Sorry, Mass Effect 3 complainers

[BloatedGuppy]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The ending to Mass Effect 3 was pretty much dogshit. But so was the all of the Matrix: Revolutions. I'm fine with bitching and complaining about those until I'm blue in the face. But do the Wachowskis owe me a different finale? Do I have the right to demand a new ending from Bioware?

Are we using films as analogues for games again? Why don't you go ahead and tell me the last time you downloaded a patch, expansion, or piece of DLC for a film. Video games are constantly changing entities. ME3 as it stands allows for many permutations of canon. Shepard is male, Shepard is female, Shepard dies, Shepard maybe lives, the Genophage is cured, the Genophage is ended, etc, etc, etc. So changing or altering the game in any way is perfectly in keeping with established precedent. They were planning on releasing DLC for it anyway, FFS. Letting them know the form people wanted that DLC to take (an actual ending, plox) was hardly outlandish.

Also keep in mind that Mass Effect is an ongoing IP. They want you to buy DLC, they want you to buy product, they want you to be interested in future games set in this universe, and in addition they want to promote and continue the strong brand loyalty for Bioware as well. Demanding a new ending is just giving them the conditions under which you, as a consumer, are prepared to do this. Whether Bioware chooses to listen or not is utterly up to them.

But fuck it I don't even know why I'm bothering, all these goddam discussions were had months ago. I was sick of them then and I'm not any less sick of them now.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

I loved all 3 games, i love the lore. I love everything about ME3. The ending wasnt so great but i really dont give a shit. Their are worse disappointments in life than a game ending in an anti climatic way. Just dont start all the moaning and whining again that is on par with the whole "You raped my childhood" bullshit by Transformer fans. Move on to another game. Play something else. Atleast the ending was better than the "Well done" that you got completing C64/Spectrum games.

 

[psicat]

Don't apologize people who want the ending changed are Entitled and Childish. I always thought the endings where fine, not great, a few to many lose threads and plot holes for great, but fine. If many people didn't like it that's fine to, everyone is entitled to an opinion and free to voice it. But, once they overreacted the way they did with this game and started bitching and making demands I lost any respect I might have had for that sorry lot of whiners.

 

[LongDanzi]

I have to admit that the ending to ME3 was a let down but I keep playing it because of the combat, I believe that the combat is solid enough to replay it even though I know how the story ends, I do have a lot of friends who are out raged at the ending but you can't have every thing. that whole thing about same day DLC also made many people mad but it was bioware's choice so no one can fix that.

 

[CalPal]

I'll admit: I also waited months after ME3's release to actually play the game (I was in university and never brought my 360 with me because I knew it would be too distracting). So when I got into ME3, I expected the worst. Many hours later, great reconnecting with my ME friends and nearly having my heart strings pulled, the ending comes and...

I don't get the hatred.

I chose to destroy the Reapers and thought that, all in all, it was a decent ending. Okay, so the fact that the destroy ending means the Geth, who finally found peace with the Quarians, and EDI, who finally became alive, would all die, but I didn't find that so depressing. Even for a brief moment, they were alive, and that was a lot more than I could ever hope for. I'd like to think that they would be happy that I made that decision. There was also a lot of other moments back in the ME series that made me think about my decision, like Sovereign's speech, Mordin's talk on culture and tech, the choice I faced at Legion's loyalty mission... moments like these made me realize that destruction would allow all organic life to evolve on its own, without intervention. This is what I wanted for the MEverse more than anything else, to be completely free of the Reapers and evolve on their own, through their own talents.

I never bought indoctrination theory. Some parts maybe made sense, but mostly, it's just a desperate grab for something that apparently "offended" people who just couldn't handle the ending like mature people, instead making demands of a company to completely rewrite their ending as if they weren't smart enough to realize what they were doing. That's just fucking low for those people to say that. How could you say that to any writer, that the ending made you feel offended and that you demand they change THEIR work?

I dunno, I just don't like to think that Bioware is lazy with ME3's ending. In fact, another theory I've heard about actually makes me more excited than anything else. It's called "Beings of Light Theory", which I heard from gamermd83 on youtube and actually ties in to ME lore now. Just watch the video, it makes a hell of a lot more sense and - more importantly - means that there might actually be MORE to the MEverse in the future:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUcHf-mCR4w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPNqOgNGwSk&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ascb79jqfo (This one made me think that there's actually more to the MEverse, that 'machine devils' are outside our own galaxy and will be introduced in either ME3 ending DLC or other ME games)

Ultimately, however, it all depends on what happens with the ME3 ending DLC, I suppose.

 

[Texas Joker 52]

Well, I'm sorry to hear that you had to experience that... Well, disappointment is the cleanest, nicest way to term it. But, now you know the whole story, so to speak, and now your opinion has matured somewhat, for lack of a better term.

Besides, hasn't everyone said shit that they would have said differently once the shoe was on the other foot? We've all been there, so its no big deal.

As for the problems of the ending, yes, a lot of people are upset because they felt it invalidated all of the time, effort, and yes, emotion, into the series prior. And, in a way, they'd be right, at least for themselves. That part is more personal than professional.

The rest are complaining due to the stark difference in writing quality between the majority of the game, and say, the final three missions or so. That is more professional than personal. If rumors are to be believed, the ending was the 'brainchild' (and I do use that term with immense sarcasm) of Casey Hudson, while the rest of the writing team weren't given any say in it.

To butcher a quote from Mass Effect 2, "That's not exactly what I call effective writing peer review.". Kudos to those that recognize that quote.

Me, I still want the ending 'fixed'. Why? To give the writing team a chance to give us the same level of quality that the rest of the game had, which I believe they wanted to give us in the first place.

Of course, I also want Casey Hudson fired and blacklisted so he cant be in charge of game development again, but if I really had to choose, I'd go with the better ending myself.

 

[CAPTCHA]

I never really got he issue with the ending. Sure it was crap, but there's so much more railroading on nonsence in Mass Effect 2. No one was had such a massive hissy fit over that. Second, games often have crap stories and crapper endings. So one more game was made with a crap ending. Stop the fucking presses! This injustice can not be allowed to continue. The precious Mass Effect series must be elevated beyond the standards of the common game. All pales in comparison to its expectant glory. Behold, for the messiah has come! Blalrrrlrlrrljsfjsdh...

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

My argument has always been from a place of tempered expectations. We all saw how little our choices mattered in ME2. Universe altering choices swapped a few pieces of dialog. It might add or remove a few non-plot essential encounters. The "promise" of Mass Effect was that annihilation was one decision away. None of my choices in Mass Effect could lead to annihilation. None of them really mattered by the second game from a gameplay perspective.

In the years between 2 and 3, I wondered just how you could go about making any decisions meaningful. Saving Wrex would make the Krograns more amiable. Working with Legion would make the geth more likely to agree to a stupid plan. I could go on. In the end, I assumed the game's ultimate outcome would boil down to incrementing a number to certain thresholds. I didn't exactly expect the mechanic to literally be "here is a bar - fill it for swift victory" of course; usually you hide that.

As far as the logic of the ending goes, I maintain that it was suitable given the stakes. Mass Effect set the stakes too high and gave us an enemy far to powerful to beat without a deus ex machina. The three color choice is in keeping with every god damn decision you ever made in Mass Effect up to that point. Were I to have a complaint it is simply this: the game just kinda ends. Suddenly. In fact, it would be similar to Lord of the Rings ending after the victory at the black gate. Not including an epilogue of worth remains the only damning problem that game had as far as I'm concerned.

 

[boag]

Don't apologize people who want the ending changed are Entitled and Childish. I always thought the endings where fine, not great, a few to many lose threads and plot holes for great, but fine. If many people didn't like it that's fine to, everyone is entitled to an opinion and free to voice it. But, once they overreacted the way they did with this game and started bitching and making demands I lost any respect I might have had for that sorry lot of whiners.

you cant call people entitled and childish anymore, apparently it is now an insult.

 

[Comocat]

There are some really good breakdowns coming out now that we have all had our chance to vent.
Cooler heads have done a great job making some sense out of the ending.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/10761785/1

This link uses elements of two leaked scripts, in addition to several community spawned findings to provide clarity to the catalysts logic and the ending at large. A must read.

In any case, welcome to the fold. Enjoy the free multiplayer dlc until extended cut and beyond.

Edit: link fixed ;-)

Has BioWare ever come out and said what they were trying to accomplish (maybe from a writer)? I guess a "technological singularity" would be a bad thing hence a desire to stop it, but I have a hard time accepting that the resolution of a 3 game series is an abstract sci-fi concept that occupied mostly side quests.

I copied the post from your link (thanks for sharing) and the OP's defense is 12 pages (8400 words). Maybe I'm lazy, but I can't be bothered to think that hard about a video game.

 

[Acton Hank]

I never really got he issue with the ending. Sure it was crap, but there's so much more railroading on nonsence in Mass Effect 2. No one was had such a massive hissy fit over that. Second, games often have crap stories and crapper endings. So one more game was made with a crap ending. Stop the fucking presses! This injustice can not be allowed to continue. The precious Mass Effect series must be elevated beyond the standards of the common game. All pales in comparison to its expectant glory. Behold, for the messiah has come! Blalrrrlrlrrljsfjsdh...

It had all the elements in place for a fantastic ending, that's what makes it even more incomprehensibly bad.

To this day I still don't understand what exactly were they trying to do with the space kid and the 3 underexplained choices with teleporting squadmates and Adam and Eve allusions.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

...anyway my reasoning with the whole thing is that there is really nothing to be gained in NOT changing the ending due to "art"

Depends where you draw the line. Is it acceptable to paint over the Mona Lisa because you don't like her smile?

No, probably not.

But it's perfectly acceptable to say, "Hey, Da Vinci, one of her eyes is upside down! Might wanna fix that."

And if he then says "yeah, I know, that's the way I created it"? If he intends for it to be the way it is, do we still have the right to tell him to change it to suit us?

To continue to painting analogy, would you go to Picasso and say "Dude, that's supposed to be a face? You can't paint worth shit, man, go back and do it again"

while i see your point, imagine you had already bought *insert large amount of money here for art* and you had a nice room with art that made sense and was beautiful to look at, and then the last piece comes along that picasso says "damn dude, this shit is about to be amazing and complete your room like a fuckin boss" so you get excited, then on reveal day, he hangs it on your wall, and there is literally a piece of shit smeared for a mustache over mona lisa

what would your reaction be to that? considering you PAID for it.

 

[Hectix777]

Snip

Mr. SonicWaffle I appreciate your change of mind and finally understanding why us Bioware fans are so disappointed and also now have a deep-seated rage towards Moviebob(not me though). While what you said is true in regards to the ending(rushed, crummy, terrible, etc.) what you probably did not know, is that the ending on the Mass Effect 3 disc is not the original ending.

That's right, the ending that you and everyone else saw was a rewrite. An ending not written by the careful and precise artisans behind the writing staff of Bioware, but the heinously evil, and overall gigantic idiot, Mr. Enemy Number One, Casey Hudson. Why was the ending written by him and not the writers you ask? Here's why:

Apparently their was an internal leak in Bioware that revealed the script to Mass Effect 3, namely the ending. The original ending itself was MUCH
better and much more thought-provoking than the one that is currently used. Apparently, Mr. Hudson didn't like the fact that the ending was known to the
world, and did what only an idiot would do, re-write the ending. He's behind the current pile of an ending, not the writers. And as much as they protested
the change, Hudson's word was law, and so the ending was forcibly written.

And that's why the endin is bad, and why we hate Casey Hudson. Casey isn't even a writer or, to my knowledge, even been part of writing until that ending. He's a grunt in the gaming industry, a code monkey, a mega nerd, turbo brain, C++ linguist, a programmer! That's why there are so many holes, because it was written by someone whose job is not to write, but to code.

Mr.SonicWaffle if you would indulge me, I would gladly tell you the ending that Bioware really had in mind. And the choices? Wooh, it's heavy, really heavy. So if you want to know what ending Bioware really wanted to run with, go ahead and ask.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/10761785/1

This link uses elements of two leaked scripts, in addition to several community spawned findings to provide clarity to the catalysts logic and the ending at large. A must read.

Those are linked scripts. Which is like using the original script of Star Wars where Han Solo was a giant vampire bat-man and there was no one named Luke Skywalker, to prove some point you have about Star Wars. You have to work with what they actually wrote, not what they thought about writing and then decided not to.

 

[Jarek Mace]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Oh76SiHzs This.

If it was bad in a way that made me think "That's not how I could see it ending" then I'd be at fault..
But this was just an incoherent fucking burst of bullshit from the mouth of Bioware.

 

[Dendio]

There are some really good breakdowns coming out now that we have all had our chance to vent.
Cooler heads have done a great job making some sense out of the ending.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/10761785/1

This link uses elements of two leaked scripts, in addition to several community spawned findings to provide clarity to the catalysts logic and the ending at large. A must read.

In any case, welcome to the fold. Enjoy the free multiplayer dlc until extended cut and beyond.

Edit: link fixed ;-)

My biggest complaint with that is that is the bit where it says the reapers haven't reached the singularity because they cannot self-evolve. The Geth can make modifications and improvements to themselves, just look at legion. Are the Geth more advanced than the reapers?

According to the linked thread, the geth are unshackled AI who plan to develop their own future on their terms. The reapers are shackled AI locked into their modus operandi of preserving organic life through harvesting. The reapers are technologically superior, but they are locked in their current tech and unable to progress themselves. Perhaps this is why they say they are the final evolution.

Evolution by definition is unending, but in the reapers case they are unable to improve their technology or even alter their goal. The hidden function of the relays is to impose a form of control over the development of organic life. If the reapers wipe out organics at a lower technological level than they are then the reapers inability to improve ceases to be a problem. The reapers become the final evolution of organic life because they prevent organic life from advancing further.


http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/12153660/1
I strongly recommend anyone reading this to also check out this thread as well. It more deeply explains synthesis, the geth dyson sphere and the catalyst's efforts against singularity.

 

[Vault101]

Speaking for myself, I think a lot of it was likely mental self-defence.

"It's Mass Effect 3, I've been waiting so long for this, it just can't be that bad. They must be wrong!"

I didn't have any issues with the game itself...just the ending...the ending was bad BECAUSE I loved ME3


[quote/]
Depends where you draw the line. Is it acceptable to paint over the Mona Lisa because you don't like her smile? Yes, I know it's an extreme example, but the logic follows. If you say "this is art, a creation with a purpose and a message, but I don't like the message so I want it to be different" regarding a video game and then pressure the developer into doing it, how is that different from petitioning directors or painters or authors to change things you don't like about their work?
[/quote]

ME3 isn't the mona lisa...not by a long shot, sure the principle is there...but so what? no one will care in years to come, NO ONE is going to look back on that ending that think its actually good

what I'm saying is screw the principle, it doesnt mean anything, it doesnt make anythign better, its just words,

the ending isnt just depressing/nonsensical/tacked on....its a very unique combination of all those things

anyway, I don't have high hopes for the extended cut...but its hope isnt it? its somthing? and thats better than nothing, better than leaving it as is

 

[TheKaduflyerSystem]

Bioware
Grrrrrrrr

That is all

 

[Lugbzurg]

What I think is also really stupid is... Why this game? This has happened GOBS of times, and people chose this game to freak out about?

Not to mention how people are really all up in a tizzy about the "broken promises" concerning Mass Effect 3.
Newsflash, people! This happens all the time!

One very big point is Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). It promised Sonic would have "Faster Speed". He's incredibly slow for some reason, and Omega is faster. It promised Shadow would have Chaos Blast and Chaos Control. He has neither. It also promised three ring-based attacks for Tails. He has two. It promised over 10 Action Stages. There are exactly 10. It promised real-life physics. We got a clunky mess of movements. It promised that Shadow was given a mission to Soleana from GUN where it was uncertain weather he was there to help or hurt Sonic. Nothing of the sort happened. It promised that Silver lives "lightyears in the future". What did they think that even meant!? It promised this was to be Sonic's first adventure on Earth. Seeing as how there had already been at least four games that already did so beforehand, this would have been a prequel, right? Nope.

There's also a picture of Sonic fighting Eggman's robots in Crisis City on the back of the case.

People have gotten a lot more sue-happy since 2006, it seems.

 

[Zhukov]

What I think is also really stupid is... Why this game? This has happened GOBS of times, and people chose this game to freak out about?

Presumably the people doing the freaking care more about Mass Effect than Sonic.

Besides, it's not like Sonic fans have never freaked out over the various transgressions of their series. In fact, they seem to be freaking more often than not.