Update: Fan "Fixes" Mass Effect 3 Ending With A 539-Page Rewrite

[otakon17]

The ending as it was is fine. I loved it. And then the Leviathan DLC came out and answered almost all the other questions I had remaining about the Reapers, their origins, etc. I didn't care much what happened after the end of the game simply because I wanted to game to end. If Bioware wanted to, the game could've carried on for a few hours, explaining everything that had happened. But they didn't need to. They told their story.

The issue with Leviathan is that IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN INCLUDED IN THE GAME FROM THE START. It has IMPORTANT, RELEVANT information to the story and they shaved it out so they could sell it as DLC for an extra 10 bucks. Like how they took Javik and first tried to make him an exclusive then made him openly available to everyone. Stuff like Citadel and Omega didn't add or subtract to the overall story of ME3 so they don't bother me. From Ashes had a PROTHEAN in it, one of THE driving points for the games story as the supposed progenitor of almost every other species in the game in one way or another. Leviathan had the ORIGINS of the Reapers and the Catalyst and how they came to be. That stuff is pretty important to cut out of the story I think.

Would the Count of Monte Cristo made sense to have the origins of Edmond Dantès cut out and then added on later? If the time before his "stay" at the Chateau D'if just added later? No, because the characters introduced then would be a mystery to us and their motivations for doing what they did would be too.

The original ending for ME3 was shoddy at best and a complete disappointment at worst. It DIDN'T end as it should have there was no clear cut resolution to the story. Shepard dies/shoots, things go boom, Normandy and crew get stranded THE END. THANKS FOR PLAYING, BUY OUR DLC! Really it's probably a mixture of the writers getting full of themselves, the leak of the original storyline and EA pressuring them to get done that caused all this. But I could be wrong.

 

[Trishbot]

the Forbes Reporters editorializing was disgusting. as far as this "Accomplishment." it is very pretty fan fiction, nothing more, and it is trying to fix something that as the audience he had no right to fix.

As an active player and participant in the story, I think every player has "the right" to try and "fix" their play experience if they want. It's not like it's official; it's basically very passionate and well-constructed fanfiction. But that's exactly why these 'fixes' exist.

MANY times, the fan-fixes are so good they get incorporated into the official canon (it's happened to Spider-man, Warcraft, Star Trek, etc.), and many times, especially for games, fan "fixes" can become official patches, expansions, or games all to themselves (and why the modding community on PC is a thriving market).

Gamers are not an "audience". An audience WATCHES a movie or a football game. Gamers are PARTICIPANTS. The game ceases to work without our direct involvement. We are the most important ingredient for a game to function as a game. A movie can play without a viewer. A song can play without a listener. A game cannot play without a player.

As such, I do think we have a bit of a personal stake in games. It's one reason why Mass Effect even HAS an Extended Cut, because the developers openly admit that the story of Mass Effect is supposed to be unique to each player and the original ending supplanted player agency in favor of their almost singular finale. They forgot that PLAYERS matter more and sought to correct that.

So, by all means, keep fixing what's broken. Under the logic of "they have no right to fix it", Skyrim would remain an utterly broken, nearly unplayable mess on PC without its fans and mods elevating it to greatness.

The ending as it was is fine. I loved it. And then the Leviathan DLC came out and answered almost all the other questions I had remaining about the Reapers, their origins, etc. I didn't care much what happened after the end of the game simply because I wanted to game to end. If Bioware wanted to, the game could've carried on for a few hours, explaining everything that had happened. But they didn't need to. They told their story.

The issue with Leviathan is that IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN INCLUDED IN THE GAME FROM THE START. It has IMPORTANT, RELEVANT information to the story and they shaved it out so they could sell it as DLC for an extra 10 bucks. Like how they took Javik and first tried to make him an exclusive then made him openly available to everyone. Stuff like Citadel and Omega didn't add or subtract to the overall story of ME3 so they don't bother me. From Ashes had a PROTHEAN in it, one of THE driving points for the games story as the supposed progenitor of almost every other species in the game in one way or another. Leviathan had the ORIGINS of the Reapers and the Catalyst and how they came to be. That stuff is pretty important to cut out of the story I think.

Would the Count of Monte Cristo made sense to have the origins of Edmond Dantès cut out and then added on later? If the time before his "stay" at the Chateau D'if just added later? No, because the characters introduced then would be a mystery to us and their motivations for doing what they did would be too.

The original ending for ME3 was shoddy at best and a complete disappointment at worst. It DIDN'T end as it should have there was no clear cut resolution to the story. Shepard dies/shoots, things go boom, Normandy and crew get stranded THE END. THANKS FOR PLAYING, BUY OUR DLC! Really it's probably a mixture of the writers getting full of themselves, the leak of the original storyline and EA pressuring them to get done that caused all this. But I could be wrong.

See, the original ending (and it's "buy more DLC" finale) left me so bitter I never even touched the DLC. If it IS that integral, then Bioware SERIOUSLY screwed up saving it as DLC instead of putting it into the game to create a complete, satisfying experience. I feel the same about Javik (he should NOT be DLC).

I'm pretty sure that, prior to EA, they would have just delayed the game to put in all the necessary content they could squeeze into it. I haven't even touched the DLC, and I notice there's been no sale on it almost since launch.

 

[otakon17]

ME3's ending was fixed already. It's called the extended cut, and it's perfect.

This guy just beat a dead horse through 539 pages. I admire his dedication, but it could be better spent

I wouldn't say the extended cut was perfect but it was a damn sight better than what we had originally and I verbally said "Thank you Bioware" when I saw it play out. It helped immensely with the conclusion of ME3 and the series in general but the fact that they basically had to be browbeat into doing it is sad. That they themselves were satisfied on how the game originally ended is astounding.

 

[unindexedsearchengine]

ME3's ending was fixed already. It's called the extended cut, and it's perfect.

This guy just beat a dead horse through 539 pages. I admire his dedication, but it could be better spent

I wouldn't say the extended cut was perfect but it was a damn sight better than what we had originally and I verbally said "Thank you Bioware" when I saw it play out. It helped immensely with the conclusion of ME3 and the series in general but the fact that they basically had to be browbeat into doing it is sad. That they themselves were satisfied on how the game originally ended is astounding.

The best/worst part was that before the EC was released all you could hear is people begging for an "ending dlc", and after it was announced "artistic integrity" became the phrase of the month. Seems like the vocal ME fans suffer from bipolarity.
While I didn't despise the original ending as much as most others, I was definitely dissapointed by it quite thoroughly.


Also, I love you think you are awesome because of your profile picture.

 

[Sanunes]

So it's fan fiction.

This one guy wrote fan fiction.

Do you think this was the only person to rewrite the ME3 ending? Really? It's not even the most extensive.

I'm confused as to why this is news.

Yeah, I really don't understand why this made news either. Some guy was so upset at the ending of Mass Effect he wrote a novel. Good for him and I hope it makes him feel good, but this feels like all the other fanfiction I have seen surrounding games for awhile it plays to what the one person wanted to see.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I have noticed a strong correlation between those who followed Mass Effect games as they launched and hated the ending, and those who got into it later and didn't mind it.

I strongly suspect that a lot of the dislike comes from the hype and exaggerations/falsehoods that Bioware used in it's marketing. If people didn't have such high expectations, I suspect the ending would have been written off as just another series a developer didn't know how to end.

The fact that Bioware repeatedly stated that choices would significantly impact the ending, that the game wouldn't simply have an A,B or C ending and that it'd answer all questions is what upset a lot of people.

Regardless of whether or not somebody liked the ending, nobody can truthfully say that it fit in with what Bioware promised it would be like.

there is that..but it also retroactively shat on the first two games and took alot of your BIG choices and shit on them too (as he mentions in the article, the rachni, anderson being councilor, the collectors base, all big things that were roundhouse kicked in the face)

but yes, the marketing thing was awful, and what made it 3x worse was how ea/bioware acted after the fact.

*deep breath, still hates the ending but trying to shrug it off*

OT: might have to give this a read, but that is quite a bit of fucking reading to do, but kudos on him for doing this, hopefully someone(or a team) someday can make this into mods or something.

 

[Fat Hippo]

Hell, some of the stuff in TOR is so much worse.

Dont get me started on how they took pretty much every interesting story element KotOR 2 had and then threw it out the window.

That's probably because KotoR 2 was by Obsidian Entertainment, which makes games with consistently spectacular writing, while everything else about them tends to be hit or miss.

Too be honest, the last Bioware game which I actually really enjoyed from a plot perspective was probably Mass Effect 1, and nothing has reached Baldur's Gate 2 yet. So yeah, Bioware is long past its high point.

 

[Orks da best]

It's been almost two years since ME3 released, and people are still complaining about the ending.

Seriously?

People are still complaining about the Prequels...

People need to learn to let go sometimes....

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

See, the original ending (and it's "buy more DLC" finale) left me so bitter I never even touched the DLC. If it IS that integral, then Bioware SERIOUSLY screwed up saving it as DLC instead of putting it into the game to create a complete, satisfying experience. I feel the same about Javik (he should NOT be DLC).

Leviathan is a full-on retcon, it was written and developed after the original game.

Javik, on the other hand, was indeed written to be a part of the original ME3 plot, but he was then turned into DLC and the plot was rewritten to accommodate this.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

At the end of the day, it's just fan fiction. I give him props for the dedication and ideas, but having read some of the script (and getting bored) I stopped not too far in. Interesting ideas, but it seems like he's the one most interested in them.

Maybe I'm biased because I didn't mind the original ending at all. I think it was blown way out of proportion.

 

[Baresark]

Eh, I couldn't be mad about the ending. I mean, whether or not I liked it is irrelevant. If that is what the writers and Bioware wanted to do, that is on them. Even if you consider the ME3 one of the worst happenings in videogames, the companies track record is still pretty darn brilliant so far as games are concerned. So maybe I didn't like, I still find the ending of DA:O completely brilliant.

EDIT: Like a dummy I didn't talk about the actual article. Good on this guy. Clearly he devoted a lot to this for simply personal reasons. I would personally be hard pressed to be this tied up in someone else's work, but props should be given for his hard work. And clearly people beside him are actually enjoying this.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

I have noticed a strong correlation between those who followed Mass Effect games as they launched and hated the ending, and those who got into it later and didn't mind it.

I strongly suspect that a lot of the dislike comes from the hype and exaggerations/falsehoods that Bioware used in it's marketing. If people didn't have such high expectations, I suspect the ending would have been written off as just another series a developer didn't know how to end.

The fact that Bioware repeatedly stated that choices would significantly impact the ending, that the game wouldn't simply have an A,B or C ending and that it'd answer all questions is what upset a lot of people.

Regardless of whether or not somebody liked the ending, nobody can truthfully say that it fit in with what Bioware promised it would be like.

You're absolutely right about that. I was super excited about ME3's release since the moment I finished ME2, and spent the better part of a year pining for it, counting the days until it arrived and improved the quality of my life by 800%. And when it was over, I looked back on the game and its sudden ending...and I felt good. It wasn't a wholly satisfying conclusion, but it seemed fairly appropriate and effectively enormous in scope. I didn't even expect any outrage at the game until I went on the internet that evening.

You know why I felt this way? Because I had spent the whole lead up to the game diligently avoiding any and all info on ME3. I watched no trailers, I avoided all advertisements, I read no statements by the developers or the publishers. I wanted to go into it fresh and clean, without a hint of what I was going to get. And that was what saved me from disappointment when the promises fell short.

That, and the fact that I was prepared all along for it not to live up to my absurdly high expectations. I knew it wouldn't be as good as I hoped, because I knew that NOTHING could be. I think a little bit of perspective and reasonable reigning in of expectations would have prevented the whole controversy from boiling over the way it did.

...

Now, on to the topic:
This is pretty impressive, as far as the size of the undertaking and the guy's dedication to it. But how many of you have read any of it? Go take a look, and you'll see that it is nothing more than an unusually formatted fanfic written by a man with little talent beyond sheer work ethic.

I don't mean to insult the fellow, I just mean to point out that it reads very much like personal wish-fulfillment rather than quality fiction.

 

[AntiChri5]

"Sure," he says, "if you give me a couple more months, I could revise some things, and add more content. I would probably put stuff in that I cut. I had a revision for the Leviathan DLC where Leviathan gives Shepard a new power called 'Reaper Domination,' which would allow Shepard to take control of Reaper forces, a lot like Morinth's Domination ability. I cut it because I figured that would be a weird power for a rough-and-tough Soldier character class to have."

Man, he is talking like he actually released this.

 

[CloudAtlas]

Take what happened after you stepped into a beam and cut to explosions and the Normandy getting stranded. THERE is your ending. That's all that happens, no real closure.

Except for all the closure, the resolution of every major story and character arc that happens before you even arrive at earth.

What happens on earth only has to finish the one remaining arc: Shepard's.

Except that we: Don't know what happens to everyone after Shepard becomes the Reaper "God"/kills the Reapers/makes everyone half machine or half organic. We don't seen the impact that ANY of the choices had in the original ending and it's been pointed out time and again.

If you choose 'Destroy' you kill all the Geth and EDI along with any other A.I. with Reaper code in it. It doesn't show the impact of that. It doesn't show the impact of how the Geth handle suddenly being partially organic(or the Quarians being partially synthetic) or the Krogan in how they start to rebuild their society.

There was NO closure in the first rendition of the endings and it's been shown and told. Do the Mass Relays get destroyed? Did they simply stop functioning? Did they blow up in such a way to destroy EVERY system they're in? And what happens to the crew of the Normandy crashed on some random planet? Do they die there? Do they get rescued? Do Joker and EDI bang like bunnies and make a bunch of cyborg babies? WE DON'T KNOW!

All you're saying here is: I don't like endings that leave many things to imagination, and my personal preference is equal to an objective statement.

Mass Effect is Shepard's story, and this story is over when the Crucible is activated an the Reapers are dealt with in one way or another. I don't need to know what's happening to everyone afterwards. I thought the Extended Cut added a number of nice details that, taken as a whole, certainly makes a difference, and I wouldn't want to miss it, but I'm fine with everything that's still left unexplained.

 

[hentropy]

To me, the Extended Cut wasn't really what made it a passable ending, it was the Leviathan DLC, it was just BS that they charged for it considering how... informative it was to the ending. Still, it answered quite a few questions people had about the Reapers that were still left unanswered in the EC. Not a great ending, but not one that was as abominable as the original.

I think people were just yearning for a triumphant ending, one where you could live and go back to your love interest and have blue children or whatever, instead they went with a 14 year old's idea of "artsy".

But yeah, not sure why this is news. There's also pretty huge in-depth My Little Pony and Fallout crossover, as well, but that's not news. Unless people really are holding out hope that Bioware is going to reopen production on a nearly 2 year old game to implement months worth of money and development to expand the ending several hours if not more. I'd say that is hopelessly delusional at this point.

 

[otakon17]

Take what happened after you stepped into a beam and cut to explosions and the Normandy getting stranded. THERE is your ending. That's all that happens, no real closure.

Except for all the closure, the resolution of every major story and character arc that happens before you even arrive at earth.

What happens on earth only has to finish the one remaining arc: Shepard's.

Except that we: Don't know what happens to everyone after Shepard becomes the Reaper "God"/kills the Reapers/makes everyone half machine or half organic. We don't seen the impact that ANY of the choices had in the original ending and it's been pointed out time and again.

If you choose 'Destroy' you kill all the Geth and EDI along with any other A.I. with Reaper code in it. It doesn't show the impact of that. It doesn't show the impact of how the Geth handle suddenly being partially organic(or the Quarians being partially synthetic) or the Krogan in how they start to rebuild their society.

There was NO closure in the first rendition of the endings and it's been shown and told. Do the Mass Relays get destroyed? Did they simply stop functioning? Did they blow up in such a way to destroy EVERY system they're in? And what happens to the crew of the Normandy crashed on some random planet? Do they die there? Do they get rescued? Do Joker and EDI bang like bunnies and make a bunch of cyborg babies? WE DON'T KNOW!

All you're saying here is: I don't like endings that leave many things to imagination, and my personal preference is equal to an objective statement.

Mass Effect is Shepard's story, and this story is over when the Crucible is activated an the Reapers are dealt with in one way or another. I don't need to know what's happening to everyone afterwards. I thought the Extended Cut added a number of nice details that, taken as a whole, certainly makes a difference, and I wouldn't want to miss it, but I'm fine with everything that's still left unexplained.

Leave things to the imagination? No, that's sugar coating it and you know it. It leaves all the fine details up in the air.

There is no resolution after the falling action, the falling action being Shepards choice.

 

[CloudAtlas]

Now, on to the topic:
This is pretty impressive, as far as the size of the undertaking and the guy's dedication to it. But how many of you have read any of it? Go take a look, and you'll see that it is nothing more than an unusually formatted fanfic written by a man with little talent beyond sheer work ethic.

I don't mean to insult the fellow, I just mean to point out that it reads very much like personal wish-fulfillment rather than quality fiction.

I read a couple of random pages, but I was rather underwhelmed. And I sorta stopped when he wanted to have sex with even more people and sexed up some characters and all that.
And I really... I don't really understand what motivated him. I mean, if I didn't like some stuff in a game, and felt particularly bored, I might write down a couple of pages criticizing these issues and offering suggestions as to how I'd think it could have been done better, but to fill 500 pages with that? How is that even possible?

If his intention was to get game companies to hire him, as writer presumably, why does he propose a large number of minor gameplay changes on top? That's not a writer's job. Then again, if he primarily cares about good writing, why isn't he talking a lot about Mass Effect 2 as well?

 

[CloudAtlas]

Leave things to the imagination? No, that's sugar coating it and you know it. It leaves all the fine details up in the air.

Well, if you know better than myself what I'm thinking then there really isn't much point in me answering now, is it? Fine by me. I've discussed the content too many times before for too many hours, I don't feel the burning desire to do it again.

 

[Phoenix1213]

Did anyone else think this would be about the Marauder Shields comics? I mean its at 56 long form comics, if you made it into a comic book it could probably be 530 pages lol

http://www.koobismo.com/category/marauder-shields/