UK Ad Agency: Mass Effect 3 Advertising "Not Misleading"

[sumanoskae]

Sure, things might have been different up until the last five minutes depending on what you did, but those last five minutes create such calamity that they render almost everything else meaningless.

The last part of the game has a drastic effect on the galaxy, so much so that what you might have done beforehand doesn't really have much of an effect anymore. A story that might have seemed drastically different depending on what you did now ends up the same because of how damning the ending is; it changes the entire state of the universe, and almost always the same way.

The last few minutes ignore every other decision you make, and proceed to negate them entirely. Sure, you might have brought every race in the galaxy together for a prosperous future, or maybe you forced them into a false alliance via necessity and deceit. But it doesn't matter because you never get to see where they end up, and they're all fucked either way.

This us also ignoring that two different people stepping out of a ship doesn't count as a different ending in any meaningful way, it's a technicality.

 

[sumanoskae]

I can't believe that people are still whining about the ending.
Go read the story about the guy writing about how nice america is and how he got shot by a random person while he was hitchhiking. What kind of control did he have over that.

And the ending really wasn't that bad, it wasn't great but come on. Let's compare it to this

That's like saying that someones mother has cancer is inconsequential compared to the holocaust. Simply because things could be worse doesn't mean they're good, and acknowledging that one thing is bad doesn't equate to dismissing everything else.

If you liked the ending, congratulations, I'm curious as to how you achieved such a feat.

I myself have come to expect more than "Meh" and certainly more than what we got from a series that has thus far made storytelling it's prime directive, and I'd also like to know why it chose to ignore basic tenants of story structure.

P.S: I think the reason people are still talking about the Mass Effect 3 ending is because news was recently posted regarding the Mass Effect 3 ending, in this very article, in fact.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I never expected it to be taken seriously in a legal way, but I stand by my assertion that it is false advertising. You can't expect people to 'read into' the endings to get the difference they were promised, you have to consider the people who took it at face value (that being visually similar cutscenes determined by only one independant choice which does not at all reflect your choices in the game, no matter what the f***ing EMS is) (and you know what, that applies to people who did have a thematic understanding as well).

Not to mention they led people through 2 other f***ing games with the same s***. If the payoffs in ME2 were the final thing, and I had bought ME1, I would be slightly annoyed, but not as much as this BS. Not only did everyone expect big payoffs (like whether or not the genophage is cured, the outcome of the Geth/Quarian conflict) and for them to have a large influence on the story, but this was NOT an unreasonable expectation considering the advertising and lead-up.

So yeah...still f*** Bioware for this. Squandered a once in gaming history opportunity to make an irrelevant thematic point and ruined a lot of players' experiences. Other parts of the game are good, but once you screw up the ending, there's no more game. And then you realise...there are choices I made that barely paid off at all, maybe an extra line of dialogue for saving a species, and it's never GOING to pay off either.

I've said enough.

 

[PH3NOmenon]

Wasn't there a developer that outright stated something along the lines of "It won't just be three different endings, depending on the final choice." ?


Granted, that wasn't part of any advertisement campaign or promotional material, iirc. It was just some dev tweeting about it.

Or am I imagining having read that?

 

[ElPatron]

Despite all of the endings playing more or less the same cutscene, they actually do imply VASTLY different outcomes for the rest of the universe.

That's what I thought. The assumption seems to be that if you don't specifically see those outcomes, they mustn't have happened.

So that I have to make fanfiction on my head to guess what happened next.

Secondly, they still technically didn't provide only "A, B, and C". They provided A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, with your actions beforehand influencing which ones you have available to you. These range from Reapers destroyed and Earth wiped out to Synthesis and seeing Shepard live. Poorly implemented, but to use a term from the ASA, there are still major thematic differences.

I think that interviews should still be brought up because let's face it: the gaming media is pure marketing for the most part. I would have never heard about Lolipop Chainsaw if it wasn't for the gaming media. Their quotes aren't exactly legal contracts with the audience, but to me it shows that during the development something happened and they are not being honest with us. Frankly they seem to have promised some stuff and were forced to wrap it up without communicating it to anyone and expecting nobody would have noticed.


About the thematic differences. Isn't that subjective?
To many people, including me, the endings were actually A, B and C. If they can *imply* that there are major differences from each ending from a few seconds of discrepancy then I can say that they *implied* that we wouldn't get to the ending and be presented with three linear choices.

Wasn't there a developer that outright stated something along the lines of "It won't just be three different endings, depending on the final choice." ?


Granted, that wasn't part of any advertisement campaign or promotional material, iirc. It was just some dev tweeting about it.

Or am I imagining having read that?

Google for Bioware quotes, there are threads on Bioware forums, youtube videos, etc listing all the quotes related to the ending.

 

[Avalanche91]

I just can't get worked up about this anymore. Either Bioware saves the series with DLC, or they don't. The DCL not saving the series if the more likely and more interesting outcome. I really wonder if Bioware/EA learned from this and will take it with them to Dragon Age 3.....Or they'll make a dick joke about a character wanting to have the ending of his favorite book changed.

And I am pretty sure promising your series will not include A, but does include B, C, D and E plays a very important role, then including A, not including B, C, D at all and shoving E to the background IS in fact false advertisement.

 

[Snotnarok]

I can't believe that people are still whining about the ending.
Go read the story about the guy writing about how nice america is and how he got shot by a random person while he was hitchhiking. What kind of control did he have over that.

And the ending really wasn't that bad, it wasn't great but come on. Let's compare it to this

That's like saying that someones mother has cancer is inconsequential compared to the holocaust. Simply because things could be worse doesn't mean they're good, and acknowledging that one thing is bad doesn't equate to dismissing everything else.

If you liked the ending, congratulations, I'm curious as to how you achieved such a feat.

I myself have come to expect more than "Meh" and certainly more than what we got from a series that has thus far made storytelling it's prime directive, and I'd also like to know why it chose to ignore basic tenants of story structure.

P.S: I think the reason people are still talking about the Mass Effect 3 ending is because news was recently posted regarding the Mass Effect 3 ending, in this very article, in fact.

I'm aware the ending wasn't great but judging by many peoples reactions I'm stumped to why this ending is worse than others when the others have been far worse.
Maybe because the ending honestly makes sense to me that despite trying as hard as you can, shit doesn't work out in the end regardless. That's not to say it's good, it's got plot holes and wasn't the best but, again I've seen much worse and its not deal breaking to me.

I don't really know, I'm not trying to defend the ending, I am really curious why it's raged on though because other endings yadda yadda.

I can't believe that people are still whining about the ending.
Go read the story about the guy writing about how nice america is and how he got shot by a random person while he was hitchhiking. What kind of control did he have over that.

And the ending really wasn't that bad, it wasn't great but come on. Let's compare it to this

Right, lets compare a multi million dollar game to a game made on the SNES back in the 1990s or early 2000s to a game made in 2012 from a company that is shown it can make good games and endings.

Sorry, but any defense for the ending that is "Well at least its not X" is not really a defense because every single comparison is not of something of equal merit, yet something that is just worse from 20 years ago.

In essence, anyone who complains about bugs a good defense by the logic above is that "Well at least its not Big Rigs Over the Road racing right?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doesn't stop the endings from being shit.

I'm sorry you lost me at old games can't have good endings, there's plenty of games from that era that have really good endings. ME3s ending was far from abysmal and they're fixing it for free unlike the hundreds games that actually had either no endings or bad ones.

Feel free to disagree but having played through the series the ending didn't scratch the overall fun factor in the total series. Was the ending disappointing? Sure a bit but the whole series was great fun.

The whole series was fun, but saying that the final ending was not a disappointing, un-traceable mess unless you read so far into it that it stopped being fun.

If you want to compare games of now to games of then, you would be aware that for every one decent actual ending cut scene there were truckloads of ones just saying "Thanks for Playing."

I'm sorry, but if someone still calls PONG the single greatest game today versus a critically acclaimed game then I will either slap their scrotum or tits and tell them that they are wrong.

Back when Ninja Gaiden was made cut scenes literally became the shit and was wild back then, now its a lot more developed and as such we have games like Red Dead Redemption and GTA 4 [older examples, yes, but still this gen] paving the game industry with interesting stories weaved through cut scenes and gameplay and all end with some sense of basic understanding.

Dragon Age Origins ended with a ending that made sense, on the ground level. Dragon Age 2 ended with a basic ground level of understanding. Mass Effect one and two ended with a ending that made sense. Mass Effect 3 did not.

To wrap up, my point was against you pulling "Well it ain't one of these again, right guys?" back when the story telling was either done through chat boxes or in the manual, while now in days we have games that feature a disk that essentially comes with a playable movie version of the game then its like comparing the quality of today's games to that of the DoS.

You used a dumb ass analogy instead of simply saying "You know, it could be worse". Just that simple.

Dumbass analogy? Your suggestion doesn't lead to discussion nor does it actually tackle what I'm wondering.

I'd like to discuss and understand why people are raging over the mediocre ending, disappointed? Sure that's fine, upset why not. Raging? Why?

If someone wants to like an old game more than another game that's called subjective and their opinion and you're the one in the wrong for trying to tell them otherwise.

GTA IV was not what I would call a game paving the way with anything, it was a scatterbrained mess of a game that lacked direction. While it had impressive tech and a lot of content it tried to be very serious but with GTA styled humor in it that just conflicted with Niko and his story. That's a game I was disappointed with given the high praise and reviews, I think to this day it's the worst in the series by a large margin. The endings were not what I'd call stellar either. And seeing your pong statement I'm going to just say if you don't agree I don't care, I beat the game and that's my feelings on it.


What's wrong with comparing old games with new ones? Old game doesn't mean bad, and it sure as heck doesn't mean better. X-wing vs Rogue Squadron, X-wing is graphically dated sure but has deeper story, combat, bigger/more missions and I think is a better game than any in the series.

Again my question here is why are people raging over the ending, when other endings have seen less rage. I'm curious and what you're 'telling me to say' is not what I aim to figure out. Maybe there's nothing to figure out, maybe some people just get more upset than others over this. I don't have favorite games or hold one device/company/game over the other, I play to have fun and seeing people rage like this just made me curious.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

I still don't get why people are so upset by it, the series totals in over 60 hours of fun gameplay but 15 minutes makes the series bad is what I've been reading. I'm not saying the ending was great but there's far far worse that has not even gotten close to this much hate.

There are far too many reasons to list here but the main ones:

It felt rushed, tacked on and was full of characters bizarrely acting against their previous traits for no good reason.

There was also the Deus Ex Machina star-child character, the numerous massive plot holes, the last second buttfucking of the entire Mass Effect lore and reversal of every rule and story thread they had already established (rule number one in how not to end a story), the end-a-thon 3000 choice machine, changing everything they established over the 90 hours, the removal of player choice at the most important moment, the inability to question the flawed logic of the star-child, the complete waste of time that was the war assets, the lack of anything to show for every decision they made over the 90 hours... etc etc etc etc.

You see many people don't play Mass Effect for the gameplay - they play it for the characters and story. And for those people, the final 5 minutes of ME3 completely nullified, raped and violated everything they loved about that story.

 

[Char-Nobyl]

The British advertising watchdog says that the endings and the adverts match up just fine.

Bleh. I smell rage coming on.

Although the claim [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/5548-Changing-A-Games-Ending-And-Destroying-Art] several irritated fans made to the British Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) during the fracas which alleged that EA and BioWare had "misled" fans by touting how player choice would "shape the outcome" of the trilogy. Now, having deliberated on the matter, the ASA has ruled that EA and BioWare did not mislead anyone in their advertising.

According to the ASA, a total of three "complainants" brought forward official complaints about the advertising. Their case, says the agency, came down to deciding whether or not the statements in the game's pre-launch advertising (things like "the decisions you make completely shape the experience" and "your choices drive powerful outcomes") were "misleadingly exaggerated" by EA and BioWare.

In deciding its verdict of "claim not upheld," the agency took into account the various potential endings of Mass Effect 3, which it describes as being "thematically quite different," in addition to all of the smaller choices the player makes on their way to that final point.

Maybe it's just because I'm American, but when my middle school English teacher was telling us the meaning of the term 'theme,' it didn't mean 'coloration.'

In the game, all of these things are underpinned by the player's Effective Military Strength (EMS) score, which changes depending on what the player does in-game. These factors, coupled with the variables involved in the genophage affair and the Geth/Quarian conflict, led the ASA to rule on the side of the developers.

The EMS score? You mean the thing that included stuff like 'Citadel Defense Force'? Yeah. That's a great example.

Funny thing, though: stuff like curing the genophage and resolving the geth/quarian conflict? I didn't feel like any of that was reflected in-game. I expected the offensive being launched as a diversion during the endgame to differ dramatically depending on how you played. Mercenaries and their mechs being slowly overwhelmed, only for geth to be hot-dropped in as reinforcements...human pilots being pushed to the brink by skies filled with Reaper interceptors to suddenly receive aid from veteran quarian fighters...that sort of thing. I'd be shocked to discover that anything about the final hour or so of the game was different depending on your choices, save which NPCs you get to talk with before the endgame.

That's that, it would seem. The ASA says that players were given enough choice based on what they were told they would get; EA's advertising department can sleep easy, and we can all get back to either forgetting and/or reminiscing about the endings as we so choose until the Extended Cut [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116661-BioWare-Announces-Post-Ending-DLC-for-Mass-Effect-3-Updated] DLC appears this summer (at which point we'll either start the whole process over, or cry tears of space-joy and agree to just all be friends again. Here's hoping for the latter, right?).

Well, I didn't expect this to go much of anywhere to begin with, and I certainly didn't expect it to address the root of the problem: Bioware ruined the entire Mass Effect trilogy for me.

I'm not being melodramatic, either. I won't pretend to speak for other gamers, but the endings presented in ME3 managed to sour me to ME1, 2, and 3. When ME2 was about to come out, I replayed ME1 a third time, just for the hell of it. And when ME3 was on the rise, I made sure I had at least one ideal Paragon and one ideal Renegade Shep ready to import, and fully prepared to even replay parts of the previous game if it meant changing things in the latest one.

Instead...I admit, I was angry at first, but then I was just tired. I wanted to just put the whole series behind me. This was a shock when I realized what that meant, given how invested I had been in the series. I spent who knows how many hours playing the first two games, and then when I reached only one completion of ME3...the universe felt dead to me.

Imagine a game where you play as a bank robber. You and a team of cohorts storm a bank, take a dozen hostages, and one even wires the building with explosives when police respond too fast and in too much force. You're holed up in a veritable fortress, but it can just as easily become your tomb.

Throughout the game, you need to negotiate with the police to buy your team time to (hopefully) find a way out, keep the hostages in a state of compliance, and attend to the individual members of the team. Each person, be they hostage, criminal, or cop, has their own story to tell, and you can't hope to hear them all during just one playthrough. Even the negotiator, who you'll probably only know by his voice for most playthroughs, will have layers to peel back and see if only you take the time and push the right buttons. The hostages may even come to sympathize with your plight, trying to appeal to your humanity to get everyone out alive, or even becoming willing to help you escape.

Now, in all that, imagine that there's one member of your team who never takes off his mask for the entire game and has virtually no dialogue. He's always just a background character, and you don't really pay him any mind because even if you did, you wouldn't find anything other than something like "Come back later, I'm busy," or "I'd rather not talk now."

Now imagine that no matter how you play the game, as soon as the endgame is reaching its climax, this previously inconsequential and basically unintroduced character sets off the explosives and kills everyone in the bank. Maybe if you played the game extra-special-well, you get a three-second epilogue of your character taking a breath amidst the rubble.

Get my point? No matter how wonderful the journey might be, the destination still matters, because in a video game or any other storytelling medium, it can dictate if you want to go through that journey again. And why should you? Your choices will be meaningless. Maybe some people will be alive, dead, or just reacting differently when Mr. Diablous Ex Machina snaps and blows everyone to kingdom come. You didn't shape the conclusion: the conclusion was an explosion that erased any reason for your prior actions, and then some rubble. Does it matter if I'm daring him to set off the charges or diving towards the detonator to try and stop him?

Bioware gave us a game that promised to unfold like an inverted pyramid: a single starting point that branched into numerous potential endpoints. But then it simply repeated the pattern halfway through and became a diamond: a single starting point that branches into numerous potential midpoints, but then gradually folds itself back into a single ending.

That's how Mass Effect's ending affected me: it retroactively took away what I had invested in one of my favorite franchises without even giving me back the time I spent on it.

 

[Snotnarok]

I still don't get why people are so upset by it, the series totals in over 60 hours of fun gameplay but 15 minutes makes the series bad is what I've been reading. I'm not saying the ending was great but there's far far worse that has not even gotten close to this much hate.

There are far too many reasons to list here but the main ones:

It felt rushed, tacked on and was full of characters bizarrely acting against their previous traits for no good reason.

There was also the Deus Ex Machina star-child character, the numerous massive plot holes, the last second buttfucking of the entire Mass Effect lore and reversal of every rule and story thread they had already established (rule number one in how not to end a story), the end-a-thon 3000 choice machine, changing everything they established over the 90 hours, the removal of player choice at the most important moment, the inability to question the flawed logic of the star-child, the complete waste of time that was the war assets, the lack of anything to show for every decision they made over the 90 hours... etc etc etc etc.

You see many people don't play Mass Effect for the gameplay - they play it for the characters and story. And for those people, the final 5 minutes of ME3 completely nullified, raped and violated everything they loved about that story.

Fair enough, it's all subjective. Don't get me wrong, I didn't think highly of it and I'm aware of the plot holes and have better things to do than defend it. Maybe I'm used to seeing not great endings or I made up a better ending in my head that made more sense, who knows!

I don't really lean on one element of a game, I enjoyed the story, characters, environments, art design and the sci-fi geeky crap (loved that), you know just everything together, maybe it's countering all that against that that made it not so bad.

But I see what you're talking about some people may weigh a lot more on that than anything else and it makes sense, and honestly answers my questions. Maybe they'll fix it, maybe they wont but here's hoping things get better yeah?

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Fair enough, it's all subjective. Don't get me wrong, I didn't think highly of it and I'm aware of the plot holes and have better things to do than defend it. Maybe I'm used to seeing not great endings or I made up a better ending in my head that made more sense, who knows!

I don't really lean on one element of a game, I enjoyed the story, characters, environments, art design and the sci-fi geeky crap (loved that), you know just everything together, maybe it's countering all that against that that made it not so bad.

But I see what you're talking about some people may weigh a lot more on that than anything else and it makes sense, and honestly answers my questions. Maybe they'll fix it, maybe they wont but here's hoping things get better yeah?

Exactly... I'm glad and a bit jealous that the open ending satisfied you. I wanted to see what happened due to my actions, not have it all left for my imagination. If I want to imagine a story I'll just imagine my own one, lol.

I have every faith in Bioware to fix it in the extended cut - because this time they aren't being rushed, they're taking the time to get it right

 

[Terminal Blue]

Coincidentally, I'm replaying Mass Effect 3 now.

See, I think a large part of the problem is actually the improving quality of Bioware storycrafting, particularly dialogue writing and voice actor direction. Frankly, Mass Effect had been a stand-alone game and featured a similarly shitty ending (you know, like games do all the time) I don't think anyone would have given a cared all that much. Even Mass Effect 2 wouldn't have prompted so much whining.

The problem is that for the first time Mass Effect 3 actually made me care about characters. Even Commander Shepherd, who despite being the character with the most screen time actually always came off to me as incredibly bland and inconsistent, actually started to show some real depth and weakness. It's why you can't write a deep personal narrative about superman without ruining the character, a character with no weaknesses is impossible to feel anything for.

Before Mass Effect 3, I could have summed up any of the characters is a one-sentence concept and you could pretty much predict how most of their dialogue would go based on that. Heck, I missed Tali's companion mission the first few times I played Mass Effect because I never talked to her. I have absolutely no idea how she's become such a well loved character, she has about 5 minutes of screentime during which we see nothing about what actually makes her tick except that she's still prejudiced against synthetics (I'm not saying that's bad, it would be a cop out to have it the other way around).

Heck, it's noticeable in Mass Effect 3 because some of the older characters (Liara in particular) are still running on their nonsensical Mass Effect 1 personalities whereas characters who have been written in more recently are far more interesting in their motivations.

So yeah, I agree it was kind of harsh for a game which made you care about the fate of its characters not to give you any clue about the fate of those characters. It's also just bad writing not to give any kind of denouement, but I still don't agree that the ending is a terrible betrayal or that the choices are too shallow (can you think of a single choice in Mass Effect which had an enormous impact on any aspect of the story - cRPG narratives can't do that yet, the story has to continue regardless of the choices you make so all the choices have to have minimal influence on the plot, maybe you just didn't notice it because you have some imagination).

Also, if your argument is that the ending relied on a magical McGuffin. It was always going to rely on a McGuffin. They wrote themselves into that corner in the first game by making the main enemies an invincible fleet of giant starships. What? Did you think the game was suddenly going to switch into a tactical space sim and have you fight off the Reapers conventionally in space? It was always going to come down to some kind of artefact or virus or something which Commander Shepherd could actually do on foot which would stop all the Reapers somehow by magic. It's a bad story point and it could have been handled much better, but if you didn't call it before now then I'm really not sure why.

I think the Extended Cut is a good idea and I'm glad they're going to make a go of it. I'm not sure how much good it will do now. Bioware fans strike me as the wife-beaters of the video game world, they'll endlessly claim they love their company of choice so much while verbally lashing out at it, filing lawsuits against it and sending death threats to its employees, but if it gives some kind of denouement I suspect I feel fine. Honestly, the whole series is a blast, not because it has characters worthy of Shakespeare or a plot so perfect it deserves to be immortalized for all time, but because it's a really good example of attempting to integrate narrative and gameplay which I hope a lot of companies learn from and go on to produce even better games in the future.

 

[Snotnarok]

Fair enough, it's all subjective. Don't get me wrong, I didn't think highly of it and I'm aware of the plot holes and have better things to do than defend it. Maybe I'm used to seeing not great endings or I made up a better ending in my head that made more sense, who knows!

I don't really lean on one element of a game, I enjoyed the story, characters, environments, art design and the sci-fi geeky crap (loved that), you know just everything together, maybe it's countering all that against that that made it not so bad.

But I see what you're talking about some people may weigh a lot more on that than anything else and it makes sense, and honestly answers my questions. Maybe they'll fix it, maybe they wont but here's hoping things get better yeah?

Exactly... I'm glad and a bit jealous that the open ending satisfied you. I wanted to see what happened due to my actions, not have it all left for my imagination. If I want to imagine a story I'll just imagine my own one, lol.

I have every faith in Bioware to fix it in the extended cut - because this time they aren't being rushed, they're taking the time to get it right

I wouldn't say satisfied but as I said so many endings were so much worse to me in shooters, RAGE, Bioshock 1 and 2, Metroid Other: M (bad in general), EDF Insect Armageddon). Yes some of them are straight shooters but no real excuse for having a bad ending.

It'd be great to have the endings fixed or maybe expanded on to where it made sense, they really need to stop spreading bioware so freakin' thin then kicking their butt to get the product out the door.

I get ya about the ending bit, I was trying to give a reason maybe it's not so bad to me, maybe I'm just dead inside jaded. And I hear you on the 'make your own story' comment, I went and made a webcomic so that's something I guess.

 

[Erttheking]

And and by the way, I think that this entry from TV tropes Lying Creator says it best.
Casey Hudson, the project lead for the second and third installments Mass Effect made many promises for Mass Effect 3 that were broken in the actual game. Firstly, it was said that it would be possible for completionist players to get a "Golden Ending", and that said ending would not require any hours to be put into multiplayer. There is no Golden Ending in the actual game, and the closet you can get is a 15 second Stinger that consists of someone in damaged N7 armor, implied to be Shepard, taking a breathe. The most egregious lies were that the endings would provide closure, that they would be "triumphant and uplifting", and that BioWare was not going to "Pull a Lost." For reference, Mass Effect 3 is currently indexed on, among other pages, the Gainax Ending, Esoteric Happy Ending, Ending Aversion, Inferred Holocaust, Pyrrhic Victory, Downer Ending, and Ambiguous Situation pages.
Oh and the thing he said about not having to play multiplayer, yeah... The game uses a system called EMS counting how strong your army is (through war assets). This is then divided by a percentage system which is increased with playing multiplayer. Well since the maximal EMS you can aquire is 7700, the basic percentage (without playing multiplayer) is 50 % and you need at least 4000 to receive the best ending that means it is officially impossible to get the golden ending without multiplayer.
This can also be especially annoying since the percentage will drop with a few percent per day so if you are away or not playing for a few weeks you have to spend a few hours with multiplayer in order to get back what you lost (one match takes around 20 minutes and will increase the counter between 3-4 %)

 

[SageRuffin]

You sir, are a genius

I try.

 

[sumanoskae]

I can't believe that people are still whining about the ending.
Go read the story about the guy writing about how nice america is and how he got shot by a random person while he was hitchhiking. What kind of control did he have over that.

And the ending really wasn't that bad, it wasn't great but come on. Let's compare it to this

That's like saying that someones mother has cancer is inconsequential compared to the holocaust. Simply because things could be worse doesn't mean they're good, and acknowledging that one thing is bad doesn't equate to dismissing everything else.

If you liked the ending, congratulations, I'm curious as to how you achieved such a feat.

I myself have come to expect more than "Meh" and certainly more than what we got from a series that has thus far made storytelling it's prime directive, and I'd also like to know why it chose to ignore basic tenants of story structure.

P.S: I think the reason people are still talking about the Mass Effect 3 ending is because news was recently posted regarding the Mass Effect 3 ending, in this very article, in fact.

I'm aware the ending wasn't great but judging by many peoples reactions I'm stumped to why this ending is worse than others when the others have been far worse.
Maybe because the ending honestly makes sense to me that despite trying as hard as you can, shit doesn't work out in the end regardless. That's not to say it's good, it's got plot holes and wasn't the best but, again I've seen much worse and its not deal breaking to me.

I don't really know, I'm not trying to defend the ending, I am really curious why it's raged on though because other endings yadda yadda.

The reason the ending goes beyond mediocrity is precisely because the rest of the saga was superb.

The ending drastically effects the lives of every character in the series. The experience is changed because now we know where all the characters will end up; damnation.

Nihilistic tragedy could be worked out as a potential ending, but the ending as is doesn't attempt that. The ending is bleak due to lazy writing, design oversights. Bioware have openly stated that they never intended for the circumstance to be so dire. They should have realized that because the ending is so vague and brief, that misinterpretation was likely. There was no reason for the conclusion to a series surrounded by complex history sprawling plots to be so ambiguous. If they wanted the ending to be tragic, then just make it tragic. Don't tip toe around it with sunrises and techno, with half hopes unclear fates. Or just, you know, do what you've been doing and MAKE MORE THAN ONE.

Why did this upset me so, because it came so close. Mass Effect 3 was the first game I've played, and one of the only pieces of fiction, that I've actually shed tears at. 90% of the way, it wasn't just going to be a great game, it wasn't just going to be the best game of the year, it was to be one of the most profound, poignant, and magnificent stories I've ever seen, played or read.

All of that was destroyed, the universe I so invested in is rendered meaningless in the blink of an eye. Every choice you've made amounts to nothing, every character you loved or hated is doomed, and still the game doesn't even acknowledge it.

Mass Effect deserved better than "Could of been worse"

 

[Snotnarok]

I can't believe that people are still whining about the ending.
Go read the story about the guy writing about how nice america is and how he got shot by a random person while he was hitchhiking. What kind of control did he have over that.

And the ending really wasn't that bad, it wasn't great but come on. Let's compare it to this

That's like saying that someones mother has cancer is inconsequential compared to the holocaust. Simply because things could be worse doesn't mean they're good, and acknowledging that one thing is bad doesn't equate to dismissing everything else.

If you liked the ending, congratulations, I'm curious as to how you achieved such a feat.

I myself have come to expect more than "Meh" and certainly more than what we got from a series that has thus far made storytelling it's prime directive, and I'd also like to know why it chose to ignore basic tenants of story structure.

P.S: I think the reason people are still talking about the Mass Effect 3 ending is because news was recently posted regarding the Mass Effect 3 ending, in this very article, in fact.

I'm aware the ending wasn't great but judging by many peoples reactions I'm stumped to why this ending is worse than others when the others have been far worse.
Maybe because the ending honestly makes sense to me that despite trying as hard as you can, shit doesn't work out in the end regardless. That's not to say it's good, it's got plot holes and wasn't the best but, again I've seen much worse and its not deal breaking to me.

I don't really know, I'm not trying to defend the ending, I am really curious why it's raged on though because other endings yadda yadda.

The reason the ending goes beyond mediocrity is precisely because the rest of the saga was superb.

The ending drastically effects the lives of every character in the series. The experience is changed because now we know where all the characters will end up; damnation.

Nihilistic tragedy could be worked out as a potential ending, but the ending as is doesn't attempt that. The ending is bleak due to lazy writing, design oversights. Bioware have openly stated that they never intended for the circumstance to be so dire. They should have realized that because the ending is so vague and brief, that misinterpretation was likely. There was no reason for the conclusion to a series surrounded by complex history sprawling plots to be so ambiguous. If they wanted the ending to be tragic, then just make it tragic. Don't tip toe around it with sunrises and techno, with half hopes unclear fates. Or just, you know, do what you've been doing and MAKE MORE THAN ONE.

Why did this upset me so, because it came so close. Mass Effect 3 was the first game I've played, and one of the only pieces of fiction, that I've actually shed tears at. 90% of the way, it wasn't just going to be a great game, it wasn't just going to be the best game of the year, it was to be one of the most profound, poignant, and magnificent stories I've ever seen, played or read.

All of that was destroyed, the universe I so invested in is rendered meaningless in the blink of an eye. Every choice you've made amounts to nothing, every character you loved or hated is doomed, and still the game doesn't even acknowledge it.

Mass Effect deserved better than "Could of been worse"

Fair enough, I understand where you're coming from.
Part of the reason may very well be the reason it didn't bother me that all the choices amounted to nothing because I've experienced this in reality.
Depressing shitty story kept in spoilers because, reality sucks.

Spoiler

My mom, never hurt a fly, donated to charities all the time, undercut her prices on her art when she sold it recently became heavily mentally disabled from a rare disease. So what did her choices and karma amount to?

So, kinda lived through that to a degree and maybe I'm just jaded from it. But yes I do see what you mean and understand the upset at that. And flat out it was a lazy ass ending especially when compared to what it was supposed to be from the leaked ending (I heard it was actually really well thought out)