the way all the Cerberus soldiers do. Indoctrination is a signal, not a Reaper. It's something that just happens naturally just purely by being near Reapers (i.e. the Cerberus scientists on the dead Reaper in ME 2 getting Indoctrinated). And even if what you're suggesting were the case, the entire Reaper fleet wouldn't be in Shepard's head, only Harbinger would be. You might knock him out with a stun after breaking free, but the rest of the Reapers are still on the rampage.

Sorry to break it to you Bear, but the IT just doesn't fit nearly as perfectly as people would like to believe it does. It ties up countless loose ends, I admit and appreciate that. But it all crumbles away once you get to that beam of light hitting Shepard and the elevator taking him/her up to meet with Space Timmy.

 

[pure.Wasted]

The problems with ME 3 are so deeply rooted in the core of mechanics and storytelling that fixing any one part doesn't change anything.

So fix the ending, fix all the little nit picky things that people complain about. Fix Tali's face, fix Diana Allers, fix the quest tracking, fix the controls, fix the Galactic Readiness bullshit, it still won't make the game any good. Because it wasn't Mass Effect 3, it was Corporate Meddling 3: How to Screw a Fanbase.

Is it wrong that it brings me just a little bit of joy to see how annoyed you are?

It really, really wouldn't have, if you'd simply offered your constructive criticism and let it stand or fall on its own merits, because there's nothing wrong with analyzing something even if it's as beloved as Mass Effect 3 is loved outside of its ending. But no, you had to make this a Big Issue. Mass Effect 3 couldn't have been unsatisfying simply because it was poorly designed, because the guys making the game didn't understand what made it so good for someone like you in the first place, no, it has to be because of corporate meddling, it has to be EA, it has to be Bioware deliberately going out of their way to ruin your gaming experience, because nothing makes them so happy as to see their fanbase reduced to a pool of tears.

Sound ridiculous? Yeah. Most exaggerations do, yours included. You had some decent (but not inarguable) points, but presenting them with such predictable elitism really doesn't help your credibility. I hope it at least made you feel better.

On to your points:

The problem with Mass Effect 3 is that it's not a role playing game any more. apart from two decisions (How you handle the Genophage, and how you handle the Quarian/Geth war) Nothing you do or ever did has any effect on the game.

You say "How you handle the Genophage" as if it's a single decision, when in fact "how you handle the Genophage" is made up of three (and a half) separate decisions within Mass Effect 3, and is heavily influenced by whether you saved or killed Wrex, whether you saved or killed Mordin, whether you got Mordin's loyalty or not, and whether you kept Maelon's Genophage cure going or not. Never mind the Quarian/Geth war, which takes so many of your decisions into account that people are still figuring it out.

Even if I were to grant that ME3 presents less choices than previous games in the series did - and I don't - your experience with the game will still depend completely upon your experience with Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2.

Sur'Kesh, which doesn't involve any "choice" in and of itself outside of choosing your squadmates, can be either "just another mission" that includes Wreav, some Salarian we've never seen or heard of before, Vega, and Javik... or it can be an epic reunion between Wrex and his ME1 buddies Garrus and Liara, with Mordin showing up out of the blue to save the day.

Not only will the experience of playing that mission vary wildly amongst players, but even those who manage to reach the same result will still feel like they reached it because they worked to reach it. Not because it was the only one available.

And again, this is a mission where you get to choose nothing but your squadmates.

Shepard's personality is hardly even up to you anymore. 90% of your dialog choices come down to whether you want to continue the conversation in a happy or angry way. Renegade Shepard isn't even an Asshole any more because Shep treats anyone who survived the suicide mission like his/her BFF (Except Miranda, but honestly did anyone actually let that ***** survive ME 2)

A lot of people let "that *****" survive ME 2. In fact, she was the second most popular male romance option in the game, out of four. This really makes me question how in touch with the fanbase's wishes you really are.

As for renegade Shepard being less of an asshole... what of it? It was inevitable. The ME franchise is not made of sandbox games where you do whatever the hell you want to do. Shepard is a hero. You can choose to interpret his actions differently, ie. maybe he secretly hates women and aliens and gets them all killed on the suicide mission, but you're reading into what isn't there. Shepard doesn't hate women, and he doesn't hate aliens. He's a hero.

He can be an optimistic hero or a cynical hero, but that's about all the input you have on his attitude, and it's always been that way. Does /friending Garrus seem like the type of thing that would be influenced by Shepard being an optimist or a cynic? Nope! So Shepard friends Garrus is canon. Nothing unexpected there. If you don't want them to be friends, get Garrus killed in the Suicide Mission, problem solved! And if you don't like Bioware having some image of what Shepard is like other than "completely blank slate," then ME3 is the wrong time to bring it up. ME2 was built around this idea, with Shepard working with TIM every step of the plot. Off the top of my head, another example would be Shepard not being able to explain himself on Horizon to Kaidan/Ashley. Point being, regardless of how poorly received those individual elements were, that didn't stop the game from being loved by the majority of the fans and receiving numerous GOTY awards. Why you would think that ME3 is evil incarnate for doing the same thing ME2 did is beyond me.

The auto-dialogue was a genuine problem in a few specific scenes, ie. Shepard breaking down while talking to Hackett comes to mind. But it really wasn't as world-shattering a deal as you make it out to seem.

So... yeah. You raised some good discussion points, but nothing that really stands up to criticism.

And you did it all while being an ass. Congrats.

 

[Madkipz]

Specifically, now that we're over two months since the game's release and with the promise of an "Extended Cut" to be released for free...what are your thoughts on the matter?

At this point I really can't answer my own poll because part of me WANTS to believe that they'll be able to set things right...and yet another part of me EXPECTS them to fail.

Oh, they will fail alright, but i hope they will prove the indoctrination theory wrong so that the wankers will shut up about it and be angry like the rest of us. The indoctrination theory alone kept the Pax event fairly human. If it had not existed I think we would have seen the biggest outrage since... Diablo 3 is really shit.

 

[dancinginfernal]

Don't care. Never cared. Won't care.

Won't play it, not interested. Didn't mind the ending that much. It was bad, yeah, but I didn't get all uppity and bitchy about it.

Boohoo, the game had a bad ending. They don't need to change shit. They fucked up, and even if they corrected it you'll still think it's a shitty ending. I seriously don't see the point in both this extension, and the cause of the people demanding it.