12 réponses à ce sujet

[BillKephart]

Spoilers follow, you have been warned. 

The crucible is a stupid macguffin and everybody knows it. There is a very easy alteration that could have been made to the story which would deliver a psychologically satisfying ending and would also be much more believable. 

Here is all you have to do:

Nix the crucible. Rather than have the goal be to build the crucible have the goal be to disable and capture a reaper. Rather than devoting resources to build this Prothean thing nobody understands have the combined scientists of the galaxy reverse engineering this captured reaper in order to retrofit the fleets you gather with reaper tech (in other words reaper lasers on your ships which can actually take out reapers in numbers). How well your scientists do depends on how much you fill up the war asset bar. 

You could literally do this with just eliminating a few missions and adding one or two more. It would not take more development resources. The story beats would work like this:

Act 1. Escape Earth, convince a few allies to join you, set a trap and capture a single reaper at great cost (your fleet gets mauled about as bad as Soverign did to the citadel fleet in ME1).

Act 2. Continue gathering more species as allies, get more resources for your reaper reverse engineering project, buy time for your scientists at all costs.

Act 3. Lead your new combined galactic fleet outfitted with reaper tech in a conventional battle of annihilation. 

As I said the outcome of the final battle can be dependent on the already existing war asset system. The worst ending can have the reapers forced to retreat to dark space (to return in another 50k years) as well as Earth, the combined fleet, Shepard, and the Normandy largely destroyed. The best ending can have the reapers utterly annihilated in a conventional battle with Earth, the fleet, Shepard and the Normandy mostly intact. A middle ending or two at a continuum between these extremes can also be included. No relays have to be destroyed. The galaxy is saved. Your perfect ending is actually a happy ending. 

Finish it off with little mini epilogues for every character such as in Jade Empire or Dragon age. Garrus if he survives goes off to lead the Turians, Wrex leads the Krogan, and so on. Renegade Shepard can become dictator of the humans who are now unquestioned overlord of all other species. Paragon Shepard can be the new human councilor on the Citadel leading the galaxy in peace and tolerance in equality with the other species. Alternatively Shepard can go live quietly with his/her love interest, etc. They probably ought to give you a choice (similar to the end of Dragon Age Origins) where they can ask, "what are you going to do now?" 

So there you have it. The reapers are gone, the galaxy is saved, and the best ending is an actual happy ending. All you would have to do is add a "capture the reaper" mission with perhaps your team battling it out with husks on the reaper itself (you are in space suits) while your fleet distracts the reaper and you fight your way to the reaper core or something. Otherwise replace all conversation references to the crucible with references to your reaper reverse engineering project and you are golden. 

It is too bad I'm not a writer at Bioware. Can anybody honestly tell me they would not prefer this ending? 

Modifié par BillKephart, 08 mars 2012 - 01:50 .

[AndyXTheXGamer360]

I like it.
I want to be with Tali, not dead or stranded on earth not knowing what she's doing (Vakarian better keep his hands to himself =) )

[ratzerman]

Here's how you fix the ending: give us an option to crash the Normandy on Earth.

I can deal with everything else. But the magical transportation to Gilligan's Planet infuriates me.

[Raltar]

The only problem with this is that those working on REing the reaper tech would be indoctrinated. Even dead reapers can indoctrinate you. Hell, reaper artifacts can do that.

[frylock23]

ratzerman wrote...

Here's how you fix the ending: give us an option to crash the Normandy on Earth.

I can deal with everything else. But the magical transportation to Gilligan's Planet infuriates me.

I could do either/or with these suggestions.

Either run with the op or just don't crash the Normandy on Gilligan's planet it is neither romantic nor humane.

[BanditGR]

In all honesty, I'd take almost anything that is slightly more complicated than 'choose the color' of your Deus Ex...I mean ME3 ending.

[darthoptimus003]

i like that to bad you dont work for bioware that makes more since then what we got right now

[BillKephart]

The only reason I can think of for having the crucible in ME3 is the new mass effect game which surely must be at least in planning stages requires the relays to be destroyed. The only reason the relays need to be destroyed is they want to warp forward the timeline. The reason I say that is you can't really have mass effect without quick intergalactic travel. The mass effect feel requires you have all these interesting species interacting. So we have to warp forward by putting the galaxy on hold until the relays or some other form of quick space travel can be rebuilt which could take hundreds or thousands of years.

But I don't think this is necessary. You don't need to destroy the relays to move forward the timeline. You don't have to wreck the mass effect galaxy to set up another sequel. There are other things you can do to move the story forward without pushing a massive galactic reset button.

Modifié par BillKephart, 08 mars 2012 - 02:25 .

[BillKephart]

Other than what I have mentioned I think this is a great game in pretty much every way. The only other things I would change are letting Wrex be a squadmate and having Tali's face be her voice actress edited to look a little more alien (give her weird ears, glowing eyes, markings, whatever) instead of a stock photo. If Quarians have to be space elves and look near human you might as well just use Tali's voice actress. You have matched real life faces to voices before, nothing unprecedented about it.

If I really had my druthers Quarians would look closer to "greys", ie. pale, hairless, and very sterile looking. But I can understand the need to make love interests look attractive (though I think the Garrus romance and how well received it is kind of shows they don't have to be. People get more attached to personalities than looks, especially in games).

I literally played ME2 right before ME3 so I noticed every improvement very clearly. This is a very good game. With only a few changes it would be my favorite game ever.

[BillKephart]

 I've been harping on this a lot in other threads but the origin and motivation of the reapers is really poorly done. Since this is the "how I would write mass effect better" thread I have an entirely different idea.

Needless to say the creepy kid and the hokey dream sequences just don't fit. I would completely do away with them.

Suppose in the attempt to reverse engineer the reaper EDI gets into its mind and discovers the origins of the reapers. 

An ancient spacefaring race millions or billions of years ago was obsessed with its own mortality so they began a process of cybernetics augmentation to artificially extend their lifespans. They are the creators of the mass relays and the citadel. Eventually they were able to network their minds as the Geth do. But eventually they were faced with the limits of their organic bodies. They discovered a way to fuse their organic parts with synthetic at great cost of pain and suffering (the process we see with the humans in tubes making the human reaper). 

As a society (some without consent) they undergo this process and fuse themselves into giant hive mind ships (the first reapers). But as soon as they complete this great undertaking they discover they have made a mistake. It is an "I have no mouth and I must scream" situation. They have cut themselves off from organic evolution and external stimuli. Their ascension to immortality has become a prison.

In order to sustain themselves (they don't have unlimited energy due to the law of conservation) the majority must go into hibernation and wait for a new civilization to arise so they can harvest their DNA and technological innovations. Otherwise they will become stagnant and dormant. Over the course of several cycles they begin to evolve (harvesting life is the only way they can evolve) and formalize the cycle of galactic extinction and the trap of the citadel. A few reapers are destroyed in each new cycle. Eventually all the first reapers of the original civilization which created the reapers are destroyed and the reapers no longer know their own origins. They believe they "have no beginning" as Sovereign said. They forget their purpose and goals. They just go along with the harvesting of organics every 50k years because this is what they have always done. They are now basically unfeeling monsters who commit genocide to sustain themselves because they don't know better. 

Now THAT is a menacing antagonist back story. 

[FyreSyder]

BillKephart wrote...

An ancient spacefaring race millions or billions of years ago was obsessed with its own mortality so they began a process of cybernetics augmentation to artificially extend their lifespans. They are the creators of the mass relays and the citadel. Eventually they were able to network their minds as the Geth do. But eventually they were faced with the limits of their organic bodies. They discovered a way to fuse their organic parts with synthetic at great cost of pain and suffering (the process we see with the humans in tubes making the human reaper). 

As a society (some without consent) they undergo this process and fuse themselves into giant hive mind ships (the first reapers). But as soon as they complete this great undertaking they discover they have made a mistake. It is an "I have no mouth and I must scream" situation. They have cut themselves off from organic evolution and external stimuli. Their ascension to immortality has become a prison.

In order to sustain themselves (they don't have unlimited energy due to the law of conservation) the majority must go into hibernation and wait for a new civilization to arise so they can harvest their DNA and technological innovations. Otherwise they will become stagnant and dormant. Over the course of several cycles they begin to evolve (harvesting life is the only way they can evolve) and formalize the cycle of galactic extinction and the trap of the citadel. A few reapers are destroyed in each new cycle. Eventually all the first reapers of the original civilization which created the reapers are destroyed and the reapers no longer know their own origins. They believe they "have no beginning" as Sovereign said. They forget their purpose and goals. They just go along with the harvesting of organics every 50k years because this is what they have always done. They are now basically unfeeling monsters who commit genocide to sustain themselves because they don't know better. 

This 'myth' that you've written for the Reapers makes sense to me AND it still upholds the mystery I think....Brilliant idea...excellent Sci-Fi....If only you worked for Bioware.
Also, I like the fact that you've addressed what Soverign said on Virmire. I always thought Reapers were boasting one of three things:

1. He was telling the truth....they actually are eternal with no beginning and no end. (Very scary and mystical idea) 

2. He was lying to trick or scare them for villainous purposes. (Possible, but boring and cliche)

Or 3. Reapers are delusional about their nature and origin. (Most likely and makes for better drama)

You used the 3rd one brilliantly...only many billions of years can make the Reapers delude themselves into thinking that they're eternal and inevitible...

[zingro]

Great BillKephart ! Lots of path's to choose and exciting story sounds like a great conclusion worthy of Mass Effect without giving Shepard and fans a nasty ending kick to the face while she is down.

Some great climactic ending directions the player could go, now all Bioware has to do is pay you a finder's fee and start making it........

Anything is better than what we were given.

[ed87]

I like all the ideas here, but I dont think there is any 'ultimate' idea on how to end the story. There are definately ideas that fit with the story and themes better, but thats about it. The biggest redemption to the ending would be to restore player choice. That way, you could still have the deus ex ending as an option, and the writers will still have a way to express that idea without force feeding it to the majority of players.

The point is to give the player a real choice on how to end their story. If players could steer the end-point of the story into a set number of alternatives that are manageable for the writers, then that would be the ultimate form of player choice. ME3 would have been cemented into gaming history for achieving that.

However if that was too hard for Bioware and its limited EA funding, then thats not a problem. Going for the linear approach is fine. Its just a shame that they used such an unoriginal and odd ending for the 'definitive' end of Shepards story. This is where they can learn from Square who write the Final Fantasy series. Endings in that franchise have never disappointed fans after their 100 hour sacrifice

Modifié par ed87, 18 mars 2012 - 11:18 .