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

[CloudAtlas]

And, a common thing I've found in the lower quality fanfic writers, is they tend ot overwhelm with content rather than quality - so if something has 200+ pages and isn't a long-going story by a high quality writer, I'm going to be expecting Mary Sues and out-of-character moments every second page.

Well, learning to not give in to indulgence to much, to apply restraint is a hard thing to do even for professional writers and filmmakers (I'm thinking of GRR Martin or Peter Jackson here, for example). And if even professionals often don't manage it, I can't really expect more from amateurs. But it's just way too much in so much fanfic, and this one doesn't look much different.

I'm just glad I don't feel the same desire to "fix" Mass Effect. If I were to rewrite it to my liking, but I would try to streamline, try to focus the story more on the central themes, cut some side quests, characters, races, and RPG elements, and I wouldn't fundamentally change the ending either (Synthesis would be a tough nut to crack though). I would imagine that my version, apart from still being fanfic of rather dubious quality anyway, would not be very popular, neither with fans nor with detractors.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

A big story like Mass Effect should end on a bang, it should leave you with a "wow", it should leave you with something to think about. And the best way to crush any such feelings is to add hours of epilogue describing what happens afterwards to each and every minor character. None of this matters to the story, and just shows the aforementioned lack of restraint.

Well, someone here liked End of Evangelion and hated FMA: Brotherhood. How about that.

Is that supposed to be a jab at End of Eva or am i thinking too far

on topic, the Savant class suggested is interesting but probably hard to balance and he does seem to have a lot of love for the series. The issue is that he seems to have too much of an obsession with minor characters. I get it, give Anderson, Jack and Morinth better closure but Kelly Chambers, Ken/Gab, Adams? seems a bit much if i must say

 

[JPArbiter]

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.

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.

I am not sure I agree with the premise you present. Fan made game patches for bugs in a game are one thing, systematically altering a games narrative is something else entirely. Also since Skyrim, or the latter day fallouts are open sandboxes, they are much harder to program and account for then a linear experience such as Mass Effect. From my perspective the Retake thing was the equivalent of a heckler bumping a comedian off the stage at a club and taking over their performance, or trying to make "Hamlet 2" cause the first was too dark.

Was Mass Effects 3 ending poor? of course it was, though I don't think it was nearly the level of garbage some people say. I have my own nitpicks about it, but I think the fans who overreacted came out looking worse. I also think the fan demand of "EVERY SINGLE THING I HAVE DONE MUST BE ACCOUNTED FOR" was unreasonable at best. One of Life's great lessons is that sometimes our input does not matter, and the events of Mass Effect 3 couples with various inputs from previous games shows that.

 

[Trishbot]

I am not sure I agree with the premise you present. Fan made game patches for bugs in a game are one thing, systematically altering a games narrative is something else entirely. Also since Skyrim, or the latter day fallouts are open sandboxes, they are much harder to program and account for then a linear experience such as Mass Effect. From my perspective the Retake thing was the equivalent of a heckler bumping a comedian off the stage at a club and taking over their performance, or trying to make "Hamlet 2" cause the first was too dark.

Was Mass Effects 3 ending poor? of course it was, though I don't think it was nearly the level of garbage some people say. I have my own nitpicks about it, but I think the fans who overreacted came out looking worse. I also think the fan demand of "EVERY SINGLE THING I HAVE DONE MUST BE ACCOUNTED FOR" was unreasonable at best. One of Life's great lessons is that sometimes our input does not matter, and the events of Mass Effect 3 couples with various inputs from previous games shows that.

Let me tackle this head-on then.

Forget "artistic integrity". Forget the game being linear. Forget it being disappointing.

I would still say fans had PERFECTLY reasonable expectations for a more satisfying ending, largely due to the fact the developers of the game, even the lead director, outright stated things such as "we'll have wildly different endings", and "there is no A, B, C style ending", and continued assurances and promises that "yes, your choices in the series will definitely matter".

The fact that we, in effect, DID get an "A, B, C" ending that was almost entirely similar apart from a color swap and the ending, in effect, NEGATES all your choices up until that point was pretty crass and, well, deceptive, if not outright false marketing (they used the "your choices matter" taglines long after the game even came out, and their statements about the ending were made less than two months before release).

And I would argue that the "our input does not matter, and the events of Mass Effect 3 shows that" is entirely untrue considering the fans banded together, gave the creators an overwhelming amount of input, to the point they spent millions reworking the ending, delaying DLC, altering their business plans, calling people back into the office, and creating a better ending with more potent explanations, consequences, and resolution than the original "your input doesn't matter" ending implied.

And for a series whose largest selling point WAS "your choices matter", it was probably the right call to make to remember that.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

A big story like Mass Effect should end on a bang, it should leave you with a "wow", it should leave you with something to think about. And the best way to crush any such feelings is to add hours of epilogue describing what happens afterwards to each and every minor character. None of this matters to the story, and just shows the aforementioned lack of restraint.

Well, someone here liked End of Evangelion and hated FMA: Brotherhood. How about that.

Is that supposed to be a jab at End of Eva or am i thinking too far

THE MEANING IS THERE, IT'S JUST 2 DEEP 4 Uokay but seriously.

The point I'm trying to make is, when you immerse yourself in fiction as vast and realized as Mass Effect, you shouldn't have an ending that's as incomprehensible and open-to-infinite-interpretation as the End of Evangelion, but an ending that gives the viewer a solid, stable, and downright satisfying conclusion to all of its characters, like FMA: Brotherhood. Yeah, the "wow" factor's there, but it's all for nothing when your players are more interested in finding out what the hell happened to the universe they invested so much in. You want to end it like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, where you feel like not just the story, but the entire setting is coming to a close.

In fact, you can boil the entire subject of "Mass Effect 3 Ending Controversy" down to one sentence: "People wanted a Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood" ending and instead got "The End of Evangelion".

I see, apologies, Eva just kind of makes me and probably a lot of others get a bit tense but you bring up a good point about closure. That probably was the big issue of the ending (though the star child sure was stupid beyond hell). I guess the guy behind vindication took the idea of closure too far and made it so that everyone, even the minor characters get an ending.

 

[JPArbiter]

Perfectly reasonable to expect certain things, yes perhaps, even I agree with that. Perfectly reasonable to demand work be undone after the fact when you bought your game? Certianly not. It made the Fan Community look like Kathy Bates in that Movie Misery. if you were so unsatisfied you should have taken the game back to retail and demanded your money back, not insisted the Author fix it.

Besides look at what all that griping got us, the scheduled DLCs Minus one and a Powerpoint Slideshow narrated one of three different ways. NOTHING has changed, nothing ever will changed because the producer is the Music Maker, and they are the dreamer of dreams.

if anything an open to interpretation ending where would could have been discussing "what was the most ethical solution" turned into griping about how many bodies got piled up BEFORE we reached the Catalyst. (BTW it is destroy the Reapers [/troll])

You also speak about player input into production as evidence of disproving my "sometimes our choices do in fact mean nothing" hypothesis. This completely misses the point. I am talking about Character input into the events surrounding them. For Example if the player pleaded with the Quarians not to go to war with the Geth after Tali's Trial, should they have listened in 3? The answer is no, because the arcing narrative supported the Space Jews going home. Player input to that story arc meant NOTHING, Sheppards opinion (ostensibly the Players) meant NOTHING because the circumstances were out of his control.

 

[JPArbiter]

it was never "you just don't get it" for me so much as "wow here we have this ethical quandary that was presented in a very terrible way but is still kinda legit and you are bitching about not knowing just how many people you get to see piled up as bodies?"

Regarding authors who "Change their work all the time." Authors change their work at the behest of editors BEFORE they go to print, but rare is a piece of fiction that gets altered by the author after publication.

Of those that do, How many of them can claim to be influential? I don't see Rowling rewriting Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to show Harry and Hermonie sleeping together after Ron left not because they loved each other but rather because they needed to relieve stress.

Where was the fan outrage of "We need to be TOLD that Deloris Umbridge was raped by those centaurs, how it was presented was a cop out!"

authors who change their work on the whims of thier audience lack the courage of their own convictions, and end up not being very memorable.

 

[IronMit]

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.

If you have 'just finished' it now, then it's quite likely that you're not a die hard fan with all the universe and lore memorized....or you played them near enough back to back.

A lot of players waited years and had fully thought out and discussed many potential explanations and theories about lore, hidden lore, limitations of the universe etc. So for them some plot holes and contrivances slapped them in the face pretty darn hard.

Whereas anyone else would just go with the flow and enjoy the ride.

But there are die hard fans that actually liked the ending. It was about 50/50 60/40 going by some BSN polls that showed fan's actually preferred the indoctrination theory (the theory that disregards the entire ending as a symbolic mind battle because it was too stupid to actually happen like that).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ythY_GkEBck

 

[JPArbiter]

in the end I am still convinced that the Reason ME 3 Suffered, and make no mistake, I do believe it suffered, was because EA was insisting on an online multiplayer component to the game, and Bioware had no choice to comply. the budget that had to go to that detracted from the narrative, which was 99% PFG, the final conundrum just needed to be presented better.

so fans never should have been Mad at Bioware, they should have been mad at EA.

 

[JPArbiter]

it was never "you just don't get it" for me so much as "wow here we have this ethical quandary that was presented in a very terrible way but is still kinda legit and you are bitching about not knowing just how many people you get to see piled up as bodies?"

Regarding authors who "Change their work all the time." Authors change their work at the behest of editors BEFORE they go to print, but rare is a piece of fiction that gets altered by the author after publication.

Of those that do, How many of them can claim to be influential? I don't see Rowling rewriting Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to show Harry and Hermione sleeping together after Ron left not because they loved each other but rather because they needed to relieve stress.

Where was the fan outrage of "We need to be TOLD that Deloris Umbridge was raped by those centaurs, how it was presented was a cop out!"

authors who change their work on the whims of their audience lack the courage of their own convictions, and end up not being very memorable.

Fun Fact:Originally Harry Potter was going to die along with Voldemont but the writer changed it because of fan backlash.A artist who is willing to improve to his/her craft is a hell of a lot better than one who simply decides "it's good enough". Hell as a amatuer writer myself I often ask for opinions on how to improve my stories from a friend who is studying to become a proffesional.

Can you please cite your sources? Also that change was BEFORE publication, not after, which I said yes of course that does happen. Once a work is published and in the wild all bets are off and you get what is given, not what you want.

the author of this document should be glad Mass Effect was not written by George R.R. Martin. he would have C&D'ed the crap out of him.

 

[CloudAtlas]

As a amatuer writer myself I admire the guy's dedication at writing something like this.People who defend the ending clearly have'nt written a series of stories before and don't understand there are rules to writing a story.Bioware broke all of those rules when they wrote something that A)did'nt make sense and contradicted the events in the games prior,B)left many people with a sense of unsatisfaction and confusion,and C)where the ending did'nt explain anything at all.

Do not insinuate that you can only be largely content with the ending if you don't understand or care about storytelling.

Did it ever occur to you that maybe some people liked the ending because of the deeper themes it highlighted, the complex moral questions it asked, despite some storytelling problems?
But I guess caring about meaning and themes, about something more than if a story works on a mechanical level, makes me a "snobby pseudo-intellectual" in your eyes, right?

Oh, and needless to say that a number of blunders does not equal "breaking all rules of storytelling', so your statement is, at best, heavily exaggerated.

And to those who tell people to let it go and use the "you're entitled/you did'nt get it" card....grow up.If anybody has acted like children it's the people who insulted others using those exact phrases,you guys give snobby pseudo intellectuals a bad name since that's how most of you act.

Didn't you tell others pretty much "you don't get it" yourself in the passage quoted before? Might want to think about your hypocrisy here.

 

[IronMit]

in the end I am still convinced that the Reason ME 3 Suffered, and make no mistake, I do believe it suffered, was because EA was insisting on an online multiplayer component to the game, and Bioware had no choice to comply. the budget that had to go to that detracted from the narrative, which was 99% PFG, the final conundrum just needed to be presented better.

so fans never should have been Mad at Bioware, they should have been mad at EA.

I thought this. Resources invested into over-hauling combat instead of more branching decisions and outcomes sounds like an EA decision.

But auto-dialogue and consequences were only part of the problem; The lead writer admitted that they had not decided on the reapers main intentions or motivations, that the dark matter theory was one of many they were still considering using at the end of ME2. that's just sloppy writing to me.

That's like George Lucas coming out and saying 'well we were going to go with a twist that actually painted the Emperor as a good guy until the very last minute'. What would fans think.

You can add characters, events etc to explore different themes (i.e. the illusive man) but you kind of need to stay to the established point to the entire franchise. I really can't imagine an EA exec going through the script and saying nah...let's change the point to everything. Unless they pushed the 'war from the start' angle.

So, I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed...that BW's writing is not at that pedistle I put it at after being in awe of ME1

 

[JPArbiter]

in the end I am still convinced that the Reason ME 3 Suffered, and make no mistake, I do believe it suffered, was because EA was insisting on an online multiplayer component to the game, and Bioware had no choice to comply. the budget that had to go to that detracted from the narrative, which was 99% PFG, the final conundrum just needed to be presented better.

so fans never should have been Mad at Bioware, they should have been mad at EA.

Except for the fact that several Bioware employees banned anyone who criticized the ending as well as acting like a bunch of arrogant jerks,not to mention the likely case of the lead director and head writer making the ending by themselves with no input from the team.

So there is plenty of reasons to be mad at both Bioware and EA.

no one said being a content producer does not mean you can not be a jerk to your audience. Again I cite GRRM and Joss Wheadon. and some of the behavior of fans that I had seen, a Ban is pretty understandable.

in the end I am still convinced that the Reason ME 3 Suffered, and make no mistake, I do believe it suffered, was because EA was insisting on an online multiplayer component to the game, and Bioware had no choice to comply. the budget that had to go to that detracted from the narrative, which was 99% PFG, the final conundrum just needed to be presented better.

so fans never should have been Mad at Bioware, they should have been mad at EA.

I thought this. Resources invested into over-hauling combat instead of more branching decisions and outcomes sounds like an EA decision.

But auto-dialogue and consequences were only part of the problem; The lead writer admitted that they had not decided on the reapers main intentions or motivations, that the dark matter theory was one of many they were still considering using at the end of ME2. that's just sloppy writing to me.

That's like George Lucas coming out and saying 'well we were going to go with a twist that actually painted the Emperor as a good guy until the very last minute'. What would fans think.

You can add characters, events etc to explore different themes (i.e. the illusive man) but you kind of need to stay to the established point to the entire franchise. I really can't imagine an EA exec going through the script and saying nah...let's change the point to everything. Unless they pushed the 'war from the start' angle.

So, I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed...that BW's writing is not at that pedistle I put it at after being in awe of ME1

That just shows how very slap dash Narrative development in games is. Mass Effect was overall very pretty garbage, but garbage none the less, it was no different then some of the worst Star Wars Novels, readable, but why it got such praise is beyond me. the fact is that in terms of narrative it did something better then those that came before it, but it still was pulp junk as opposed to Shakespeare.

since I take Video Game Narrative with the same level of expectation as I do a Franchise Science Fiction Novel (Battletech, Dresden Files, Star Wars, Ice and Fire) it does not matter to me HOW dissapointing the ending is, cause I know I am still taking in pulp fiction and not the Classics.