Mass Effect 3.5B: Taste the Rainbow (Story and Ending Discussion; Spoilers!)

[chiasaur11]

Don't worry, you didn't actually miss anything. The only thing that changes is the colour of the explosion.

Basically, yes.

Technically, no.

Destroy also shows Reapers dying and either soldiers celebrating or all life on Earth being exterminated based on war assets.

Control doesn't have the Citadel explode.

Synthesis has EDI and Joker come out of the ship together while glowing green. Also, leaves have circuitboards somehow.

[Philistine]

To be fair, obviously they aren't defending it too strenuously, or they'd have said it's fine and never deigned to release free DLC to clear things up. That was a totally optional (and expensive) move on their part and it shows they haven't totally lost their souls just yet.

Say what?

It's important to remember that EA/BioWare is a business first and foremost. They ultimately Do Not Care if fans complain that the Grand Conclusion to the Epic Saga was mishandled - there is no number of upset fans which would cause them to change the animation of a single mote of dust falling through the frame or alter the inflection of a single line of VA. The people empowered to make decisions about the deployment of expensive development resources care about one thing, and one thing only: separating consumers from their hard-earned (or not, whatever) money. I suspect that they saw their sales numbers stalling out, as a result of bad word-of-mouth and a glut of used copies of the game flooding the market much earlier than anyone expected, and that's why their response came when it did.

And that's why I'm not moved to transports of rapturous gratitude by EA/BioWare's decision to try to patch up the ending, nor even by the decision to do so in the form of free DLC. They really thought - and from their public statements, continue to think - that the ending as originally released was good enough, but the market said "Nuh uh" in that very special way that markets have. Fixing the ending is a business decision on the company's part, made in the hope of restarting the cash train ASAP and for the least possible cost. "Artistic integrity" be damned, expanding and clarifying the existing ending is faster and cheaper than scrapping the current unholy mess and starting from scratch; and "the goodness of their hearts" has nothing on a cold-blooded calculation that charging for an Ending Patch DLC at this point really would kill the franchise (and possibly the studio) stone dead.

[Luzahn]

Meh, the end result is the same. The motivations are inconsequential.

However, I'd argue that, while the publisher is generally required to go for profit above all else, the game studios often do look after their fans and care about the product.

[BRC]

I don't see why it can't be both. There are both artistic AND business reasons to release the Extended Cut DLC.

Artistically, the Audience is angry which means that Bioware failed in their duty as storytellers and entertainers. The Extended Cut DLC allows them to fix some of those problems.

The Extended Cut DLC is good for a variety of reasons.

First it means they don't actually have to Change the story, which allows them to maintain their "Artistic integrity", and personally I think that can mollify many fan complaints. I was less Angry about Shepard and the Amazing Technicolor Ending than I was about the fact that it's what we got INSTEAD of closure on any number of storylines (What happened to the Fleets, Galactic Civilization, the future of the Krogan, ect). I can understand them not wanting to change the events of the ending, I think they should, but I understand why they won't.

Second: it's faster. The fans are angry, and they demand things NOW! Mass Effect 3 is a tainted product until they get this out. Since the complaints are story-based anyway there really isn't a need to add more gameplay. They can streamline their DLC cash cow by having one group work on appeasing the fans, while the gameplay people work on DLC, either for Multiplayer (This pack was free, but you know there are going to be more), or for eventual Single Player DLC that the writers have already vaguely sketched out (Like, for example, taking back Omega from Cerberus, which just screams "Cut Content" which itself screams "Future DLC").


Third: In terms of Business, this is damage control. Fans are willing to call "Boycott" very easily, but they rarely follow through when the next game comes out. However, outrage on the level of Mass Effect 3 might actually do the trick, especially since Dragon Age 2 had such a poor showing. If they do this DLC, it proves they learned their lesson, and will do better next time.
Okay, it doesn't PROVE anything, but it implies it.

I doubt Bioware thinks that the Ending was perfect. They may have thought that was the case on release, but the impression I've been getting is that they're very aware of how much they screwed up.

[Trazoi]

Third: In terms of Business, this is damage control. Fans are willing to call "Boycott" very easily, but they rarely follow through when the next game comes out. However, outrage on the level of Mass Effect 3 might actually do the trick, especially since Dragon Age 2 had such a poor showing. If they do this DLC, it proves they learned their lesson, and will do better next time.
Okay, it doesn't PROVE anything, but it implies it.

Judging from my own feelings as a single player RPG fan, this is going to be killer. I bought Mass Effect 3 near release day because of the strength of Bioware's writing in Mass Effects 1 & 2. By allowing that ending to ME3, I know my reaction to Dragon Age 3 is going to be "does the ending suck? Maybe I should borrow it first."

Unfortunately for Bioware and EA, the damage is already done. The DLC can't hurt (unless it somehow manages to wreck things even more) but it's more the loss of trust that's going to hurt in the long run.

[Anarion]

Initial ending post

I enjoyed reading that. You, of course, have the right to wreck terrible vengeance on both SiuiS and myself at your convenience. I will look forward to my decades of torture with a smile.

On a more serious note, I feel like I'm one of the only people that didn't mind what the ending was supposed to be. I thought it was way too short, vague, confusing, and utterly out of left field. But the idea of synthesis as the end result was something that I didn't really have a problem with, especially since I was totally unwilling to destroy the Geth.

[thegurullamen]

Maybe that's what happened, and Joker smiles and the end because it's really Shepard, and EDI's Shepard, and everyone is Shepard and Shepard is now everyone in the galaxy...

Creepy.

I will pay handsomely for a YouTube video with

Spoiler

Show

shopped over the face of every visible creature in the Synthesis ending.

[Luzahn]

Aaaugh! Why is that a thing? Who would do that?

My Shepards tend to be grim, sole survivor types. That's just unnatural.

[SiuiS]

I hope, SiuiS and Anarion, since you two were the ones who egged me on to complete the game in it's current state to see my reaction, that it was entirely worth it... (And yes, rest of thread, this rant is entirely their fault.)

I was testing a hypothesis. I couldn't tell you that, though.

What, the end of the trilogy doesn't even involve a proper boss fight? Really? Because no, fighting another round of the exact same monsters in waves does not constitute a boss fight, Thanix Missile mission, nor does three husks and a marauder.

This here, I wanted to see if you came up with it.
I suspect this whole farce would have been easier to swallow if there were some actual cathartic release, instead of build up of tension and... Sort of a sustained tension until it gutters out.

[LordShotGun]

I don't know why we couldn't get harbinger as a final boss. Say that he is guarding the transport beam and has to be destroyed. Fly a few ships in to get blown up and forget the whole running into a death beam sequence.

Have harby land and/or have Shepard board him. Blow him up from the inside while having a conversation about reaper motives. This injures Shepard similar to the death beam.

Injured Shep takes the space beam elevator and does the whole crucible thing.

Bing, bang boom. Not a huge change, you can even just have husks attacking inside harby instead of a boss character.

Time? Money? Disc Space? What was the issue?

[Zevox]

On a more serious note, I feel like I'm one of the only people that didn't mind what the ending was supposed to be. I thought it was way too short, vague, confusing, and utterly out of left field. But the idea of synthesis as the end result was something that I didn't really have a problem with, especially since I was totally unwilling to destroy the Geth.

In that much I agree with you. I find the Synthesis ending to be an interesting idea, and having something that major be the conclusion of a conflict this huge seems appropriate. Personally I also consider it the best ending, since the others involve genocide of the Geth (and EDI) or trusting in a vague, hardly-explained method of controlling the Reapers, which I've been arguing for the entire game is a bad idea, to keep them from being a problem. On the flip side though I can at least see why others might take one of the other two choices, which makes this a rare case of genuine moral ambiguity in a Bioware game.

The execution was awful all around of course - the biggest thing I worry about with the Extended Cut is that the Catalyst is still going to be around, and I see no way to make him make sense - but the base idea of that final decision point isn't bad.

Zevox

[Pronounceable]

DLC talk

Since ME3, whenever someone says Bioware I pavlovly reply "**** Bioware!" They might manage to make ending less terribad with DLC but there's no way they're gonna fix that. With a single move they managed to get right under Lucas on my ****list.

Time? Money? Disc Space? What was the issue?

[airquote]Artistic licence[/airquote].

He has a hot robot girlfriend and a brand new USB penis?

This is signature material.

[Derthric]

Judging from my own feelings as a single player RPG fan, this is going to be killer. I bought Mass Effect 3 near release day because of the strength of Bioware's writing in Mass Effects 1 & 2. By allowing that ending to ME3, I know my reaction to Dragon Age 3 is going to be "does the ending suck? Maybe I should borrow it first."

Unfortunately for Bioware and EA, the damage is already done. The DLC can't hurt (unless it somehow manages to wreck things even more) but it's more the loss of trust that's going to hurt in the long run.

I wont be pre-ordering DA3 period. I pre-ordered everything from Bioware in the past 10 years.

However I have the path back to glory for Bioware. Jade Empire 2, make it happen.

I don't know why we couldn't get harbinger as a final boss. Say that he is guarding the transport beam and has to be destroyed. Fly a few ships in to get blown up and forget the whole running into a death beam sequence.

Have harby land and/or have Shepard board him. Blow him up from the inside while having a conversation about reaper motives. This injures Shepard similar to the death beam.

Injured Shep takes the space beam elevator and does the whole crucible thing.

Bing, bang boom. Not a huge change, you can even just have husks attacking inside harby instead of a boss character.

Time? Money? Disc Space? What was the issue?

Its because end bosses are too "video gamey". Their words not mine.

I think they fell into a group think situation and became fixated on the TIM as Saren v2.0 and couldn't make it work and just walked away. I think they focused on TIM because no other antagonist was as fleshed out, by that point Kai-Sue is dead. The next closest thing we have to a recurring villain after that is Miranda's dad and Balak. Balak is on your side or not around depending on your choices and Papa Lawson, well he dead. That leaves Harby and they burned the best on foot vs reaper fight on Ranny.

[Marnath]

*snip* That leaves Harby and they burned the best on foot vs reaper fight on Ranny.

Normandy space invaders-style mini-game go!

[Psyren]

Okay, lots to reply to.

The Reapers are synthetic life

Actually, according to EDI in ME2, Reapers are already a hybrid.

Eh, maybe the escapist itself has been decent, but several of their staff have been complete ***** about ME3.

"Moviebob" was out in full force insulting people on twitter, and Jim Sterling claimed everyone who didn't like ME3 was a homophobe.

1) Those two are not "staff" so much as they are "subcontractors."

2) Bob was pretty acerbic I agree. Jim was joking though - he was referencing his recent episode making fun of the usual "Shepard shouldn't be gay" trolling crowd.

Also, the Geth owed us after they didn't bother to take care of the Heretics.
And joining the Reapers en-masse in 3. Filthy Legion-crucifying traitors.

I'm still holding out hope that the Destruction-pulse just disables their reaper code and brings them back to the lovable old hive-minded Geth.

I hope not. If it poses no real threat to the Geth at all then there's no longer anything interesting about that choice - "Destroy" becomes the "right one" and the other two may as well not exist. They should only make Destroy the "best" ending in that fashion if they plan on making it canon, imo.

Say what?
...
Fixing the ending is a business decision on the company's part, made in the hope of restarting the cash train ASAP and for the least possible cost. "Artistic integrity" be damned, expanding and clarifying the existing ending is faster and cheaper than scrapping the current unholy mess and starting from scratch; and "the goodness of their hearts" has nothing on a cold-blooded calculation that charging for an Ending Patch DLC at this point really would kill the franchise (and possibly the studio) stone dead.

Obviously doing nothing would have sorely hurt sales of any DLC they had planned (single-player in particular.) But I disagree that "clarification" DLC is the cheapest way out for them - scrapping the whole thing or canonizing Indoctrination Theory would be much easier than expanding and personalizing the three current endings, imo. It doesn't get much cheaper than "We fire the gun and blow up the Reapers."

They didn't do that - because, yes, of artistic integrity, which is actually a term that means something.

I enjoyed reading that. You, of course, have the right to wreck terrible vengeance on both SiuiS and myself at your convenience. I will look forward to my decades of torture with a smile.

On a more serious note, I feel like I'm one of the only people that didn't mind what the ending was supposed to be. I thought it was way too short, vague, confusing, and utterly out of left field. But the idea of synthesis as the end result was something that I didn't really have a problem with, especially since I was totally unwilling to destroy the Geth.

This. Hell, if they can clarify it sufficiently I might even be fine with Control - it avoids both the ethical problems of changing the galaxy unilaterally and the metaphysical possibility of stagnating evolution. (I don't think it does the latter personally, but it could easily go either way. Rather, I think Synthesis eschews natural evolution, in favor of deliberate/planned changes. Even AIs continually self-improve after all, and none of the ones in the series are perfect, for all their power.)

[Luzahn]

Its because end bosses are too "video gamey". Their words not mine.

I can kind of see their point here. The end of a game like mass effect really should be a moral confrontation instead of a physical one. Dragon age Origins got away with a physical fight because the boss wasn't the big moral dilemma.

I hope not. If it poses no real threat to the Geth at all then there's no longer anything interesting about that choice - "Destroy" becomes the "right one" and the other two may as well not exist. They should only make Destroy the "best" ending in that fashion if they plan on making it canon, imo.

My stance on the ending is that forcing the reapers to serve our will through Control should have been a moral goal of its own, following the Illusive Man's reasoning, as opposed to destroying a useful resource. Throwing in the Geth's death doesn't make destroy the "best" choice, just the paragon's choice, corrupting Control from an objective of its own into just "I don't want the Geth to die."

Besides, wouldn't de-upgrading the Geth still provide enough moral incentive not to do it?

[Zevox]

I can kind of see their point here. The end of a game like mass effect really should be a moral confrontation instead of a physical one. Dragon age Origins got away with a physical fight because the boss wasn't the big moral dilemma.

Can't say I agree. While I like some moral ambiguity in my stories, this is hardly one where the main conflict has ever been a moral matter. It's a story about a race of giant mecha space-Cthulus trying to wipe out all advanced organic life. That's pretty clear-cut morally. Having disagreements over how to stop them doesn't exactly change that much.

Zevox

[VanBuren]

I think they fell into a group think situation and became fixated on the TIM as Saren v2.0 and couldn't make it work and just walked away. I think they focused on TIM because no other antagonist was as fleshed out, by that point Kai-Sue is dead. The next closest thing we have to a recurring villain after that is Miranda's dad and Balak. Balak is on your side or not around depending on your choices and Papa Lawson, well he dead. That leaves Harby and they burned the best on foot vs reaper fight on Ranny.

Let's be honest here, there's no way Shepard could have fought Harbinger on foot and not had that been a a worse asspull than anything else in the series.

[Luzahn]

Can't say I agree. While I like some moral ambiguity in my stories, this is hardly one where the main conflict has ever been a moral matter. It's a story about a race of giant mecha space-Cthulus trying to wipe out all advanced organic life. That's pretty clear-cut morally. Having disagreements over how to stop them doesn't exactly change that much.

Zevox

I see your point with the reapers; they could have used a boss-fight resolution. I still feel like the game as a whole should conclude with a moral debate, however. Fits with the theme of the games a bit better. Take ME2. Sure, the end boss was the mini-reaper. However, the final conflict was the debate with the illusive man, and your decision on whether to defy him or not. (I assume renegades don't defy him? I've never played a renegade far enough to find out.)

[Derthric]

I can kind of see their point here. The end of a game like mass effect really should be a moral confrontation instead of a physical one. Dragon age Origins got away with a physical fight because the boss wasn't the big moral dilemma.

I agree on the principle. Just not the term they used. The final confrontation with TIM was perfect for him. Our primary mode of interacting with him was killing his pet super-ninja, stealing his stuff and talking to him. So using the convo system for that works very well

The problem is that the overall arc is settled by narrator dictation and not anything interactive. If they felt a boss wouldn't work there that's fine. And I honestly think that's the real case, that putting a boss fight in for the sake of a boss fight is video gamey. But lack of a confrontation with the evil force of space-cthulus was a colossal mistake from a gameplay perspective.

My stance on the ending is that forcing the reapers to serve our will through Control should have been a moral goal of its own, following the Illusive Man's reasoning, as opposed to destroying a useful resource. Throwing in the Geth's death doesn't make destroy the "best" choise, just the paragon's choice, corrupting Control from an objective of its own into just "I don't want the Geth to die."

Besides, wouldn't de-upgrading the Geth still provide enough moral incentive not to do it?

I think you nailed this problem right on. Control feels like its just sitting there, a vestigial choice. Its just there.

And then of course there is the problem with "lose everything you have". I am going to be dead anyway so what does that mean. It is up there with "You have hope, more than you know" in the lines that are meaningless faux intellectualism.

*this was supposed to post earlier but got eaten or something.

[Anarion]

I'd like to expand a bit more on the endings themselves because I actually think they did a great job with the ideas behind the three choices and simply failed at the execution. Here's how I saw it when I was playing.

1. Destroy: To Shephard, this is the immediate right answer. Until you hear that it will affect EDI and the Geth. If it didn't affect the Geth there is literally no way that you would ever pick a different option. Shephard is a soldier and his duty is to stop the reapers. Destroy gives the clearest result of that. I also think this is correctly colored as the renegade option: a ruthless Shephard wouldn't think twice about sacrificing the Geth to save everyone else.

2. Control: This is the immediately least desirable outcome and the one that would probably disgust most Shephard's right off the bat because it so closely tracks TIM's beliefs. But I also think this one is colored correctly as the Paragon ending. Because control is about cooperation. The reapers get up and fly away, but now Shephard's mind directs them. So, maybe they come back and rebuild all the mass relays for everyone. Or maybe they get controlled, fly off and then Shephard just has them all shoot each other off in dark space, leading to the destroy ending without hurting the Geth. If you like the galaxy as it is, this ending probably offers the best possible result, albeit at the expense of Shephard's life.

3. Synthesis: The weird ending. Because it's not explained in detail, it's the greatest unknown. We can conceptualize what the galaxy would look like after destroy, and even after control to some extent. But synthesis leads to a galaxy that's totally different than what it has been up to this point. Yet it's also an incredibly attractive option. It ends the conflict, spares the Geth, and doesn't have the nagging worry of control that maybe it will wear off. It's also the only meaingful solution if you do believe Starkid. And there's no particular reason to believe him, but if you do, synthesis is presented as the "right" option.

[Psyren]

My stance on the ending is that forcing the reapers to serve our will through Control should have been a moral goal of its own, following the Illusive Man's reasoning, as opposed to destroying a useful resource.

Without the distaste of Synthesis and the desire to save the Geth driving you, nobody would even consider Control. It's been shown throughout the series that attempting to control Reapers just makes you their pawn; it will always be the last option anyone considers.

"I don't want the Geth to die" is every bit as much a driver as "I don't want Shepard to die." At least, for a Paragon.

Besides, wouldn't de-upgrading the Geth still provide enough moral incentive not to do it?

Not at all - the only reason they upgraded was self-preservation. Now that they either (a) have peace with the Creators or (b) have no more Creators to worry about, the "lesser" existence of needing consensus for higher thinking would be an acceptable sacrifice to kill the Reapers, one that I'm sure Legion would gladly make at this juncture if that was what was required. We know that level of existence wasn't particularly onerous for them, after all.

I still feel like the game as a whole should conclude with a moral debate, however.

It actually did - and the best kind too, the one in which there is no clear right answer. It just needed more details around the decisions themselves for a more informed decision on Shepard's part.

[Avilan the Grey]

I was being partially facetious, but the Synthesis ending in its current state seems to do the least in ensuring a final defeat for the reapers. Supposedly it depicts the reapers just flying off in the same way as control, but without the Shepard influence.

But the point with that choice is NOT to defeat the reapers. It is to render their quest unnecessary and pointless. The Reapers do what they do to stop synthetics from killing organics. By going this route, there are no synthetics or organics anymore.

[Aeryr]

"Synthesized", I think. "Sintetizado" in spanish... in the biologically-used sense. Much like a plant synthesizes new stuff from raw materials, the new people are basically the result of taking organics and synthetics as raw materials and creating something new from them.

A better word would be Metamorphosis. Its somehow part of a final evolution of life, because evolution has a goal*. And is presented as the growth of life from its present binary form, organic synthetic, into a new form with no distinction between the two.

I often wonder how a sentient on some world in their classical age reacts to Synthesis occuring. I can see it as someone marching off through their version of Athens or something ready to debate if stars are the eyes of the Gods or holes in the Celestial realm. And then BAM green light. Now you have just be fundamentally altered, darn those gods are finicky.

*It does not. Someone at Bioware went to the Brannon Braga school of poor scriptwriting.

I see were you are going. I still cannot feel comfortable with a word that is not synthetic. Synthetised is good, it describes the fact that they are being transformed into synthetics as a opposed that they are created as synthetics from scratch but I still don't see the result as something not synthetic (in the plant example the plant doesn't stop being a plant for synthetizing nutrients). If the geth were to become part geth part organic (Shepard) would they cease to be synthetic? I don't see how. If Asari are to become part Asari part organic? synthetic? (doesn't synthesis fuse people with Shepard's DNA?) would they be more organic? I still don't see how. Being part X part Y and becoming that by outside influence fits my definition of synthetic (I had searched for a definition of synthetic in ME wiki but haven't found one).

Metamorphosis is great, it evocates a lot of things, it might not be the best course of evolution nor the final but it is a huge step. But even if it might hint better the idea of change to become something new I still see that something new as created by space magic fusing the original with Shepard's thingie and that still results in a synthetic being formed with the original "DNA" (if it had) combined with Shepard DNA and green flavoured magic.

But the point with that choice is NOT to defeat the reapers. It is to render their quest unnecessary and pointless. The Reapers do what they do to stop synthetics from killing organics. By going this route, there are no synthetics or organics anymore.

Their quest would also be unnecessary and pointless if everyone were organic or synthetic. The first could be achieved by just spamming the destroy synthetic button (or shooting it repeteadly). The second is my problem with the synthesis ending.

[Trazoi]

I'd like to expand a bit more on the endings themselves because I actually think they did a great job with the ideas behind the three choices and simply failed at the execution.

They all suck for Paragon Shepards though. A huge theme of the series is tolerance for all life, no matter how different the species, organic or synthetic. Another is freedom to make choices, like giving the rachni, krogan and geth a chance.

And then Shepard is given three choices - either commit genocide (destroy), indoctrinate and enslave an entire species (control), or forcibly uplift everyone to be a cyborg so everyone is the same (synthesis). None of those felt like a Paragon choice to me.

[Derthric]

But the point with that choice is NOT to defeat the reapers. It is to render their quest unnecessary and pointless. The Reapers do what they do to stop synthetics from killing organics. By going this route, there are no synthetics or organics anymore.

But the thing is this overriding conflict was not, at its base, synthetic v organic. But rather Reapers vs all space faring sentient life, both organic and synthetic. The Catalyst twists this at the end into synthetic vs organic and that to me is just a poor choice on Bioware's part. They twist the plot at the last moment, and in such a way to make the story spin off its axis. Its why Synthesis conjures such negative reactions. Its the answer to a question no one was asking.

I see were you are going. I still cannot feel comfortable with a word that is not synthetic. Synthetised is good, it describes the fact that they are being transformed into synthetics as a opposed that they are created as synthetics from scratch but I still don't see the result as something not synthetic (in the plant example the plant doesn't stop being a plant for synthetizing nutrients). If the geth were to become part geth part organic (Shepard) would they cease to be synthetic? I don't see how. If Asari are to become part Asari part organic? synthetic? (doesn't synthesis fuse people with Shepard's DNA?) would they be more organic? I still don't see how. Being part X part Y and becoming that by outside influence fits my definition of synthetic (I had searched for a definition of synthetic in ME wiki but haven't found one).

Metamorphosis is great, it evocates a lot of things, it might not be the best course of evolution nor the final but it is a huge step. But even if it might hint better the idea of change to become something new I still see that something new as created by space magic fusing the original with Shepard's thingie and that still results in a synthetic being formed with the original "DNA" (if it had) combined with Shepard DNA and green flavoured magic.
.

This still makes the problem with calling it "the final stage of evolution" is that it implies we have the traits already to become whatever we become in Synthesis. Evolution does not have a set path, it does not determine our future but rather it promotes those with traits that inherently aid in survival.

Also its not Shep's DNA that's being diffused but using the fusion of Shep and the Catalyst as the framework to imprint upon others.

[Avilan the Grey]

I wont be pre-ordering DA3 period. I pre-ordered everything from Bioware in the past 10 years.

Agreed; I pre-ordered DA2 and swore I would never pre-order a game from them again, and then I pre-ordered ME3 anyway.

Now stand by my word; I will not buy a single Bioware game again until at least a month after release so I can read EVERY review and EVERY fan reaction first.

[Zorg]

As one of the more vociferous critics of the ending it may come as a surprise that I don't mind them on a conceptual level. I do think that everything after the line "what do you want me to do?" is poorly scripted and executed, however.
If this DLC adds more choices or options, so the "16 endings" are actually distinct and offer a wide range of endings - that we get to see the consequences of - I'll be very happy...

if I get my little blue children of course ;)


But until the extended cut drops I won't be downloading or buying any BioWare products.


My paragon Shep took destroy- control was too iffy, synthesis was too much like what TIM was doing to his troops by the sounds of it. Did feel bad about the Geth though, but there was no other choice.

[Aotrs Commander]

I enjoyed reading that. You, of course, have the right to wreck terrible vengeance on both SiuiS and myself at your convenience. I will look forward to my decades of torture with a smile.

Why would I waste my ire on you two, when there are actually deserving targets to expend it on?

On a more serious note, I feel like I'm one of the only people that didn't mind what the ending was supposed to be. I thought it was way too short, vague, confusing, and utterly out of left field. But the idea of synthesis as the end result was something that I didn't really have a problem with, especially since I was totally unwilling to destroy the Geth.

I very much DID mind.

I am way past fed-up with these writers assuming that everything must have a dark/grim/artsy/philosophical ending involving ridiculous amounts of sacrifice, of the idea that nothing means anything unless lots of people die at the very end¹. If they want to write that stuff, they can bog off to the indy games, or better yet, write fanfiction or something, because it's not something I want to hear about anymore.

I am BEYOND.TIRED. of the whole "what constitues a life-form" tropes, of the "technological verses biological" tropes, of shades of grey EVERYWHERE in EVERY SINGLE THING. It is no longer clever. It is no longer interesting. It is no less bigoted, offensive and humanocentric now than it was when the idea was first thought up; and YES, I do find the whole debate on what constitutes life based on physical structure to be bigoted specism by even asking the question in the first place. I find it now as stupid, cliched and insipid as the EXTREME of the ninties, and it needs to STOP.

Even when well-executed like in most of the ME trilogy, the Geth stuff was causing me to roll my eyes and snort derisively, as there was never any question I wasn't going to treat them exactly the same as everyone else.



Yes, my ire has not cooled overnight...

Its because end bosses are too "video gamey". Their words not mine.

And that (their) attitude is both indefensible and utterly risable, especially in a games company, especially in a game that has been mass-marketed to as wide a mainstream gaming audience as possible, especially in light of the fact they did exactly that in the first two games and every single game before.

I think the answer is either EA forced them to come up with crap, or, if this was actually what they originally intended, the guy responsible wants to be flat-out sacked, because he clearly has no place in writing for a computer game.

Computer games are not art. That doesn't say they cannot be; but frankly, especially when geared for a mainstream audience, they shouldn't be, because that's not what the vast majority of people actually WANT. And EA and all the big industry is moving away from a product, and towards a service (indeed, things like World of warcraft already ARE.)

Art may be many things, but a service is not one of them. If you offer a service, you then have to do what the customer wants, or you don't get customers. I wouldn't tolerate a claim of artistic integrity from my broadband company, I'm damned well not tolerating it from a computer games company either. You want my money, you WILL give me what I want, not what you think I want.

Agreed; I pre-ordered DA2 and swore I would never pre-order a game from them again, and then I pre-ordered ME3 anyway.

Now stand by my word; I will not buy a single Bioware game again until at least a month after release so I can read EVERY review and EVERY fan reaction first.

I did exactly that, and I intend to do the same. ME 3 was their last chance. To be fair, until the last ten minutes, they redeemed themselves, but that was just so utterly insulting, so utterly incompetant on the part of the writers who came up with the idea, the quality control people that let them do it, so risable that they burned that bridge totally.



And, changing the subject slightly, if they were going to have crappy downer ending, why the hell did they try to make the Catalyst sympathetic? May as well go the whole hog, since your efforts throughout the game have meant nothing anyway, and rub it in? Why not have it smugly arrogant, taking the form of, I dunno, Saren or the TIM or Harbinger (or all three in sequence) gloating about the fact that, even though it knows that Shepard is going to kill it at long-last, and that's it's damned angry about it, that it also knows it's going to take huge amounts of the galaxy with it. Make it obvious that there's no good choices (as if it wasn't already), and that at the last, all Shepard can do is try to migitate the damage caused by this insane sociopath (and at least let Shepard (try to) punch it in the face or the console or something).



¹For a kick-off, it cheapens the sacrifice of all those on the way - Mordin, Thane, Kaiden (or Ashley).

[Trazoi]

I am way past fed-up with these writers assuming that everything must have a dark/grim/artsy/philosophical ending involving ridiculous amounts of sacrifice, of the idea that nothing means anything unless lots of people die at the very end.

The more surpising thing to me is that the rest of ME3 was a quite dark game involving ridiculous amounts of sacrifice, but the writer of the ending decided to be "deep" it required a totally fake cheesy sacrifice to round it all up. That's what flabbergasts me the most I think - that Bioware known for its generally good writing let that happen.

I think the answer is either EA forced them to come up with crap, or, if this was actually what they originally intended, the guy responsible wants to be flat-out sacked, because he clearly has no place in writing for a computer game.

From what I've read on other threads, the original writer who left after ME2 to work on SWToR was going to make the ultimate threat "Dark Energy", a side-effect of the Mass Effect relays that makes all the stars go boom. The Reapers were trying to stop it and found that a human-based Reaper was ideal. The final decision was to either stop the Reapers and let the galaxy take their chances coming up with another solution, or sacrifice humanity to stop the threat.

There's also another rumour about a post by a ME3 writer about some disagreements over the ending of the game. While it's denied I have to say it rings true; if it's a fake or troll it's a darn good one.