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Mass Effect 3 $$(ENDINGS SPOILERS)$$
- Thread starter Reverend
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If this in regards to another ending dlc, the only waylaying it's okay is if it is free
Yeah, if they're intentionally holding back the "real" ending for a DLC they intend to charge for, that'd just be a grotesquely mercenary thing to do, to say nothing of being a very cruel joke. Can you imagine if J.K. Rowling had held back the "real" final chapter of 'Deathly Hallows'? People would have rioted.
I think the leading theory is that they ran out of time and threw this hodge-podge together out of whatever elements of the intended ending had already been done.
Good read BTW. I agree with just about everything that guy wrote. It's not because the ending was sad or because <insert name here> died, it's because it's not an end to the story we thought was being told. Hell, I mean at least the end of 'Matrix Revolutions' made sense in the context of the film and it was something they were building up to (rightly or wrongly) from the very beginning. ME3's ending feels like the drunken gatecrasher from a totally different game.
You know what annoys me the most though? This ending actually has me *complaining* about what's probably the best piece of interactive storytelling of all time. I didn't mind the lack of side missions. I didn't mind the mostly linear structure. I was too engrossed and invested to care. I'm not usually an emotional person (I'm downright callous at times) but I don't mind admitting this game had me close to tears on no less than four occasions. At the other end of the spectrum, I've lost count of the number of times I laughed out loud or sat through a whole mission grinning like an idiot (especially Grissom Academy!) This is still a *phenomenal* game and it's only because I enjoyed it so much that the ending felt like such a betrayal.
I think the leading theory is that they ran out of time and threw this hodge-podge together out of whatever elements of the intended ending had already been done.
Good read BTW. I agree with just about everything that guy wrote. It's not because the ending was sad or because <insert name here> died, it's because it's not an end to the story we thought was being told. Hell, I mean at least the end of 'Matrix Revolutions' made sense in the context of the film and it was something they were building up to (rightly or wrongly) from the very beginning. ME3's ending feels like the drunken gatecrasher from a totally different game.
You know what annoys me the most though? This ending actually has me *complaining* about what's probably the best piece of interactive storytelling of all time. I didn't mind the lack of side missions. I didn't mind the mostly linear structure. I was too engrossed and invested to care. I'm not usually an emotional person (I'm downright callous at times) but I don't mind admitting this game had me close to tears on no less than four occasions. At the other end of the spectrum, I've lost count of the number of times I laughed out loud or sat through a whole mission grinning like an idiot (especially Grissom Academy!) This is still a *phenomenal* game and it's only because I enjoyed it so much that the ending felt like such a betrayal.
Here's the FemShep version of the cut Anderson ending dialog, for anyone interested:
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDWpd9nCKws&feature=youtu.be[/yt]
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDWpd9nCKws&feature=youtu.be[/yt]
On the side of the hallucination camp, there is the evidence of the trees. These trees weren't on the path to the conduit. They appear after Shepard regains consciousness. If this is the case, that everything from the conduit to Shepard coming alive in the best ending is a hallucination, and, then we cut to the stargazer scene, we don't know how Shepard defeated the Reapers.
Adding fuel to this fire is the information from the Codex. In "Desperate Measures", it is stated that scientists considered destroying the mass relays. However, they voted against this measure as it could destroy a system with fatal radiation and any garden world in that system would be rendered inhabitable. If a garden world did survive, the inhabitants would be cut off from the galaxy. In the three endings, we see mass relays exploding and, with each relay exploding, we see shockwaves that extend thousands of light years. It would seem that every life in the galaxy would go extinct, if we accept that the ending is not a hallucination. I don't accept this, so I dismiss what is shown.
Finally, did you know that everyone died on the Citadel? According to Mac Waters, the lead writer, when the Reapers captured the Citadel, they exterminated everyone. So, what was the reason for upgrading the Citadel's defenses if they meant nothing?
For myself, not seeing these things - the fall of the Citadel and the victory of Shepard - make me dislike this game very much. These are pivotal moments which have been pushed offscreen.
A great many people are angered by the ending of this game. On Amazon, the game has two and a half stars, with the majority of people voting this game poor. On Metacritic, the game has a rating of 4.9 (which is poor) with 338 people rating this game very badly.
Adding fuel to this fire is the information from the Codex. In "Desperate Measures", it is stated that scientists considered destroying the mass relays. However, they voted against this measure as it could destroy a system with fatal radiation and any garden world in that system would be rendered inhabitable. If a garden world did survive, the inhabitants would be cut off from the galaxy. In the three endings, we see mass relays exploding and, with each relay exploding, we see shockwaves that extend thousands of light years. It would seem that every life in the galaxy would go extinct, if we accept that the ending is not a hallucination. I don't accept this, so I dismiss what is shown.
Finally, did you know that everyone died on the Citadel? According to Mac Waters, the lead writer, when the Reapers captured the Citadel, they exterminated everyone. So, what was the reason for upgrading the Citadel's defenses if they meant nothing?
For myself, not seeing these things - the fall of the Citadel and the victory of Shepard - make me dislike this game very much. These are pivotal moments which have been pushed offscreen.
A great many people are angered by the ending of this game. On Amazon, the game has two and a half stars, with the majority of people voting this game poor. On Metacritic, the game has a rating of 4.9 (which is poor) with 338 people rating this game very badly.
This could all be a giant load of BS on the part of Bioware........BUT......and maybe I'm a "Biodrone" for saying it, It gives me hope. And right now......that just may be enough...
That's not even the worst thing about the Reapers capturing the Citadel. If they captured it, why bother towing it all the way to the Sol system? With the Citadel, the Reapers can control the entire mass relay network. They could have shut down all of the mass relays in the galaxy, which would have effectively killed the organic resistance. Why didn't they do this?
Oh, so that's dialog that was actually cut? It's not just the 4000 EMS ending?
Possessing the Citadel alone isn't enough for control, or else Council space would've had control long ago. (And we know they didn't, or the location of the Mu Relay wouldn't have been lost in ME1.)
Either the Crucible or the active intervention of the Catalyst (I assume the latter, and that the Crucible was just a macguffin...) is necessary for the mass relay network to be controlled.
So given that the Reapers can't control it themselves, towing it to a system with a crapton of Reaper ships to keep the pesky organics from getting at it is their best bet.
It's not an if. It happened. Commander Shepard, when on the Cronus Station, is informed of this event.
I don't think we are ever given a reason why the Reapers chose to move the Citadel to Earth. For myself, I see the Earth as a write-off. The Prothean VI says that the Reapers are in the final process of harvesting Earth, and when we consider the fate of other worlds attacked by these machines, any life above that of bacterium is destroyed. In many cases, the destruction of so many animals creates conditions where the oxygen level of the world increases, and massive firestorms erupt extinguishing what life remains. So, Earth is a burnt out husk unsuitable for long-term viability for a sapient species.
The final analysis - the Citadel fell, many lives were lost for the recapture of a dead world, Shepard failed in his or her initial attempt to board the Citadel, the Illusive Man survived, and the Crucible was never used.
I don't think we are ever given a reason why the Reapers chose to move the Citadel to Earth. For myself, I see the Earth as a write-off. The Prothean VI says that the Reapers are in the final process of harvesting Earth, and when we consider the fate of other worlds attacked by these machines, any life above that of bacterium is destroyed. In many cases, the destruction of so many animals creates conditions where the oxygen level of the world increases, and massive firestorms erupt extinguishing what life remains. So, Earth is a burnt out husk unsuitable for long-term viability for a sapient species.
The final analysis - the Citadel fell, many lives were lost for the recapture of a dead world, Shepard failed in his or her initial attempt to board the Citadel, the Illusive Man survived, and the Crucible was never used.
The Citadel controls the relay network, if you know how to do so. This was the whole crux of ME1's plot: Saren and Sovereign were seeking the Conduit so that they could access the Citadel, take control of the relays, and bring the Reapers back from dark space. The Council didn't control the relay network because they never bothered to learn how the Citadel or the relays worked; they were content to just use the technology left behind for them. Since the Catalyst controlled the Reapers, as soon as they recaptured the Citadel, it should have had them shut down the relays and proceed to harvest the galaxy like in every other cycle.
The Citadel is important in another way. During the era of the Prothean Empire, the government housed their documents in archives located in the space station. When the Reapers assumed control of the station, the archives were seized by the machines and their allies who used this knowledge against the Protheans. What is there to say that the Citadel Council didn't do the same thing - store their documents in archives located in the station?
I am beginning to think that Cerberus deliberately allowed the Alliance to track Kai Leng to Cronus Station. With the Alliance's attention on this station, the Cerberus forces could lay siege to the Citadel. A major sub-plot in this game was the war between the Alliance and Cerberus, and it seemed the latter won the war.
A question that was never resolved is how Cerberus was able to stay ahead of Shepard. We know that there were agents working for Cerberus, but it seems that Shepard never conclusively identified the leak nor fix the leak. I would think this would be a major concern of Shepard, but apparently not.
I am beginning to think that Cerberus deliberately allowed the Alliance to track Kai Leng to Cronus Station. With the Alliance's attention on this station, the Cerberus forces could lay siege to the Citadel. A major sub-plot in this game was the war between the Alliance and Cerberus, and it seemed the latter won the war.
A question that was never resolved is how Cerberus was able to stay ahead of Shepard. We know that there were agents working for Cerberus, but it seems that Shepard never conclusively identified the leak nor fix the leak. I would think this would be a major concern of Shepard, but apparently not.
Don't know what to say. Either they think the fans of the series are beyond stupid, or whoever's managing that account has a very poor understanding of the English laguage. Or both.I completely agree. While playing ME3, I just felt like it was getting more and more epic with each passing moment. The moment leading up to the end when you're wounded and you're slowly walking to the conduit was fucking awesome. But they just had to piss on it. For christ sake, all they needed to do was toss in some mini-epilogue scenes that explained what was going on with all the races out there and I would have been fine...but they couldn't even do that. Instead we get an ending that rivals BSGs as the biggest letdown ever.
If Bioware intends to include an extension of the third game into the DLC that marks a 'new ending' (which now seems apparent - however we still don't know for sure), it's not something that hasn't been done before - especially if Bioware intentionally designed the current ''end' to be such as it is.
ME2 included the Arrival DLC that deals directly with imminent Reaper arrival after all (although, it can be played before or after the suicide mission).
Being able to raise galactic readiness through the DLC in SP though (by say 10% or 15%) would be good though because I really don't like how MP was made so 'integral' to that particular aspect of the game.
That, or finding more War assets in the DLC to help SP gamers have a higher Effective Military Strength without MP.
ME2 included the Arrival DLC that deals directly with imminent Reaper arrival after all (although, it can be played before or after the suicide mission).
Being able to raise galactic readiness through the DLC in SP though (by say 10% or 15%) would be good though because I really don't like how MP was made so 'integral' to that particular aspect of the game.
That, or finding more War assets in the DLC to help SP gamers have a higher Effective Military Strength without MP.
Oh my bar was full as well. I had somewhere around 6000 in War Assets, which gave me a very nice looking bar. Galactic Readiness was something different though, and it remained at 50% throughout the entire game if you didn't touch multiplayer. This percentage is applied to your assets, and is called Effective Galactic Readiness. This effectively cuts the assets in half, and affects heavily what ending you will have. Well, not that they're that much different anyway.
I've read one or two tweets from Bioware people that seem to be giving me renewed hope that ME3 isn't actually finished yet. I realise that they will be releasing DLC like they did for the first two games, but the hints are towards something that will change our feelings about the ending. I do find it a bit odd that the rest of the game is this totally amazing experience, that gradually gets more and more epic and emotional as it goes on, only for it all to fall flat in the final 10-15 minutes.
Although I suppose that original Half-Life was grounbreaking for the time, only for it to fall flat on its face during the Xen levels.
I would find it a very cynical marketing move if Bioware were holding back a final level of some sort, unless it were free or relatively cheap. I'm not made of money and war assets you know! It's just be funny if instead of this ending, we'd actually been left with a cliffhanger. A bit like what nuBSG did with Starbuck in season three.
I'm also a bit frustrated - I found out that I must have accidentally saved over my ending.
Yeah it was a crummy one, but it's saved over at the point just before I launched my attack on Cerberus, which was a good five hours or so before I got the end. Total bummer. I might be able to play it in a day or two when I've calmed down a bit more. 
I've read one or two tweets from Bioware people that seem to be giving me renewed hope that ME3 isn't actually finished yet. I realise that they will be releasing DLC like they did for the first two games, but the hints are towards something that will change our feelings about the ending. I do find it a bit odd that the rest of the game is this totally amazing experience, that gradually gets more and more epic and emotional as it goes on, only for it all to fall flat in the final 10-15 minutes.
Although I suppose that original Half-Life was grounbreaking for the time, only for it to fall flat on its face during the Xen levels.
I would find it a very cynical marketing move if Bioware were holding back a final level of some sort, unless it were free or relatively cheap. I'm not made of money and war assets you know! It's just be funny if instead of this ending, we'd actually been left with a cliffhanger. A bit like what nuBSG did with Starbuck in season three.
I'm also a bit frustrated - I found out that I must have accidentally saved over my ending.
Yeah it was a crummy one, but it's saved over at the point just before I launched my attack on Cerberus, which was a good five hours or so before I got the end. Total bummer. I might be able to play it in a day or two when I've calmed down a bit more.
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^What was also at the crux of ME1's plot was that the Citadel's hidden functions could only be activate by the keepers and the last Prothean survivors from Ilos made sure the keepers would no longer respond to reaper control (did nobody thing to study them for a defence against indoctrination?) necessitating a reaper agent accessing the controls manually. Sovereign couldn't do it on it's own, even sat right on the tower.
It does seem a bit incongruous with the revelation that Catalyst resides on or within the Citadel. If it can open and close the arms, why not the other functions? The shackled AI theory is looking a bit more likely. I mean if it was the instigator of it all then why limit it's own control? Maybe the keepers have been passively aggressively fighting the Catalyst all along? Actually, when the Catalyst first showed up, I half expected it to show it's true form was that of an original Keeper. That would have been interesting.
Either way, the reapers, or at least the Catalyst has defiantly been in Shepard's head. Why else would it use the image of a boy that's been haunting Shepard's dreams since she escaped Earth? Indeed, where else could it have gotten that image?
I maxed out mine too, but on closer inspection, I was just over 200 points short. If I'd have been able to finish the bugged Aria & Kasumi quests and turn in those few side-quests before going to Tuchanka, it might have made up the difference.
I'm also a bit frustrated - I found out that I must have accidentally saved over my ending.
I wouldn't worry about that, there is no endgame save as far as I can tell other than the auto save that puts you back just after Harbinger blasts you. The one that sticks you back at Cronos station is I think so people can play future DLC from this point, which is telling in and of itself. Whatever DLC they have planned, at least some of it must be completed *before* you destroy Cerberus and enter the endgame.
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Considering that you can't go to any location they put DLC at in a post-endgame state, that was a given.
I can't verify this since I play on Xbox, rather than PC, but a poster on another board says there are three categories for save files:
Another poster over there says that people using the free Mass Effect Datapad app for iOS are receiving an odd little message from the Virmire Survivor after completing the game.
If true, this would seem to be more "evidence" in the theory that the current ending might not be the "real" ending. If there wasn't something still coming to add onto the end, then it seems odd that BioWare would bother classifying the save files in any manner - unless, perhaps, the intention is for that information to be reflected in a future game, rather than DLC for this one.
Another poster over there says that people using the free Mass Effect Datapad app for iOS are receiving an odd little message from the Virmire Survivor after completing the game.
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