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

[synobal]

I just finished ME3 and with all the rage I had heard about I was bracing myself for something truly awful, but quite the opposite happened. I was quite satisfied with the ending, and the options presented, and it all seemed to fit well within the themes the trilogy dealt with.

But hey, everyone's free to write their own fanfic. With all the attention this will get, it'll no doubt be a positive for the author.

As someone who liked it from day one we are a very small minority. Ya this is basically a fan fic but I find it kinda disrespectful most people don't write a fan fic to "fix" a story.

Most people don't understand the ending, they were like wait what? I think mainly beacuse they didn't get that the entirety of mass effect 3 was the ending not just the last 10 minutes.

 

[Something Amyss]

Nah, EA'll keep them around long after all their credibility is spent, and the original staff's been feed into the company woodchipper. Just look at WestWood.

Or they might pull a Criterion, strip the company and leave almost nothing of value anyway.

 

[dyre]

Took a quick skim of his proposed ending. I definitely like the idea of the inclusion of an AI created by one of the Prothean scientists from Ilos; it's a good tie in to Mass Effect 1 because the surviving Prothean scientists actually went to the citadel; it makes sense that one of their best scientists could program an AI into the Citadel before he died (remember, not all of them died; the VI saved a few of the best scientists at the cost of all the less essential personnel. Also remember that at this point the Reapers would have finished their work and left the known universe, so it's not like the scientist would have had to dodge bullets while programming a message). IMO it's a MUCH better end NPC than Star-Child.

I don't like the forced ending based on paragon/renegade level though. The concept of forcing an ending based on previous actions of a character is a solid, underrated idea, but basing it on the often inconsistent paragon/renegade system is a bad idea imo. I think a better idea would be to allow the player to work towards a decision through major plot missions and by hinting that current research indicates that the Crucible might be used to destroy/control/etc the Reapers and ask the player to commit more research into one idea or the other.

Anyway, props to him for the effort. Not sure how this will really help anyone...I don't think many people will even appreciate it, because reading scripts honestly isn't that interesting unless you're used to translating a script into a scene in your mind. But there's certainly nothing wrong with taking the effort to do a personal project for something you care about.

On another note, I would encourage people to give the script at least a cursory glance instead of just spouting the generic "lolEAsucks" or "this guy had no right!" comments. This is clearly a labor of love but it also clearly has its flaws. Take an honest look at it before making a knee-jerk reaction.

I just finished ME3 and with all the rage I had heard about I was bracing myself for something truly awful, but quite the opposite happened. I was quite satisfied with the ending, and the options presented, and it all seemed to fit well within the themes the trilogy dealt with.

But hey, everyone's free to write their own fanfic. With all the attention this will get, it'll no doubt be a positive for the author.

As someone who liked it from day one we are a very small minority. Ya this is basically a fan fic but I find it kinda disrespectful most people don't write a fan fic to "fix" a story.

Most people don't understand the ending, they were like wait what? I think mainly beacuse they didn't get that the entirety of mass effect 3 was the ending not just the last 10 minutes.

I thought the extended ending was pretty decent and I always thought the hate for the original ending was an overreaction, but honestly writing off the people who disliked the ending because "they didn't get it" is insulting and incorrect. It's also nonsensical...there's not even really an argument in there. Obviously both the final game and the final 10 minutes are "endings" in a different sense. One can be good and one can be abysmal.

 

[The Great Fungus]

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

Because someone wrote an extended fanfic? To an ending so bad, it launched a dozen conspiracy theories?

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

Where would Bioware be if their fans acknowledged neither their writing nor their characters are good?

...reality?

Pretty much this. While I appreciate the author's passion and the effort they put into this, I don't think Mass Effect is fixable. The central plot and the whole premise of the Reapers were always awful. The ending was just the rotten cherry on top of it.

I just finished ME3 and with all the rage I had heard about I was bracing myself for something truly awful, but quite the opposite happened. I was quite satisfied with the ending, and the options presented, and it all seemed to fit well within the themes the trilogy dealt with.

But hey, everyone's free to write their own fanfic. With all the attention this will get, it'll no doubt be a positive for the author.

As someone who liked it from day one we are a very small minority. Ya this is basically a fan fic but I find it kinda disrespectful most people don't write a fan fic to "fix" a story.

Most people don't understand the ending, they were like wait what? I think mainly beacuse they didn't get that the entirety of mass effect 3 was the ending not just the last 10 minutes.

There isn't much to get, though. And the thing about ME 3 being the ending would have been fine if there had been a middle part. ME 2 was certainly nothing of the sort. The Arrival DLC did more to move the story forward than the entire second game.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

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

What in the flying fuck?

On one hand I partly blame EA and executive meddling, but then I wasn't THAT BIG pf a fan of Mass Effect to feel as though my puppies had been shot and killed by the ending. Was what it was, wasn't a perfect 10, but it was a resolution.

My biggest issue is that the star child existed. I get the symbolism of reusing the kid that kept on popping up, but I couldn't take the kid very seriously. I watched one of the endings where you basically tell the kid to go fuck himself and then he fucks off and say's in a booming reaper-esc voice ; "so be it".
Why didn't he sound like that the whole time?!

 

[Starke]

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

Because someone wrote an extended fanfic? To an ending so bad, it launched a dozen conspiracy theories?

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

Where would Bioware be if their fans acknowledged neither their writing nor their characters are good?

...reality?

Pretty much this. While I appreciate the author's passion and the effort they put into this, I don't think Mass Effect is fixable. The central plot and the whole premise of the Reapers were always awful. The ending was just the rotten cherry on top of it.

I agree, sort of. At least, in that Mass Effect isn't really fixable at this point, and probably never was. The stupids were always threatening to seep in.

That said, some of the stuff, including the reapers, weren't automatically stupid. The game's overall narrative harkens back to Babylon 5 a couple times, which was a very good series.

The idea of mechanical organisms that purge the universe every 50k years could be an interesting element of a setting.

The idea that they're really sloppy and leave a lot of technology around behind that leads cultures to develop specific technologies, and then using that against the future generations of species? Could also be an interesting idea.

Even some of the random things like the quarians, and the krogen could have been interesting.

The problem has been the execution of those ideas, from the word go. It could have been interesting, and thoughtful... but, the setting we have is unworkably botched.

The same thing is true of Dragon Age... though, there you can always just look at it, then look at Warhammer Fantasy, and see the exact same ideas executed with more coherency.

 

[The Great Fungus]

snip

I'm afraid I didn't express my thoughts well enough. I actually agree with you 100%. The revelations in the first game were indeed intriguing. The one about seeding technology so that we would develop along a predetermined path is a great idea.

My problem with the Reapers is that the entire trilogy hinges upon the fact that they are idiots. I mean... Keepers? Really?! Why not activate the Citadel remotely without a middleman? And because Bioware wrote themselves into a corner with an antagonist that could cripple our military with the push of a button, we got the Crucible. One of THE lamest plot devices I've seen in a long time.

 

[Strazdas]

implying there was anything to fix.... (instant contraversy).

I think the real ending to mass effect was outside of the game. Just look at what happened on the internet at this time, that was much more impactful than any game ending could have been.

 

[votemarvel]

But that's all gravy compared to the central focus of his project: fixing Mass Effect's indefensible ending. "The most unforgivable parts of Mass Effect 3," he explains, "and, sadly, they're the easiest to point out are: Anderson not being Councilor if you picked him in ME1,

To be fair this was pretty much covered in the Mass Effect spin-off novels.

They kept the choice vague of course as not to ruin the choice you made, then did it anyway by sending Anderson off with Kalee Sanders again.

It's also mentioned in Anderson's codex entry in game.

 

[Jack Nief]

People seem to think that this is an ending rewrite. It's not just an ending rewrite, it takes little details from all across the third game, and puts out, best-case scenario, how they could be improved upon.

I read through the thing a bit. Skimmed most of the redundant parts. Lots of modifications based on prior details (such as the destruction of the Mass Relay destruction fallout in the ME2 Arrival DLC, resulting in a very angry Batarian shouting curses at Shepard for killing his people at the start of ME3.)

What I really liked was the character epilogues. And DAMN, are there a BUNCH of them. Depending on which path you chose (Paragon, Midline, or Renegade) and how high you get your EMS, you get some seriously differing (and in the case of the low-EMS and Renegade sets, some even really alarming and depressing) epilogues for the characters.

I know that this might never be realized beyond this game document thing, but I applaud the effort put into it.

 

[Starke]

snip

I'm afraid I didn't express my thoughts well enough. I actually agree with you 100%. The revelations in the first game were indeed intriguing. The one about seeding technology so that we would develop along a predetermined path is a great idea.

My problem with the Reapers is that the entire trilogy hinges upon the fact that they are idiots. I mean... Keepers? Really?! Why not activate the Citadel remotely without a middleman? And because Bioware wrote themselves into a corner with an antagonist that could cripple our military with the push of a button, we got the Crucible. One of THE lamest plot devices I've seen in a long time.

And again, it's one of those things that could have worked. The Citadel is the center of the Mass Relay network, and you can shut down the entire relay network cutting off communications, and travel throughout the galaxy as you slowly eat whatever you want. I honestly thought the first game hinted that the reapers could literally shut down all mass effect based technology. Hell, the stuff Sovereign did in the first game had me thinking the reapers were using an entirely different kind of technology, which would have been neat. It's not just transit, they have dampers (or something) that will shut down your weapons technology. But, no.

And I sit here pining for what could have been. I loved some of the pieces of the setting, I just wish it had been put together by a team of competent writers.

Also, I do agree, as a setting, in it's current state, it's unsalvageable. All people can do is rip chunks out of it, and go build their own worlds with it.

EDIT: Wait, you meant using the Crucible as a superweapon in the last game... I... somehow didn't even think of that... the stupids overwhelm... *headdesk*

 

[Doug]

ME3 ending as fixed by BioWare was perfect. There. I said it.

By fixed, I assume you mean the extended cut?

I agree that the Extended Cut was a significant improvement and did detail with probably 80% of the issues I had with the ending, but 'perfect' is a stretch. I still think there are a few clear plot holes and points where the plot doesn't follow anything like a smoothly as it should.

BUT that said, I think most of the rest of ME3 was damn good, about as good as you could imagine.

I think the ME trilogy was abit marred by the main plot from ME2, and ME3 has that problem too, but given ME2, its really great. To be clear, I loved the whole Mass Effect series, but I do think 2 was the weakest of them all.

 

[The Great Fungus]

snip

I'm afraid I didn't express my thoughts well enough. I actually agree with you 100%. The revelations in the first game were indeed intriguing. The one about seeding technology so that we would develop along a predetermined path is a great idea.

My problem with the Reapers is that the entire trilogy hinges upon the fact that they are idiots. I mean... Keepers? Really?! Why not activate the Citadel remotely without a middleman? And because Bioware wrote themselves into a corner with an antagonist that could cripple our military with the push of a button, we got the Crucible. One of THE lamest plot devices I've seen in a long time.

And again, it's one of those things that could have worked. The Citadel is the center of the Mass Relay network, and you can shut down the entire relay network cutting off communications, and travel throughout the galaxy as you slowly eat whatever you want. I honestly thought the first game hinted that the reapers could literally shut down all mass effect based technology. Hell, the stuff Sovereign did in the first game had me thinking the reapers were using an entirely different kind of technology, which would have been neat. It's not just transit, they have dampers (or something) that will shut down your weapons technology. But, no.

And I sit here pining for what could have been. I loved some of the pieces of the setting, I just wish it had been put together by a team of competent writers.

Also, I do agree, as a setting, in it's current state, it's unsalvageable. All people can do is rip chunks out of it, and go build their own worlds with it.

EDIT: Wait, you meant using the Crucible as a superweapon in the last game... I... somehow didn't even think of that... the stupids overwhelm... *headdesk*

That's what the whole series is in my mind; a very disappointing what-could-have-been. But I kept playing because there were things I genuinely liked.

Who knows, maybe they'll fare better with ME 4. I hope they just reboot the entire thing and do it properly this time around. Although given that Mac Walters is still at the helm, I'll remain skeptical about it.

 

[Crispee]

Oh hey, this discussion hasn't died yet.

I won't read this 'revised' script because I actually liked Mass Effect 3's ending (Our choices don't factor into the ending because one of the themes of the story is that sacrifices have to be made no matter what, and that we don't always have a choice that we like, it's not even subtext, they outright state this in the game several times.) and people like this are making it difficult to be a Mass Effect fan when they don't allow me to enjoy the story with their constant bickering.

But whatever, I'm sure somebody will correct me.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

And yet its still better than what the devs made.

You're not making sense. If you think the devs are bad, why would someone else's fanfic make you buy the dev's products again?

When it fixes and improves things that's when.

 

[Something Amyss]

When it fixes and improves things that's when.

But it doesn't fix or improve the original product because the original product is still poorly written. You said as much.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

When it fixes and improves things that's when.

But it doesn't fix or improve the original product because the original product is still poorly written. You said as much.

It patches out the most damnign parts of it making it worth the while. Its not as great as if it had a SDK or mod tools so people can really fix and improve the damn thing but its close enough. A shame Bioware will ignore it and leave the series with a bad end.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

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.

I don't know why this is phrased like some astonishing miracle of dedication resulting from an utter disappointment with the ending.

It's fucking fan fiction

People don't need some incredible dedication to write fan fiction. What if the guy was just a bit dissatisfied with the ending and wrote this for fun? You know? Fun? That thing most people write fan fiction because of?

People write for fun on their spare time, it's not rare, it's not amazing, and it's certainly not news...

 

[CloudAtlas]

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.

It is very different from person to person. Often times it is dictated by what a person wants in a game and, or story. While you no doubt enjoy ME3 (kudos) I cannot reconcile my own personal gripes. At the same time Fallout: New Vagas was lambasted for its buggy nature but at the same time was beloved by many more because the game itself outweighed said bugs.

While there were still those who were of the all or nothing mentality they were overwhelmingly outweighed by those who loved it. Unfortunately I ME3 is the definition of polarization but even if I am in the minority that do not like the game beyond that it is the popular thing to do, it does not bother me.

So you are apparently able to see the flaws in stuff you like and the redeeming qualities of stuff you don't like. You might not have those difficulties you think you have after all.