Mass Effect 3 $$(ENDINGS SPOILERS)$$

[stonester1]

But that is what the ending called for, and what Bioware alluded to. How can all your choices matter if all that results is choosing the color of an explosion, from three flavors? I agree that what you posit would take more time, money and resources, but considering what a money machine Mass Effect has been for Bioware so far...surely they could have done more than they did?

They DID more in the conclusion of ME2.

These are great games...but this does not live up to the greatness established.

I firmly believe, as good as the last game is, they could have done better, far better with the ending. And I would like to know how and why the ball ended up thudding on the ground.

 

[Reverend]

I honestly think they just ran out of time. There's no way you make a game that good only to half arse the ending out of incompetence. As I recall the game was initially supposed to have been release late last year, but was pushed back because it became clear they couldn't make that deadline. Indeed, if you look close, the evidence for cutting corners is all over the place. The Zaeed/Kasumi style interactions with squadmates, the waste of space that was Diana Allers, the simple fetch quests, the occasionally awkward character animations, the utterly useless journal (seriously, how you get *that* wrong on purpose?) I could go on, but it's pretty clear that while the big important stuff (aside from the ending) was the focus of their efforts, corners were cut.

Indeed, I'd say it feels like a whole campaign was cut out or drastically pruned. I suspect part of the initial plan was to retake Omega after Horizon and then go onto Cronos Station. Indeed, I'd put money on that being the major DLC they have planned.

 

[clint g]

If Bioware is planning a "real" ending DLC, it damn well better be free, given what I see with all the complaints. Though I am well aware of the internet's tendency to amplify negativity.

I'd love a free DLC that fixed the ending, but we have to be realistic. Any free ending would be very limited, probably just an extended cutscene that explains how the Normandy got where it was and a few minutes afterwards showing us what happened to the characters.

That's not what most of us want. We want for the final mission to be closer to ME2's suicide mission, where the preparation you undertook and decisions you made had an impact on how the mission played out. We want to see what impact saving the Rachni had, we want to see the allied Quarian and Geth fleets landing a major blow against a Reaper ship, we want to make choices that could lead to the deaths of beloved characters. And we want divergent endings based on the choices made across all three games, ranging from super-happy to super-sad, not just three different coloured explosions.

Such an intricate piece of DLC would take a lot of time and money to develop, it would be unimaginable that they would release it for free. So if the choice is between some half-assed free DLC to fix the already half-assed ending, or paying a little more to get a satisfying conclusion to a beloved trilogy, I would reluctantly agree to the latter. I'm worried about the precedent that would set, and I would be far more wary about purchasing Bioware games in the future, but that's where I stand.

The problem i have with your post is that you apparently want everything displayed and that's just unrealistic. Mass Effect 3 is not a life simulation or a Trek style holodeck where a near AI is crafting the story within the constraints in real time and has to prepare for every eventuality and decision you get in your mind. Bioware has to make a choice while designing the game as much as a TV producer has to make a choice what to show to tell his story in the time allotted to him for an episode.

It's impossible to show everything and satisfy everybody.. some may not like that decisions in the game such as saving the new Rachni queen meaning in the end simply an increased number in your War Assets menue and maybe an entry besides it when you have struggled with the moral decision and have fought like hell against the hordes. It's a design choice by Bioware but if they wanted to include every little detail with extensive dialogue and cutscenes ME3 would be the new Duke Nukem and wouldn't be finished this decade probably.

I understand the critcism towards the ending and to a degree i agree with the feelings and thoughts of the fandom. However i had closure to the story of Mass Effect and that's all i ask. It was a bittersweet closure not everybody was shiny and happy but it fit the story in general and a typical hollywood ending with everybody dancing in the streets to an upbeat tune would have left me pissed off to no end. We will never know the real truth behind the production and if there indeed were last minute changes because of leaks or EA pressure to get it done but it would explain so many things.. no one will however confirm it officially since it would be admitting in public that they fucked up but if there is a DLC with different endings they will spin it somehow and present it as a gift for the fans for an extended experience or somesuch.. as if anyone would be fooled by it.

I understand that everyone has their own opinions but I honestly can't see how you got closure from that ending. It pulled shit out of its ass at the 11th hour and was as coherent as a mouse on crack. For example, why was the normady using the mass effect relay? Now, if this was simply a case of artistic vision then MAYBE I could cut them some slack in regards to the ending. That being said, I highly doubt this was the case. Either they had to rush the game out the door or they left it vague so they could milk gamers for some dlc.

 

[PsychoPere]

[...] why was the normady using the mass effect relay? [...]

Apparently the Normandy was not using a mass relay.

 

[LeadHead]

Come on BioWare, announce that you''re gonna fix the ending. You'll be forgiven if you do, you'll make more money from the Multiplayer and the internet will stop complaining about it and people will start flat out recommending the game to others without adding the note: "The ending sucks."

 

[ATimson]

Apparently the Normandy was not using a mass relay.

That... makes no sense.

 

[superdeluxe]

Might be a repost, but 10 reasons the endings are not good. Its a long video, but its pretty good:

http://youtu.be/6M0Cf864P7E

Also starts off with the wildly divergent endings comments, and not going to pigeonhole the gamer into a A,B,C ending.

 

[LeadHead]

Apparently the Normandy was not using a mass relay.

That... makes no sense.

No, the Normandy was at FTL speeds, the "warp" they're at between systems in a star cluster or what they used to escape after the collector ship mission in me2.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I'd love a free DLC that fixed the ending, but we have to be realistic. Any free ending would be very limited, probably just an extended cutscene that explains how the Normandy got where it was and a few minutes afterwards showing us what happened to the characters.

That's not what most of us want. We want for the final mission to be closer to ME2's suicide mission, where the preparation you undertook and decisions you made had an impact on how the mission played out. We want to see what impact saving the Rachni had, we want to see the allied Quarian and Geth fleets landing a major blow against a Reaper ship, we want to make choices that could lead to the deaths of beloved characters. And we want divergent endings based on the choices made across all three games, ranging from super-happy to super-sad, not just three different coloured explosions.

Such an intricate piece of DLC would take a lot of time and money to develop, it would be unimaginable that they would release it for free. So if the choice is between some half-assed free DLC to fix the already half-assed ending, or paying a little more to get a satisfying conclusion to a beloved trilogy, I would reluctantly agree to the latter. I'm worried about the precedent that would set, and I would be far more wary about purchasing Bioware games in the future, but that's where I stand.

The problem i have with your post is that you apparently want everything displayed and that's just unrealistic. Mass Effect 3 is not a life simulation or a Trek style holodeck where a near AI is crafting the story within the constraints in real time and has to prepare for every eventuality and decision you get in your mind. Bioware has to make a choice while designing the game as much as a TV producer has to make a choice what to show to tell his story in the time allotted to him for an episode.

It's impossible to show everything and satisfy everybody.. some may not like that decisions in the game such as saving the new Rachni queen meaning in the end simply an increased number in your War Assets menue and maybe an entry besides it when you have struggled with the moral decision and have fought like hell against the hordes. It's a design choice by Bioware but if they wanted to include every little detail with extensive dialogue and cutscenes ME3 would be the new Duke Nukem and wouldn't be finished this decade probably.

I understand the critcism towards the ending and to a degree i agree with the feelings and thoughts of the fandom. However i had closure to the story of Mass Effect and that's all i ask. It was a bittersweet closure not everybody was shiny and happy but it fit the story in general and a typical hollywood ending with everybody dancing in the streets to an upbeat tune would have left me pissed off to no end. We will never know the real truth behind the production and if there indeed were last minute changes because of leaks or EA pressure to get it done but it would explain so many things.. no one will however confirm it officially since it would be admitting in public that they fucked up but if there is a DLC with different endings they will spin it somehow and present it as a gift for the fans for an extended experience or somesuch.. as if anyone would be fooled by it.

I understand that everyone has their own opinions but I honestly can't see how you got closure from that ending.

Not to mention that unless Bioware forgot what they put in the Codex of this game you end up killing pretty much everyone in the galaxy when you either blow up their star system or irradiate them to death. How is that anything other than a dark ending. You.call that bittersweet becuase there is no happy part about it.

 

[TheGodBen]

The problem i have with your post is that you apparently want everything displayed and that's just unrealistic.

I don't want everything displayed, I want the important things displayed. The suicide mission in ME2 didn't take account of every decision you made in the game, but it did take account of about two dozen important choices such as crew loyalty and ship upgrades. The ending varied wildly depending on those choices, from the happy ending where everyone survived to the sad ending where Joker is the last man left standing. Why couldn't ME3's ending have been the same?

Why couldn't the game take account of some of the major decisions I made over all three games and allowed those to affect how the final mission played out? If you can't broker peace between the Quarians and the Geth, show a brief cutscene of the remaining fleet taking heavy damage, including the death of Admiral Raan (or Geth equivalent). But if you managed to get them to make peace, instead show a brief cutscene of them destroying a Reaper ship together. Moments like that would have been greatly rewarding, and I would have been fine with them taking another three months of development time in order for the ending to be done right.

They did it in ME2, there's no reason it couldn't have been possible in ME3. Other than the fact that they ran out of time and EA refused to budge on the release date.

It was a bittersweet closure not everybody was shiny and happy but it fit the story in general and a typical hollywood ending with everybody dancing in the streets to an upbeat tune would have left me pissed off to no end.

Firstly, I completely disagree that the ending fit the story of the series, I feel that it was thematically inconsistent with everything that came before it.

Anyway, I'm not asking for a super happy ending, from the moment I killed Mordin I wanted my Shepard to die at the end. What I wanted was an ending that took account of my choices. A super-happy Hollywood ending should be in the game, but it should be really difficult to achieve. A super-sad ending should be in the game if you screw up majorly. And there should be two or three other endings that land somewhere in between those extremes.

If my expectation is too high then it's Bioware's own fault. Casey Hudson claimed that there would be up to 16 distinct endings, and that they would be wildly divergent as they no longer had to worry about importing data into the next game. What we got were 6 endings that were essentially the same.

 

[ATimson]

Apparently the Normandy was not using a mass relay.

That... makes no sense.

No, the Normandy was at FTL speeds, the "warp" they're at between systems in a star cluster or what they used to escape after the collector ship mission in me2.

Then why did they need to outrun the explosion? They weren't in realspace where the explosion was occurring, they weren't in transit where the player's chosen effect was being propagated...

 

[superdeluxe]

Repost? From the ME facebook page:

We are aware that there are concerns about a recent post from this account regarding the ending of the game. In this post it was stated that at this time we do not have plans to change the ending.

We would like to clarify that we are actively and seriously taking all player feedback into consideration and have ruled nothing out. At this time we are still collecting and considering your feedback and have not made a decision regarding requests to change the ending.

Your feedback and opinions are of the utmost importance to us. We apologize for any confusion this has caused. Our top priority regarding this discussion is to keep communication with you, our loyal fans, open and productive.

 

[Skywalker]

That... makes no sense.

No, the Normandy was at FTL speeds, the "warp" they're at between systems in a star cluster or what they used to escape after the collector ship mission in me2.

Then why did they need to outrun the explosion? They weren't in realspace where the explosion was occurring, they weren't in transit where the player's chosen effect was being propagated...

That's true, it still doesn't make a lot of sense, but LeadHead is right. The Normandy couldn't have been in transit between mass relays, which occurs near-instantaneously. The closest thing that kind of makes sense is that they were traveling via conventional FTL. It still doesn't explain why they had to outrun the explosion, but...

 

[superdeluxe]

Amazon is allowing people who bought ME 3 from them to be able to send the game back for a full refund, even if the game was opened!

http://igogaming.net/2012/03/19/fan...effect-3-via-amazon-are-getting-full-refunds/

 

[Reverend]

Repost? From the ME facebook page:

We are aware that there are concerns about a recent post from this account regarding the ending of the game. In this post it was stated that at this time we do not have plans to change the ending.

We would like to clarify that we are actively and seriously taking all player feedback into consideration and have ruled nothing out. At this time we are still collecting and considering your feedback and have not made a decision regarding requests to change the ending.

Your feedback and opinions are of the utmost importance to us. We apologize for any confusion this has caused. Our top priority regarding this discussion is to keep communication with you, our loyal fans, open and productive.

I wouldn't read too much into that. It's early days yet and I'm sure the public relations people are having a hell of a time keeping up with complaints. Who knows what the producers are really considering at this point.

No, the Normandy was at FTL speeds, the "warp" they're at between systems in a star cluster or what they used to escape after the collector ship mission in me2.

Then why did they need to outrun the explosion? They weren't in realspace where the explosion was occurring, they weren't in transit where the player's chosen effect was being propagated...

That's true, it still doesn't make a lot of sense, but LeadHead is right. The Normandy couldn't have been in transit between mass relays, which occurs near-instantaneously. The closest thing that kind of makes sense is that they were traveling via conventional FTL. It still doesn't explain why they had to outrun the explosion, but...

Yeah, that explanation only makes sense as to where the Normandy was at that point. It does nothing to explain why it was running away or how everyone bar Shepard ended up onboard...or for that matter how the ship made it to a garden world. I mean you'd think being caught in a blast wave at FTL (think about that for a second) and having the engines explode mid-flight would rip the ship apart. Even so, I'm amazed enough of it was left to make a soft landing at all. Hell, for all we know the whole fleet jumped away and Hackett's ship crashed in the next valley over.

So yeah, it don't explain diddley.

 

[Mr. B]

I just finished ME3 about an hour ago and thought I'd chime in and basically agree with most of what's been said here.

My Mass Effect experience may have been somewhat unique in that I've played all three games for the first time back to back to back over the last six weeks... buying the first two in anticipation of ME3's release. Being able to transfer my character through the whole trilogy was an great feature. 99 of the 100 hours I played were pretty awesome... so sad to see the end of a great trilogy phoned in like it was.

 

[throwback]

Casey Hudson is speaking about DLC that will continue the game past the ending. Broken Steel redux?

Along with the refunds from Amazon, Microsoft is having a sale on video games, and is offering Mass Effect 3 for $40.

 

[superdeluxe]

Very detailed read with everything about the endings, long but good read

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QT4IUepvrU1pfv_B95oQj0H84DlCTUmzQ_uQh1voTUs/mobilebasic?pli=1

 

[LeadHead]

Just saw this on Yahoo News, made me a little mad since they're calling the people upset about the endings a "Small, vocal percentage." Everything I've seen makes it appear that the ratio is at least 80/20 towards the endings being bad.

Good to know Yahoo News shouldn't be trusted for accurate information, they can go hang out with Fox News.

Linky

Now, i don't think that a federal case needs to be made out of this, but I don't agree with the perception that those who believe the endings are terrible are just cranky. Given how up til the last 10 minutes of the game, BioWare was pulling a A to A- average among fans, then sank to an F-, is it so wrong to be vocal about that crash?

 

[Reverend]

In my experience, Yahoo news articles like this tend to be poorly researched opinion pieces. Basically internet tabloid stuff, not something anyone with half a brain would take seriously.

On the other hand, if you take the apparantly tens of thousands of complaints about the game's ending, it's still a fairly small number compared to the total number of units sold (from what I can tell, something in the order of two and a half million in the States, plus three and a half worldwide as of a week ago.) Add to that the statistic they came up with for ME2 that shows most people who bought the game never actually finished it and you can sort of see where they're coming from. In short, there's a difference between fan base and customer base.