Crni Vuk said:
As far as I'm aware it's just some kind of DLC, but it doesn't actually replace the endings. Sort of like an 'explanation'. Doubt it's much of an improved ending.
Mass Effect 3 discussion
- Thread starter brfritos
- Start date
As far as I'm aware it's just some kind of DLC, but it doesn't actually replace the endings. Sort of like an 'explanation'. Doubt it's much of an improved ending.
yeah well ... I see. I know that there some kind of DLC but since Bioware made such a high "fuss" about doing something with the ending to "please" the criticism I thought they had something bigger in mind. But just an explanation? Well ... I am sure thats all what people have been asking about.
Meh. I hoped it would be something more or better.
Meh. I hoped it would be something more or better.
Crni Vuk said:
That's EA's antithesis.
donperkan
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Buxbaum666 said:
What?
What was wrong with the ending (deus ex hr did the exact same thing)?
How is that ending tied to a charity organization?
Stanislao Moulinsky
Vault Fossil
donperkan said:Buxbaum666 said:
What?
What was wrong with the ending (deus ex hr did the exact same thing)?
Deus Ex:HR was criticised as well for the same reason. It wasn't criticised as much because it wasn't the ending of a series which had as one of its main selling points all the choices that you could and inport in the next game(s). Add that Bioware explicitely said that the ending wouldn't be "choose A, B or C", that the ending explains very little and that has some big plot holes (despite being so short) and...gah, forget it. Just watch this, it explains it better than I could.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M0Cf864P7E[/youtube]
Ilosar
Vault Fossil
Boy, listing what's wrong would take me the better part of the day. The anti-climax, the Deus Ex Machina, the stupid god-child concept, the forced choices at the last second, the incredibly unfortunate implications of every single ending (especially Synthesis), the senseless fate of the Normandy's crew that breaks the established character of everybody aboard and is logically impossible, ditching many themes of the series in favour of the most stupid, ''dark'' and edgy ones, the pointless sacrifices, the plot holes, the complete uncertainty for the future of the universe, that creepy scene with the child and Buzz Aldrin after the credits...
Look, just peruse the thread. There are whole pages of discussion about it. The video posted above is a good summary too.
yeah even I agree with many parts of it and I didn't even played the game. But plot holes ... should be really a no go. I played Me1 and Me2 and some characters are really very nicely written. The kind of ... stuff you see happen with them on the normandy in the end is pretty anti-climatic. The game really deserved something better. But well ... so be it. All I really hope for is that people learn from this in the future and that Bioware will eventually try to do it better next time. But we will have to wait and see I guess.
It's kind of sad that the most enjoyable aspect of Mass Effect 3 is the multiplayer.
Also, the new Vorcha characters are freaking amazing if you like tangling up close but don't like being caught without a quick way out like with the Krogan.
Also, the new Vorcha characters are freaking amazing if you like tangling up close but don't like being caught without a quick way out like with the Krogan.
donperkan
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Ok i watched that clip, now let's fire up this thread.
The best possible ending (the green one) results in evolution of all life in the galaxy. Bioware choose a weird way of presenting that ending in final cutscenes but never the less i feel it's appropriate.
And i'm still confused how that outrage led to charity?
The best possible ending (the green one) results in evolution of all life in the galaxy. Bioware choose a weird way of presenting that ending in final cutscenes but never the less i feel it's appropriate.
And i'm still confused how that outrage led to charity?
The ending really overshadowed everything I liked about the game(s). In retrospect, I wish I had just stopped playing after Mass Effect 2. I realize that opinions can differ on this but I don't understand how anyone can think of this ending as appropriate. None of the "different" endings is what I was fighting for since Mass Effect 1. Not a single one of the decisions I made during the course of three games mattered in the end. I mean, this was one of the selling points of this series: your character and his/her decisions from the previous game actually matter in the next one. And then they go and slap on an ending that is just the same for everyone.
donperkan
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Like i said a wierd way of presenting.
But i like the idea of that ending.
All those people that died, all the civilizations that where harvested, all the friends that perished where not in vain. They all contributed to evolution of all life in the galaxy.
It doesn't matter if relays where destroyed, it doesn't matter if Garrus or Liara died what matters is evolution.
I agree the conclusion is a letdown but if you think about it it's the only thing the developers can accomplish.
Name me one finale be it a game or movie or anything that made you jizz in your pants.
But i like the idea of that ending.
All those people that died, all the civilizations that where harvested, all the friends that perished where not in vain. They all contributed to evolution of all life in the galaxy.
It doesn't matter if relays where destroyed, it doesn't matter if Garrus or Liara died what matters is evolution.
I agree the conclusion is a letdown but if you think about it it's the only thing the developers can accomplish.
Name me one finale be it a game or movie or anything that made you jizz in your pants.
Guiltyofbeingtrite
Vault Dweller
donperkan said:
The problem lies in the fact that Bioware specifically said there wouldn't be an A, B, or C ending and that's exactly what that was. Also the fact that absolutely zero choices made throughout the entire series had anything to do with the final battle or conclusion/ending. The galactic readiness system was a farce, they could have done so much with it but they clearly didn't feel like putting in the work. People invested dozens of hours to see one second of shepherd breathing.
Ilosar
Vault Fossil
Exactly how is it the best possible ending? Besides it taking the most EMS to get.
Now, lemme elaborate. Two major themes of Mass Effect since the very beginning have been 1) self-determination (Geth, Krogan, all those daddy issues, humanity wanting to grow by itself, ect) 2) that being different doesn't mean we cannot coexist (Cerberus VS the galactic community, all over Paragon playthroughs, and of course shown all over the place in ME3, especially in the Rannoch arc).
Synthesis takes these themes, beats them to death, flings them into the sun, and blows up the nearby mass relay for good measure. Shepard enforces a fundamental change on every single being in the galaxy. Not only that, it takes the ''we can be different but live together'' message and shits all over it by making organics and synthetics one and the same, with the reasoning that there will no longer be any war between them. Because, you know, civil wars are completely unheard of in history. It's presented as a solution, but I don't see how in hell does this solve anything
Never mind how merging organics and synthetics instantly makes absolutely no fucking sense whatsever, hence the Space Magic! meme. And before you say that ME wasn't realistic before, true, but almost every single outlandish piece of technology had details on it either in the Codex or in-game. We know how all that stuff works. This doesn't mean anything can happen in this universe, there are rules, and being able to immediately ''merge synthetic and organic DNA'' (since when do synthetics have fucking DNA? do the Geth spontaneously grow fleshy bits? Bah) completely breaks these rules, sorry.
It's like Fallout, the rules of the setting say radiation mutates life forms and makes them grow bigger and stronger, instead of making one die slowly and painfuly of cancer. It's completely unrealistic, but it works in the universe. That does not mean it's acceptable to find a machine that, say, reverses the gender of every single person on the planet, and especially not as the plot device that ends a story-driven trilogy.
Stanislao Moulinsky
Vault Fossil
donperkan said:
Since Bioware/EA were pretending that the ending didn't suck the players started a campaign to ask for a reworked ending and they tied it to a charity to gain media visibility I guess.
Uh....what?
Silent Hill 2, Metal Gear Solid 2, Planet of the Apes (the original), Star Wars, The murder of Roger Ackroyd and god knows how many other.
donperkan
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Stanislao Moulinsky said:
They can't do better.
Stanislao Moulinsky said:
I didn't fell it.Ilosar said:
I thouht life's "blind drive onward" was the theme.
Ilosar said:
Sinergy (too comfortably) solves ewerything.
Ilosar said:
In a way we are machines.
Ilosar said:
A machine that was designed by countless species throughout eons
Merging two fundamentally different life forms, in a poorly executed blaze, to create a from one step closer to perfection. How can you not love that idea.
consortium11
First time out of the vault
I've never quite got the fuss about the ending to ME3. Let's remember exactly what series we're talking about here; Mass Effect, a series with a history of abusing its own canon, plot holes and general poor writing (at least on a large scale... some of the individual characters and moments are good).
Listing all of the plot-holes throughout the series would take more time and effort that it really deserves but we all know the key ones; Arrival essentially invalidates ME1 (and while as I understand it it was developed by a separate team to the main game, surely there was editorial oversight on the plot?), the Reapers actually making it into the playable galaxy for ME3 also invalidates ME1, the central plot of ME1 is one big hole etc etc.
The ending may be one of the most obvious and gregarious examples of this but it only builds on what has come before; a game that collapsed under its own canon (and often quite limited canon at that) and would generally throw up at least one "huh?" moment an hour. If someone cares deeply enough about the plot to be really ticked off by the ending then they would most likely have noticed all the mistakes that came before as well... and surely that would have lowered expectations already.
Yes, the ending(s) don't make sense and clearly haven't really been thought through... but then exactly the same could be said for castaways who have been out of contact for years having technology that had only just been developed, or a ship covered in the (publicly known) insignia of a terrorist organisation being able to dock at the Citadel without anyone batting an eyelid, why Saren didn't have a few Collector swarms with him when he attacked the Citadel or why the Reapers didn't just travel from Dark Space without bothering with the Citadel Mass Relay at all considering it only took them (a race of near immortal machines for whom time has no real meaning) a couple of years...
That said, the fact that the ending appeared so thrown together does take me back to a theory that I'm sure must have been mentioned here previously.
Two elements that were given a pretty high level of importance in ME2 and barely touched on in ME3 were dark energy and the human reaper.
If you remember, a couple of months prior to ME3's release a pretty large amount of stuff was leaked, much of it relating to the plot. Reading that (and between the lines) it appeared that dark energy was going to take the role generic "synthetics" took in the ending of ME3... a threat to the very galaxy itself that the Reapers were designed to prevent. It wasn't gone into in great detail (and I can't remember much of it if it was) but from what I recall the basic idea was that the build up of dark energy would essentially destroy the universe. The Reapers (somehow) prevented this (by destroying nearly all life? I guess I can see how the plot could go). However in observing and interacting with Shepard and humans in general, the Reapers discovered that there was something in human genetic data that could prevent this from occurring. That's why they bothered to build a human Reaper and, as I understand it, the ending choice would have been something along the lines of sacrifice the human race to save the universe (all humans become Reapers... or along those lines) or destroy the Reapers and try to find a different option.
Fan reaction was... well, it's polite to say "mixed" on this... and I can see the team feeling burned with a pretty limited time to think of another option... and so the mess we eventually got was the best compromise they had on what had already been done and what could be (relatively quickly) changed.
Then again, this is Bioware, the team that brought us mages using blood magic in direct view of Templars in DA2 who failed to say a thing... it could just be horrible plotting...
Listing all of the plot-holes throughout the series would take more time and effort that it really deserves but we all know the key ones; Arrival essentially invalidates ME1 (and while as I understand it it was developed by a separate team to the main game, surely there was editorial oversight on the plot?), the Reapers actually making it into the playable galaxy for ME3 also invalidates ME1, the central plot of ME1 is one big hole etc etc.
The ending may be one of the most obvious and gregarious examples of this but it only builds on what has come before; a game that collapsed under its own canon (and often quite limited canon at that) and would generally throw up at least one "huh?" moment an hour. If someone cares deeply enough about the plot to be really ticked off by the ending then they would most likely have noticed all the mistakes that came before as well... and surely that would have lowered expectations already.
Yes, the ending(s) don't make sense and clearly haven't really been thought through... but then exactly the same could be said for castaways who have been out of contact for years having technology that had only just been developed, or a ship covered in the (publicly known) insignia of a terrorist organisation being able to dock at the Citadel without anyone batting an eyelid, why Saren didn't have a few Collector swarms with him when he attacked the Citadel or why the Reapers didn't just travel from Dark Space without bothering with the Citadel Mass Relay at all considering it only took them (a race of near immortal machines for whom time has no real meaning) a couple of years...
That said, the fact that the ending appeared so thrown together does take me back to a theory that I'm sure must have been mentioned here previously.
Two elements that were given a pretty high level of importance in ME2 and barely touched on in ME3 were dark energy and the human reaper.
If you remember, a couple of months prior to ME3's release a pretty large amount of stuff was leaked, much of it relating to the plot. Reading that (and between the lines) it appeared that dark energy was going to take the role generic "synthetics" took in the ending of ME3... a threat to the very galaxy itself that the Reapers were designed to prevent. It wasn't gone into in great detail (and I can't remember much of it if it was) but from what I recall the basic idea was that the build up of dark energy would essentially destroy the universe. The Reapers (somehow) prevented this (by destroying nearly all life? I guess I can see how the plot could go). However in observing and interacting with Shepard and humans in general, the Reapers discovered that there was something in human genetic data that could prevent this from occurring. That's why they bothered to build a human Reaper and, as I understand it, the ending choice would have been something along the lines of sacrifice the human race to save the universe (all humans become Reapers... or along those lines) or destroy the Reapers and try to find a different option.
Fan reaction was... well, it's polite to say "mixed" on this... and I can see the team feeling burned with a pretty limited time to think of another option... and so the mess we eventually got was the best compromise they had on what had already been done and what could be (relatively quickly) changed.
Then again, this is Bioware, the team that brought us mages using blood magic in direct view of Templars in DA2 who failed to say a thing... it could just be horrible plotting...
Ilosar
Vault Fossil
ME never was the best written work in history, yes, but it never stooped that low.
The arrival of the Reapers does not invalidate ME1 at all; the goal there was to stop them from taking over the Citadel without any warning and cut off the Mass Relay network instantly. We knew the Reapers were coming, eventually; we knew since Sovereign spoke to us, really. The issue was stopping their plan A (instant neutralization of the galaxy) in order to force them into plan B (slowly fly over to old Milky Way and be forced to fight a united galaxy). If anything, ME2 was irrelevant, stopping the collectors from turning colonists into Reaper gelly is far less important than stopping the actual Reapers from eating the whole galaxy. If the Collector Base had been a key asset in ME3, that would have been solved, but alas...
That's just it; the rather filmsy plot was held together by a pretty interesting and well thought-out universe and memorable characters. Most flaws could be overlooked in favour of this, but since the ending threw these two saving graces away (by having space magic and the Catalyst in the first case, by stranding almost every single important character for no goddamn reason in the second case), we were only left with the atrocious ending this time around. That's why there was so much backlash.
Bioware said that was an oversight for gameplay-related concerns. Which is a shame, mind you, a level with very limited ammunition and being forced to use powers/melee attacks would have been great. But compared to the butchering of the universe that the ending is, it's minor.
Did you missed the part where the Council barely accepts to speak with Shepard and only gives him his legitimate Specter status back if he gets lost in the Terminus Systems? Because this is the exact cause for that, apart from the silly Reapers-don't-exist business. Cerberus does love their sigil way too damn much for a covert terrorist organisation, I'll give you that.
Because he didn't work with the Collectors, that's all. We know the Collectors and Reapers have them, but not the heretic Geth. Presumably the Reapers wanted to keep the Collectors a secret for now. Remember that the events prior to and during the ending of ME1 happen very fast, there probably was no time for Sovereign to call his Collector buddies to lend him their Swarms. Or maybe no need was seen. Who knows. Again, fairly minor.
Again, it was clearly stated the goal is to stop them from appearing out of the blue, taking over the Citadel, cutting the Mass Relay network, destroying the political leadership, and routing the Citadel fleet in one swoop. Being forced to travel via conventional means, they must fight for every single planet they want to harvest. ME1 basically saved the galaxy. Not a plot hole at all.
Your information is mostly correct, but they didn't react to fan feedback. Mac Walters replaced Drew Kalpyshyn (however you spell his name) as lead writer. It's as simple as that.
Not the same team. And yes that was horrible, they basically said that they knew it was silly but could not see a way to work around it.
Yeah yeah, sarcasm, I get it. You're too obvious, sorry.
brfritos
Humma Kavulaaaaaaa
I simply gave up and moved on, because Bioware/EA had the ability to achieve something that's very hard to do at the same time: failure to deliver a game, lose the respect of his own fanbase and lose the respect of the game community.
Failure is not a bad thing, after all we learn from our mistakes and if you learn why you fail at something and improve the next time, it's worthy.
Problem is, they repeated the same pattern of DA2 into ME3.
Really, you didn't learned from all the heat take'd from DA2 and made the same thing again?
Then they hyped the game and said a lot of things that weren't quite accurate about it.
I'm not talking about lies, but some aspects of the game were grossy exagerated and some things very misleading.
Some devs answers and promisses reminded me of Peter Molyneux actually.
Finally Bioware acting in an arrogant and overzealous attitude of how good they are simply drove away a lot of players.
The sad part is Bioware/EA appears to have some talented writers and artists, Tuchanka and Rannoch missions are examples they can do RPGs with C&C, as well written some very interesting characters like in ME1/2.
And for those saying about plot holes and inconsistences, ME3 craps a lot on ME1 and ME2, it pratically invalidate the two previous games.
Well, let's see what the next game will show us.
Perhaps they are aimming at a different audience, but there are ways to do this without shitting on your own fanbase.
Failure is not a bad thing, after all we learn from our mistakes and if you learn why you fail at something and improve the next time, it's worthy.
Problem is, they repeated the same pattern of DA2 into ME3.
Really, you didn't learned from all the heat take'd from DA2 and made the same thing again?
Then they hyped the game and said a lot of things that weren't quite accurate about it.
I'm not talking about lies, but some aspects of the game were grossy exagerated and some things very misleading.
Some devs answers and promisses reminded me of Peter Molyneux actually.
Finally Bioware acting in an arrogant and overzealous attitude of how good they are simply drove away a lot of players.
The sad part is Bioware/EA appears to have some talented writers and artists, Tuchanka and Rannoch missions are examples they can do RPGs with C&C, as well written some very interesting characters like in ME1/2.
And for those saying about plot holes and inconsistences, ME3 craps a lot on ME1 and ME2, it pratically invalidate the two previous games.
Well, let's see what the next game will show us.
Perhaps they are aimming at a different audience, but there are ways to do this without shitting on your own fanbase.
Games are a product. That is something that should be kept in mind. If a large number of consumers are not happy then you have at least to consider why. And lets say only 50 or hell only 40% of the players have been unhappy with ME3 the way it ended then it is still a lot. Games might be a form of art or not. But as said. They are a product first.
Its the same with my work. I see my self as artist. But I have also to work with the industry. Graphic design. So if my client isnt happy about what I have done then I have to rework it. That simple. No chance to talk about "artistic freedom" here. He payed money for it.
You know how the situation between Bioware and some of their fans feels like?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-v-f2mT94Y[/youtube]
Its the same with my work. I see my self as artist. But I have also to work with the industry. Graphic design. So if my client isnt happy about what I have done then I have to rework it. That simple. No chance to talk about "artistic freedom" here. He payed money for it.
You know how the situation between Bioware and some of their fans feels like?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-v-f2mT94Y[/youtube]
donperkan
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
And what happens when you deliver a sloppy order?