Taak Farst Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Mimartin, If I was being really lenient I would say okay, but it's the fact that not only does Shepard do what he does, essentially giving in to what he spent years trying to fight, but he also does a more extreme job than the Reapers were aiming to do. Because if the relays blew up, EVERYONE should be dead. Hell, the planet Joker crashes on shouldn't even exist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Achilles Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Mimartin, If I was being really lenient I would say okay, but it's the fact that not only does Shepard do what he does, essentially giving in to what he spent years trying to fight, but he also does a more extreme job than the Reapers were aiming to do. Because if the relays blew up, EVERYONE should be dead. Hell, the planet Joker crashes on shouldn't even exist. That would be the logical conclusion if both of the following premises were true Show spoiler (hidden content - requires Javascript to show) 1) The self-destruction of a mass relay destroyed all matter in a system and 2) Every system has a relay I don't think we have good reason to believe that 1 is true and we know (just from the game mechanics) that 2 isn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimartin Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Shepard do what he does, essentially giving in to what he spent years trying to fight, but he also does a more extreme job than the Reapers were aiming to do. Because if the relays blew up, EVERYONE should be dead. Hell, the planet Joker crashes on shouldn't even exist. Wait... 1. No, my Shepard was fighting to end the cycle. EDI already proved that AI's have freewill. So I don't see how that was a give up. Epilogue also seemed to prove life continued into the distant future. 2. Yes, in the ME2 downloadable content a relay spelled doom for that sector of space, but I would hardly called that a controlled explosion, flying a moon into a Mass Reply. This was more a controlled explosion. Controlled by the citadel which controls the relays in the first place. How do you know the energy isn't just used to destroy the next relay? Where is the last relay in the network? The companion to the Citadel, dark space maybe? Not saying there are not holes, just saying it isn't as cut and dry as some are letting on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthParametric Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Which is the whole crux of the problem. The ending is too ambiguous, thus people are unhappy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MsFicwriter Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 I am 99.99% sure that BioWare is NOT going to change the ending, regardless of what we Mass Effect fans think. There are three primary reasons I believe this, as follows: 1) They've already made so much $$$ on the series that they can afford to ignore us. 2) I don't think DLC makes up the majority of game companies' profits, so what will they care if fewer people buy the DLC for ME3? Some gamers will anyway--they are hooked. 3) Making an ending only to retract it a few DLC's later is simply pointless and stupid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prime Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Going to start the game tonight. I hope I end up in your boat mim, not as disappointed because my expectations are lower. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Achilles Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 2. Yes, in the ME2 downloadable content a relay spelled doom for the 300,000 non-synthesized organic life forms that would have been dependent on there being a mass relay that sector of space for their continued survival, should they go on being non-synthesized organic life forms Fixed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimartin Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Which is the whole crux of the problem. The ending is too ambiguous, thus people are unhappy. You mean people want to play not think? I thought that was what Shepard was fighting for the right to think for ourselves. I am 99.99% sure that BioWare is NOT going to change the ending, regardless of what we Mass Effect fans think. There are three primary reasons I believe this, as follows: 1) They've already made so much $$$ on the series that they can afford to ignore us. 2) I don't think DLC makes up the majority of game companies' profits, so what will they care if fewer people buy the DLC for ME3? Some gamers will anyway--they are hooked. 3) Making an ending only to retract it a few DLC's later is simply pointless and stupid. 4) The ending is fine the way it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
logan23 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 There is also the plot wholes and the leap of logic too. Warning Spoilers in this link- Why the ending fails, even as a tragedy (Lengthy) http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9856805/1 On the game design area: Show spoiler (hidden content - requires Javascript to show) You have the whole blast from the ray and then the game simply just decides your companions don't matter- boom gone...which is fine if you like myself thought..they must have died, ok. But then one of them shows up on the Normady?! The scene with the Star Kid goes against the design of the Shepard character who has been in all the dialogue arguing and stressing their opinion, yet Shepard just believes the child. The game doesn't even explains why this star kid looks like the kid from the kid from Earth. You can't even say no I believe in my friends and the forces you built that you can over come this..and risk everything. The whole marketing is Take Back Earth....sending a message that you could win but we can't tell since it looks like the galaxy is doomed to starve now that the relays are gone- colonies survive on other systems. The Normandy crew Joker dies due to his medicine running out for his condition or he fractures some bones and gets an infection. If there is not food on the planet that Garrus can eat then he dies. (Remember there are certain foods that a Turian or Krogan can and can't eat) and the list goes on This helps explains things on the writing side of things....its an interesting read in general Here is a post that breaks down and compares Red Dead Redemption and Mass effect 3 in both aiming at the same tragedy formula- Why the ending fails, even as a tragedy (Lengthy) http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9856805/1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimartin Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 @Logan23 Why are you calling the AI a star child? Don't get me wrong I don't like its looks or understand why it looks like that, but you know what it is, it tells you. What do you think it is lying? I also wonder how Tali got to the Normandy, but then Achilles pointed out they called a retreat just before Shepard enters the portal to the Citadel. I remember hearing it because I thought to myself, Anderson said no retreat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Achilles Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Show spoiler (hidden content - requires Javascript to show) 1) You have the whole blast from the ray and then the game simply just decides your companions don't matter- boom gone...which is fine if you like myself thought..they must have died, ok. But then one of them shows up on the Normady?! 2) The scene with the Star Kid goes against the design of the Shepard character who has been in all the dialogue arguing and stressing their opinion, yet Shepard just believes the child. The game doesn't even explains why this star kid looks like the kid from the kid from Earth. You can't even say no I believe in my friends and the forces you built that you can over come this..and risk everything. 3) The whole marketing is Take Back Earth....sending a message that you could win but we can't tell since it looks like the galaxy is doomed to starve now that the relays are gone- colonies survive on other systems. 4) The Normandy crew Joker dies due to his medicine running out for his condition or he fractures some bones and gets an infection. If there is not food on the planet that Garrus can eat then he dies. (Remember there are certain foods that a Turian or Krogan can and can't eat) and the list goes on I've numbered your points above for tracking. Show spoiler (hidden content - requires Javascript to show) 1) So you assumed they died and then cry foul because they show up. It could be that your assumption is wrong. Someone mentioned hearing a call for retreat before Shep steps into the beam. If this is the case, then we have a perfectly plausible explanation for why your crew is still alive. 2) I took this as a direct lift from the movie Contact and/or Legion's attempts to make Shepard's interface with the Geth Collective "familiar". Artistically, the writers needed to wrap up the sub-plot with the child. I don't think anyone would argue that this isn't a bit clumsy, but I don't think it stretches the imagination too much to see it for what it is. 3) The survivors aren't doomed. We know that the new synthesized species survives because of the post-credit scene. We're told in all three games that synthetic life forms don't require food, water, rest, gravity, or windows. Again, I don't think it taxes the imagination to conclude that some or all of these traits would be passed on to this new life form. The strengths and benefits of both life forms. The weakness and detriments of neither. Shepard sacrifices himself to forever end the war with the Reapers and give every life form an upgrade. 4) Valid concerns if not for the fact that none of them are completely organic life forms anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Hessian Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 The problem with the ending is not so much in the concepts of the ends themselves (although it was a pretty piss-poor selection), but the manner in which they were presented. The real issue is ultimately a lack of proper closure, both for the galaxy as a whole and more importantly for the personal story of our particular Shepard. At the end you are left in limbo, having no idea how things turned out. The game ends in the most basic definition of the term - it stops. There is no finale. This. I just wish people would stop trying to make The Matrix of worse... Evangelion style endings for stuff. Sometimes all you really need is something a little more clear cut and in Mass Effects case, something that actually made you feel like the choices you made amounted to something in that very last moment. This. The thing you have to remember is the people complaining about it aren't the target audience. Bioware know from long experience that their long-time fans bitch and moan and stamp their feet about every little thing, yet when push comes to shove they greedily gobble up whatever steaming pile of crap gets served up to them. The reason they stripped out the inventory in ME2 and added the action mode and merged everything into a single Awesome Button™ in ME3 was because they were chasing the console shooter demographic. That's really who the game is for (hence all the "great entry point" stuff). That group isn't going to care that the end is crap. Hell, half of them probably only got it for the multiplayer anyway and will never even touch SP, let alone see the ending. And for those that do, what is there to complain about? If you have no investment in the series then the ending is really meaningless. You just shrug, toss it in the pile and move onto the next game. And especially this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
logan23 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Actually This post explains things much better in terms of writing structure. This is has some spoilers By Tsantilas at BSN Show spoiler (hidden content - requires Javascript to show) DEUS EX MACHINA: You're getting your literary devices mixed up. The Crucible is not deus ex machina, it is a MacGuffin. It's largely irrelevant except as a plot device. It is the exhaust port on the Death Star. The narrative of ME3 is not about finding the Crucible, it is about building the greatest alliance ever seen in the galaxy (which the Crucible, as a plot device, allows to happen). Why the Catalyst AI and his Monty Hall spiel of the Adjust Hue/Saturation is a deus ex machina is that it is the resolution to the narrative. The fact that he is also literally a "god from the machine" is irrelevant, albeit ironic. He is a deus ex machina in the literary sense, i.e. a handwaved contrivance that shows up out of the blue to quickly whisk away all the dangling story threads, and to abruptly end the story. This is abysmal writing. This is abysmal game design; a Pick Your Own Adventure book where all choices take you to the same final chapter. It is counter to everything this game is. And what is this game? In a recent Extra Credits, Portnow discussed core elements of a game. The Mass Effect series is really not a third person shooter. It is also really not a roll-the-dice-and-level-up CRPG. Mass Effect is, at its core, interactive fiction. All the memorable moments in these games take place in cutscenes that play out in myriad ways based on prior choices. You are role-playing in the most literal sense of crafting a character's personality based on your choices. The climax of Mass Effect 2 was not shooting the Human Reaper in the eye, the climax of Mass Effect 2 were the cutscenes that played and showed the results of your actions. Did you defy TIM? Did your crewmates survive? If your choices were poor enough, you could defeat the final boss, only to make a desperate leap towards the Normandy with no one to catch you. The desperate leap in Mass Effect 3 is your dash towards the Beam. The only input that matters at all past this point is the encounter with TIM. That encounter is true to Mass Effect, and honors your previous choices, and provides closure for the secondary antagonist. But for the main antagonist (Reapers), nothing you did matters. You are given three arbitrary choices to solve a problem that, depending on your actions, may be proven to be a false dilemma in the first place. If you saved both the Quarians and the Geth, witnessed Legion's messianic sacrifice, and humanized EDI - the Catalyst's claim of organic/synthetic conflict being unavoidable is patently false. The Catalyst AI is completely incongruous with the narrative and the themes of the game. It shows up, provides a complete strawman of a conflict, and then offers three vapid, plot-hole ridden resolutions to this conflict, which abruptly end the narrative in a blinding flash of Space Magic (pick your color!). CHOICES DON'T MATTER Again, you're missing the point. No one is complaining about the preceding 30 hours of gameplay. Choices did seem to matter. Your treatment of the Rachni queen from two games ago ended up gaining you a seemingly valuable ally. Saving Wrex can gain a hopeful future for the Krogan. Your choices regarding Legion and the Migrant Fleet in ME2 have incredibly strong consequences in the seeming conclusion of the Geth/Quarian storyline. This is why we loved the game up to the ending. And the ending completely demolished all of it, and made it completely illusory. Who gives a **** if you saved the Rachni? They just end up giving you Space Points and don't affect your ending at all. Who gives a **** if the Quarians or Geth or both survived? They're all dead anyway. Who cares if you cured the genophage and saved the one leader who could lead the Krogan into a less brutish, more hopeful future? He's either trapped on earth or dead, and the radioactive husk that is Tuchanka cannot sustain their race without supplies anyway. And even more egregiously, the choices you made in the development of YOUR Shepard don't matter. She acts EXACTLY the same when facing the ultimate antagonist regardless of whether she's a Space Racist Renegade or Never Surrender Paragon or whatever your Shepard actually is, and what (insert pronoun) stands for. You accept Space Hitler's premise without argument, and dejectedly pick one of the three Slightly Less Turning Everyone Into Paste final solutions he has to offer. How does it matter in the slightest that I've done the frickin' impossible and united the Geth and the Quarians into a hopeful future, shown that we need not fear synthetic life, seen a nascent artificial sentience freely decide to set "Love and compassion" as their main motivation, and fought for the reactionary, bleak idea of "AI will always rebel" to be proven wrong? Space Hitler shows up, says "AI will always rebel, here are drastic fixes to this undeniable problem". And I go "yessuh"? WHY IS EVERYTHING SO SAD It's not sad. You are being incredibly myopic and dismissive of our experiences by reducing it to "y every1 has 2 diezorz?". The ending of the story is not actually sad, it's just anticlimactic, contrived, incongruous, and ridden with plot holes. The part that's sad and what's tearing me apart is that this is not a case of people writing themselves into a corner. This is not a case of glorified hacks like Ronald D. Moore or Cuse/Lindelof making **** up as they go along, to find themselves at the end with no way to tie all the crap together in a cathartic way. This is a beautifully written game, for the majority of the experience. Bioware has bona fide talent within their ranks. And the story, up to the very end, is redeemable in dozens of ways. Even the contrived, out-of-the-blue Star Child could be made into an interesting character by presenting it as a shackled AI who was given a specific, limited goal born of fear (stop AI from wiping out organic life forever), and it arrived at the grotesque solution of Reapers not because AI is evil, but the constraints never allow it to look past the false dilemma it's attempting to solve. Most importantly, this is not a TV show or a movie. This narrative is, by design, told in a unique medium which is NOT doomed to give us a singular ending. Our Shepards can be varied, yes, but there is a finite amount of paradigms that lead you to the end, and they could all have a cathartic, poignant, and persistent ending. Let the Renegades ascend to rule the galaxy. Let the Paragons defeat primitive fear and xenophobia. I do not care if the Relays have to go down, but don't do it in such a thoughtless way as to destroy everything meaningful I accomplished. I do not care if my Shepard dies. In fact, I expected her to go down in a blaze of glory, in the greatest battle that shall ever be fought, for the most meaningful (to her) victory a soldier could ever earn. She did not get this. I did not get this. TENS OF THOUSANDS of people didn't get this. We are not asking for a Disney ending. We are not asking for a dance party with Ewoks. We are just asking for our Big Damn Heroes to go out on their own terms, win or lose. orig page/link -spoilers http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9877164 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Achilles Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 I have to know... Why do so many people assume that everyone dies after seeing not one but two scenes showing that they don't? Oh and... The write-up above, gets one important fact wrong: Shepard is the Catalyst. The Citadel AI is deus ex machina though. I did find the argumentation amusing: "Wah! None of my choices mattered except in the part where they mattered!!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimartin Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Opinions are like.... You've only pointed out opinions. I've already said the ending isn't what I wanted, but it isn't the end all some are making it out to be. Many of the so called plot holes are explained in game for those that want to actually pay attention to the game. No it isn't in a bowl at the end of the game waiting for the player to absorb it, but it is explained provided you read, listen to squad mates and do the quests in the entire game. I may have the benefit of looking at my choices throughout the entire trilogy matter, may not have been a huge difference crammed into the last 5 mins, but they matter in the entire story of ME3. I could go into detail, but why bother...OMG the last 5 mins of a 30 hour game stinks. For those that don't believe Achilles are me, watch the video. Show spoiler (hidden content - requires Javascript to show) You can hear the retreat call as shepard gets up. (This BBCode requires its accompanying plugin to work properly.) Been reading the bioware forum, I thought I understood what people were upset about, but I may have been misunderstanding Show spoiler (hidden content - requires Javascript to show) Seems many of them just feel there is no closure with current and former crew members and want to be explained what happen to each of them. That really isn't most of your complaints with the ending here is it? I can understand being upset with the strange AI kid controlling the reapers out of left field (hell I don't like that), but I can't understand being upset with the crews fate. You have what seems like a hour in the middle of the final mission to say goodbye to everyone (and I mean everyone...surprised I couldn't holo call Conrad). I know three crew members survived from the Normandy, I like deciding for myself who did and did not survive the ending. I much rather says to myself that Zaeed is dead, but Grunt made it, rather than leaving it up to BioWare. Would you have been happier that during the epilogue the camera zoomed in and you saw them talking in front of the Normandy Death Wall memorial and the names of Shepard and his dead comrades were added? Would that have really been closure? Sorry if I was misunderstanding, but I really don't understand that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynk Former Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 @ Achilles and mim: A lot of folks aren't finding closure in the ending and really, for a video game that's trying to be a B sci-fi movie series, the choice of ending it had was poorly executed and didn't bring about that closure. When most people walk out of a cinema after seeing a movie, they expect some kind of resolution that they can accept in their mind. If it's not there then despite what the movie has in its beginning and middle, the end will lower their opinion of the movie and I can't blame them. Personally, I don't really care about the ending at all but I still can't help but feel for the rest of the folks out there that are bothered by it because I completely understand where they're coming from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Achilles Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 I completely understand where they're coming from.And I don't. I find myself in some sort of bizzaro world where I'm defending a Bioware game and people that have previously been at the ready to tear apart shoddy writing for being "Bay-esque" think the game lacked clarity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynk Former Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 That's probably just your compulsion to be "not like everyone else" as much as you can Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swphreak Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 I don't like it because no matter what you choose, the endings are virtually the same with minor differences. Also, I just didn't like the way they ended the series. Show spoiler (hidden content - requires Javascript to show) You go from fighting for your life in London to picking a color on the Citadel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
logan23 Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 There seems to be more hints that.....this might not be the actual full ending.. This youtube video explains This has spoilers. Show spoiler (hidden content - requires Javascript to show) The only thing is see that the dream or indoctrination started after the beam/ explosion,..everything else is in your mind. I know there are some other videos also gravitating to this conclusion....due to radio chatter (This BBCode requires its accompanying plugin to work properly.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimartin Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 LOL....Did these people even play the game? It isn't enought that the moan about answers to questions that is actually in the game, but now they want to moan about stuff they pulled out of their butt.... The ending isn't happy... Nether is war... Show spoiler (hidden content - requires Javascript to show) You go from fighting for your life in London to picking a color on the Citadel. This I can agree with. I'm just disagreeing that their isn't closure and their isn't answers to questions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthParametric Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 Can defenders of the endings stop with the whole "happy ending" BS? While there are some people that want a Disney end, they are in the minority. Most people knew going in they weren't going to get a "and everyone lived happily ever after" ending. It's not about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Salzella Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 OK, one simple but fairly important (i think) point: (not sure if spoilers are necessary, but better safe than sorry) Show spoiler (hidden content - requires Javascript to show) how the festering **** are they meant to a(explain the Reapers whilst b) tying up all the loose ends and still c) keep everyone happy. I mean, seriously? The ending could have been better, fine. But to tie up such an enormous story, it does a job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynk Former Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 I've compared Mass Effect to Macross many times... since I see quite a few interesting similarities in some of the lore between these two series. I'll put this in spoiler tags but since I'm sure none of you will bother to watch Macross it's no big deal to look if you want to see what I'm on about... When the original TV series of Macross ended in 1983 (after being extended for another 10 episodes due to its popularity) the ending was pretty grim. Most of the human population was wiped out, Earth was a ravaged and virtually lifeless desert wasteland with wrecked alien ships scattered on the surface and unexploded ordnance everywhere. Both sides of the war, humanity vs an alien species were so royally screwed at the end that the few survivors had to band together to be able to survive. The Macross itself, the title hero space fortress crash landed back on Earth and in the very last episode is destroyed by a terrorist attack by rebel Zentradi (the aliens mentioned) who were opposed to having any sort of peace with humans. A lot of the main characters died in that final attack and a grim situation was even worse with that final attack. This event happened at the very last scene of the series and despite it the writers were still able to bring about a sense of hope at the end of the series despite all that had happened. It was by no means a happy ending, humanity and the Zentradi had an extremey tough road ahead of them, but there was still hope at the end that, at least I think, was skillfully written through the last few episodes to make sure that despite the attack in the final scene of the entire series, people would still accept it... and from the reactions of people who watched Macross back then, they did since it was a very highly rated anime back then even to the very end. Mass Effect tries to do the same thing, but for a lot of people the way that the story plays out makes it hard for a lot of people to accept. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedi_consular16 Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 Just "finished" my first playthrough......I think. Can someone please explain? Show spoiler (hidden content - requires Javascript to show) in my ending...after the mexican stand off between Anderson, Shepard, and the Illusive Man...Admiral Hackett chimes in and says the Crucible isn't firing...Shepard crawls the to the control panel...but is then lifted up on a "tray" of white light and disappears....since then I've been looking at a black screen with about 30 seconds of looped music for about 5 minutes. Um...wtf? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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