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

[Gary Thompson]

Great, now he can fix the garbage story, rampant sexism, auto-dialog, half-assed cameos, unfunny jokes, retcons, and convoluted "emotional" scenes.

And once that's fixed, I might re-install ME3, might.

 

[Trishbot]

The original ending was sure something else, wasn't it... Confusing, anti-climatic, shallow, stupid, illogical, unfulfilling, inconclusive...

The Extended Cut was a very nice gesture. It didn't fix EVERY problem (the very foundation of it involving the Star Kid is totally broken), but, thematically, it works a hell of a lot better than "pick your ending, galaxy blows up in one of three colors, Joker and EDI appear on some random planet, roll credits, creepy Buzz Aldrin, buy more DLC please, end".

Still not perfect, but it raised an "F" ending to a modest "B". Still disappointing they couldn't just knock it out of the park (ME1 and ME2 were extremely satisfying to complete), but this is as good as it's going to get with that concept, and it's leagues better than the original ending.

Woe to those that were colorblind too.

 

[Saulkar]

Are you implying that someone was only able to enjoy it because she is ignorant of the rules of storytelling? That if only she was more critical she would not like the ending as well?

What? No! I am implying that I find genuine problems (going to avoid using the word objective this time as this seems to open up more arguments that I do not want to have as it appears I cannot articulate what I am specifically attaching the moniker to very well) with the plot and ending but while I personally cannot tolerate them I do not chastise others for doing so, ignoring them, or just not caring and enjoying it anyways.

Did you miss the part where I said that people wrote analyses just as elaborate as the one you linked, explicitly addressing all these criticisms yet still arrive at a different conclusion?

No, I simply did not know how to respond, simple as that. I have watched several defending the ending and plot and they did not make as much sense to me as those criticising it. Maybe I am just not as good at mentally juggling two different positions this complex or I simply did not watch the right videos. Can you embed yours?

 

[bug_of_war]

You can say it all you want. It won't make it true. Just look to your right and you will see another one like yourself proclaiming the end of the world or that the Mesiah has been resurrected in his pet chihuahua.

The ending was a trainwreck of EPIC proportions and just all round horrible writing. However unlike most people outraged or who were happy with the ending I expected it to suck. I was still angry but the signs were there from Mass Effect 2 that they really had no idea what to do given the meandering plot of the second game.

The ending in neither bad nor good, it has some interesting choices and depending on how you played and what your expectations were will depend on your reaction. This is a piece of subjective material and your post is somewhat offensive and is one of the reasons many still see gamers as children. Hell, this dude spending all this time re-writing the ending kinda prooves their point.

OT:This is more than passion, this is somewhat scary.

 

[Mangue Surfer]

It's kind of sad and awesome at the same time.

 

[conmag9]

Just read this version of the ending. Was skeptical at first, but admittedly this guy's writing is pretty good. Though all the extra content required makes it a bit untenable.

In short:

There's bad, medium and good endings dependent on your EMS score. One problem is that the good ending is a little too good; the fight on Earth goes very smoothly. With the worst ending, Shepard doesn't even make it up the beam.

Once Shepard gets up the beam and finishes the dialogue with the Illusive Man, Harbinger assumes control of TIM's body and 'supercharges' him, and there's a climactic boss fight. Once you kill TIM, Harbinger also dies for some reason.

The Star Child is then replaced with the Prothean VI you meet on Ilos in ME1 (Vigil), who appears and tells you about the reapers based on his studies of them (this version of the VI being a newer one with more information).

It turns out the Crucible is not a weapon, but a power source containing lots of dark energy. And Shepard is the catalyst (which makes a lot of sense in context) who can choose Destroy, Control or Synthesis as usual. In this version, Destroy is automatically picked if you're a paragon (get rid of reapers), Control is renegade (take their power for yourself) and Synthesis is for if you played an in-betweeny Shepard. Synthesis is portrayed here as being the inferior choice that Shepard resigns his/herself to as there is no other way they can foresee; you even have the option here (unlike the other two) to back out and get the "refuse ending" introduced in the extended cut.

In the good & medium endings, Shepard survives.

After all that, there's hours of epilogues. The writer even suggests providing the player with a kind of gallery, so they can watch each epilogue (one for almost every important character in the game) in any order, pause them and come back, etc.

Here's a list of the characters he writes epilogues for:
? Garrus
? Tali
? Kaiden
? Ashley
? James
? Liara
? Javik
? Cortez
? Ken & Gabby
? Engineer Adams
? Dr. Chakwas
? Dr. Michel
? Allers
? Khalisah
? Miranda
? Jack
? Major Kirrahe
? Admiral Hackett
? Primarch Victus
? Kasumi
? Zaeed
? Mordin
? Maelon
? Padok Wiks
? Falare
? Jacob & Brynn
? Aria
? Grunt
? Samara
? Kelly
? Eve (Bakara)
? Rachni
? Wrex
? Krogan Warlord
? Wreav
? Oriana
? Geth
? Admiral Koris
? Admiral Xen
? Admiral Gerrel
? Admiral Raan
? Major Coats
? Kahlee sanders
? Thane
? Morinth


And each one varies depending on whether you get a good, medium or bad version of the Destroy, Control or Synthesis ending. These are also in addition to the main epilogue. It's really over-the-top.

Thanks for the summery.

Warning, some spoilers.

While some of that is interesting, I'm deeply dubious at the simplification that Destroy is Paragon and Control is Renegade. At least, assuming that Destroy still blows the tar out of all synthetics. Blowing the crap out of every AI, the Geth (who I really like) and dropping the Quarians out of their new golden age within it's first days (I always managed the Quarian/Geth peace) isn't acceptable to me. On the other side of things, a Paragon in Control of the Reapers grants VAST stores of knowledge to the Galaxy, an immense armada of ultra-powerful starships for the reconstruction efforts, an awesome voice, and if people (understandably) aren't cool with one person, even a hero like Shepard, having all that power? Shepard can simply download all she got from them into servers, smash the entire armada upon itself somewhere in Dark Space, and even survive personally by performing the same download trick she used to get into the reapers in the first place with some new human-scale robot body(or, if that's not possible, keep one mostly disabled reaper vessel and run a body in the same way EDI did. A properly done Control ending is, bar none, the happiest outcome. Everyone wins, except the reapers.

Mind, that assumes a Paragon shep. Renegade Shepard isn't someone I would trust with a box of matches, much less the reapers.

 

[Thammuz]

I think in the end, the whole issue with the ending is more of a testament to the emotional investment people had in many of the characters and plotlines, which they felt had not enough closure, coupled with bad management and an awkward change of artistic direction.

Personally, I wasn't satisfied when i played it without the EC, and the EC seemed just a huge cop-out that filled the holes but didn't address the main issues, mainly the fact that the idea behind the ending contradicts one of the core principles the other games tried to build up. Synthetics versus organics as a theme was thoroughly denied as a dychotomy all through ME2 and 3, depending on your playstyle, and the ending did not reflect that. Add that the choices were very much irksome (or downright space-magic, as in the sythesis option) and you get an ending that left me, personally, feeling there was no right answer.

Until the very last moment I expected renegade and paragon choices to pop up, like every other time in the thrilogy where a character is being miopic and close minded, and when i ended having to pick i thought "No man should have the authority of controlling the greatest force in the galaxy, so that's the renegade option, destruction is imposing a sacrifice on an innocent populace you have no authority on, and sythesis is just damn weird, but at least i'm the only one dying." and went for synthesis. But i did so just because i had no other option, and even now that they've added the refusal option, a paragon shouldn't pick that, because can't just sacrifice the galaxy because you don't want to choose.

Basically, what i'm saying is that it killed my roleplaying experience. The game up until that point is actually quite good, but knowing i have no option i'm comfortable with that also makes sense makes me weary about the whole thing. If they just had the foresight to exchange synthesis for just "peace" or something, and didn't make it needlessly metaphysical and inconsistent with the otherwise pretty hard sci-fi of the rest of the trilogy, i would've enjoyed it just fine even with the plot holes.

That said, I have no interest in a huge rewrite, the game is still the game and everything else is wishful thinking.

I envy those who played a character that reached the ending and found one that worked for them. Personally, i felt i was suddenly playing the wrong person for the job, and maybe that was the idea. Maybe the point was to underline how the straight and narrow isn't always a tenable position, i don't know, at this point i don't even really care. I don't even begrudge bioware, honestly. It's just a damn pity that my experience wasn't what they planned for in the ending, i've been in form the beginning, i would've loved to be "there" in the end.

 

[TwistedEllipses]

I played Mass Effect from the beginning and wasn't that disappointed with the ending, especially after the Citadel DLC came out to sugar the pill. Between the violent reaction to the ending of Mass Effect 3 & Dragon Age 2, Bioware fans appeared to be entitled, angry people. Yes, you should always strive for better, but the reactions didn't tally with how good those games are despite their flaws.

There are some interesting ideas in this. Don't be put off by the length, the layout & concept art means it doesn't take anything like the same amount of time to read a book of that length.

Here's what I liked/didn't like from his magnus opus:

Neutral:
-Some changes are a tad pedantic like the colour of a drink Shepard shares with Dr.Chakwas
-It largely acts as a wish-list & some changes would need a lot of effort to pull off, if they could be accomplished. That is after all why a lot of the choices of ME1 & ME2 converge.

Good:
-Character epilogues (Unless you get the Zeta ending i.e. worst ending)
-Additional naturalistic dialogue (with exception of the 'romance' stuff)
-No need to re-fuel the Normandy
-Fleshing out of effects of past choices for Legion
-Expanded Reaper indoctrinated, included Elcor

Bad:
-One of the first suggestions & the first piece of concept art is topless Garrus, which makes the whole thing seem like a bad fan-fic. Then there's the obsession with Kelly Chambers & the weird proposal of having hack-journalist Kalisah as a love interest (Though picking the "I resent your disingenuous assertions!" option would probably hamper that one)...
-You still need a high effective military strength level before the endgame, otherwise you get the Zeta ending where you die prematurely. That would annoy some players who don't do side-missions.
-Except for the presence of the star-child, the majority of the pre-cutscene ending isn't that different.

 

[zerragonoss]

snip

I think the real reason the ending is so hatted is it made people stop and think about those flaws. I personally just tend to ride with a story and don't really think about it too much besides underlying themes. No structure analysis or watching for plot holes. The endings however was so WTF that it made me look back on the game which used a lot of illusion, that the ending dispelled, harming the entire series. (Not saying thats a bad thing video games have only so much they can do and illusion is one of their best tools which till the end mass effect used very well.)

 

[Amaror]

I've followed Mass Effect since the beginning, and consider myself a huge fan of the franchise, and I just found the original ending underwhelming at worst. It wasn't good, but it's not even close to as bad as the majority claims. So does that mean I'm just better at managing my expectations than most of the vocal Internet?

In my opinion the bioware dev team, or at least the big guys in the dev team, are entirely to blame for the bad reception of the ending.
Mass Effect 2's Ending was awesome in so many ways, but i was fully expecting a bit of dissappointment out of the ending, simply because it's really really hard to end giant stories like this satisfactory for everyone.
But the developers just kept and kept shouting in every single interview they gave about the game how the endings will be awesome, how there will be no A, B or C ending, how nearly every person will get a somehow different ending and so on and so on.

If they wouldn't have kept lying to us about the ending people wouldn't have been so upset. You know, because people generally don't like being blatantly lied to.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

This might win me over and get me back to buy BW games again.

Don't. Seriously, don't buy games from a company that claims they have fantastic writing and then turn out crap like that.

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

Well I only do single player and I only do games that are fun to me and or you can mod and or good but most of all must be cheap....broke down and bought the DA:O ultimate for 7$ this Christmas >> I would like to play DA 2 but god it sucks I won't touch the new controls and gameplay with a ten foot pole... they just should have released the SDK so the community could fix it.

 

[EvilRoy]

I wasn't disappointed with the ending of Mass Effect 3.
I was disappointed with the entire series!

Anyway, I don't like people like that guy. Just because he has so much free time on his hands, he feels the need to indirectly tell industry professionals that he can do their job better? Then how come he DOESN'T have their job, mh?

Because there's a difference between vocation and avocation, basically. Being able to do something you enjoy well doesn't make it a viable career path.

 

[CloudAtlas]

The few analyses that I've read that defend the ending seem to make a lot of mistakes as to why ME3's ending is bad. For one thing, they assume that people found it too dark and wanted a happy ending. Some people are fine with a dark ending, some are not, but that's not what matters. It's bad because of a ton of other reasons, which many people have made those lenghty videos about. I highly recommend MrBtongue's videos in this regard. Second, those articles that defend the ending also state that many people are upset over the lack of choice and consequence, while the final choice results in massive consequences. In the original ending, one could not have possibly understood what kind of effects the choices would have, the mechanics behind those consequences (how does synthesis even happen, for example) and so on.

You know, I watched these videos, for example those of MrBtongue. And while watching I found myself agreeing with many of his points. Not all, but many. But the thing is, when I watched/read some defenses, I found myself agreeing with a lot of the points as well. Then there are some criticisms that I think are really just personal preferences which not everyone shares (like how much info you want on how exactly endings work and what the exact consequences are). Then there are also some criticisms that I think are just weird/wrong ("no closure" for example). At the end of the day it comes down to your personal preferences, to how you weight the pros and cons, to what matters most to you.

And on balance I value the achievements much more than the shortcomings, with some of what others considered as shortcomings not being shortcomings for me at all. If someone feels different, that's fine. But if someone insinuates that I can only have this opinion because I am ignorant/a fanboy/don't understand storytelling/etc, well, I won't just take it. And many people do insinuate exactly that, whether intentionally or by accident.

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

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.

I've followed Mass Effect since the beginning, and consider myself a huge fan of the franchise, and I just found the original ending underwhelming at worst. It wasn't good, but it's not even close to as bad as the majority claims. So does that mean I'm just better at managing my expectations than most of the vocal Internet?

No, it just means you have an imagination and don't need everything spelled out for you.

 

[jdarksun]

It's been almost two years. Can't we just let it go? ME3's ending was significantly less rubbish than BioShock's or Arkham Asylum's, and people weren't still crying about those two years after the fact.

For the record, I didn't hate the ending. It could have been better, certainly, but it wasn't bad enough to justify the backlash. Video game endings tend not to be that great anyway, and ME3's was no worse than most.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the continued interest/complaining about the ending is less and less about how unpleasant the actual ending was... rather I'm starting to think it has more to do with people just not wanting such a great trilogy to end.

That's a significant part of it.

The other part is: how do you make a successful ending to a game that meant different things to just about everybody who played it? 97.whatever percent of ME3 was awesome.

Well, I mean, the answer is ME3:Citadel. Pure win, that DLC.

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

I think, if anything, that one of the central problems with the ending is that the overarching story of the series, beside the main plot (stop the Reapers) has all these different running subplots, like humanity finding its place in the galaxy, the Geth and the Qurians, the Krogans and the Genophage, but the ending decides to ignore of all these, save one, and even fails on some levels to deal in a functional way with the main plot. The overarching theme that is to be taken away from the main plot and all the subplots this seems to be "intergenerational conflicts", something which is even reflected on a somewhat minor and more personal levels in some of the different Squad Members' personal stories and even in a few side-quests.

There is basically a whole spectrum of stories that are different reflections on the theme of "intergenerational conflicts", but the kicker is, that the last 10 minutes isn't about this spectrum, and doesn't seem to care about or even want to be about the spectrum. No, the last 10 minutes suddenly decides that it, and retroactively the whole series, is (or rather should be) about this very specific subset of "intergenerational conflicts", which is "synthetics vs. organics", and seemingly just it can throw around some high-faluting, pseudo-profound ambiguity about the singularity.

The only content in the series that seems to fit this idea of "synthetics vs. organics" as is presented in the last 10 minutes, would appear to be the Geth and the Qurian subplot, but the player has at this point already resolved this plotline some hours ago, yet here it the question is blatantly regurgitated by the Catalyst (albeit in a somewhat altered form), without any acknowledgement of how the player answered it earlier, and what the player has been shown about the motivations of the Geth, doesn't fit the way the "synthetics vs. organics" story as it is presented by the Catalyst.

 

[CloudAtlas]

No, I simply did not know how to respond, simple as that. I have watched several defending the ending and plot and they did not make as much sense to me as those criticising it. Maybe I am just not as good at mentally juggling two different positions this complex or I simply did not watch the right videos. Can you embed yours?

I'm sorry, but it has been some time already, I don't remember the exact sources anymore.

I don't know about you personally, of course, but it's certainly true that many gamers have problems with liking something while being critical of certain aspects at the same time, or vice versa, to loosely quote Anita Sarkeesian. It's either all or nothing. And that's sad, not very mature, and makes all these discussions so infinitely more annoying.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

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

Seriously?

Actually the inverse thing to consider here is that its been almost two years since ME3 released and people are still having to be told how good the ending supposedly was, and/or be told "dude its been almost two years, you should let it go."

I'm afraid that either way....its crap.

I think what's funnier is that "letting it go" seems to be "forgetting that it ever happened"

 

[Magnus Greel]

Huh, slightly off topic, but I was expecting this place to be full of those sneering "lol u stipid virgin assburger ****** get a lief" shit for brains whose presence seems to be mandatory for any discussion about ME3 fan outrage nowadays in some kind of bizarre hipster-reverse of the general (angry) consensus in 2012. I was pleasantly surprised.

But seriously, those people still need to die in a fucking fire.

 

[WWWLUCIFERCOM]

Just when I thought I was out they pull me back in. Its been almost two years why cant we let this topic die already?