113 réponses à ce sujet

[Hizuka]

The Spamming Troll wrote...

Archereon wrote...

^^ There's at least one ending in which Shepard and co live.

I think.

You see the apparently vaporized squadmate popping out of the wreckage of the Normandy. Then in the post credit bit, you see Shepard's armor twitching.

You could also just order the Reapers to fly into a black hole in the event of your death/immediately. Problem solved.

i just got this ending like 5 minutes ago on my first playthrough. so it cant be just NG+.

i did a ton of **** though, everything possible in ME1 and ME2, 95% readiness, 6000ish EMS score.

......honeslty, im not sure what everyones complainings about with the neding. i whiped out the reapers and saved the galaxy. maybe the mass realays cna be rebuilt, project lazerous style!

Importing a game from ME2 counts as NG+.  You only get that video if you fulfill the NG+ requirement.

[MaleQuariansFTW]

OP, fantastic explanation. Bravo. I just don't see the point in destroying the mass relays in EVERY ending. Maybe do that only for the Destroy ending. For me, that's one of the most frustrating things about the ending.

[IrishSpectre257]

God read. I feel mostly the same. It isn't what they included that ruined the ending, it's what they didn't include. OR at least, didn't clarify. I felt that everything up until the scene with the Normandy was good. Not great, but a good enough end.

[Harbinger of Fun]

Oh, cool, this is now the official thread according to Lord Moderus

Bump.

[Emergent System]

How does anything the OP wrote make sense? Unless there's a literal God with in the ME universe 'hardening everyone's hearts' to make synthetics and organics endlessly fight one another (like it seemed to be doing to the quarians, though not to the Geth for some reason) there's no more reason for that to happen than for any two groups of individuals, with the ability to distinguish between one another, to do the same. Which they have been doing in the ME universe, constantly.

Singling out synthetics makes no sense.

And how does anything about it being a "test" make sense? Well, first of all, the galaxy wasn't united under a banner of "peace" but under the banner of "I don't want to ****ing die"; it was pretty clear that aafter the reapers were gone that everyone would be happy to start killing each other again. But anyway, why not just merge synthetic and organic life themselves instead of creating the reapers, concucting this covulted, needlessly obtuse "test", and then presumably all committing mass suicide?

There is more, but eh, this is the internet so who cares anyway.

[Lankist]

I would be okay with a slide show and a text-box. Prior to the ending, the story was a very narrow character drama that worked incredibly well. The action was driven by a small group of individuals whom were both empathetic and memorable. And then, in the very end, the focus shifts from the characters to some very long-term concepts regarding the survival and proliferation of life unhindered by inevitability. Then, both paradigms are thrown out the window, roll credits.

Ideally, a cast-centric epilogue would have wrapped everything up. Otherwise, further exposition regarding the long-term implications of the ending could have partially redeemed the awkwardness of the change in focus. Unfortunately, neither happened. Roll credits.

It's as though every piece of the puzzle had been laid out and, rather than putting the pieces together, the game opted to burn it all down and call it closure. It's certainly closure, in the same way that burning the Mona Lisa would be closure. But it is not of the satisfying sort.

Let's use the film "Serenity" as an example. Serenity (and Firefly) were similarly very character-driven stories. The massive conspiracy and underlying implications were certainly an important part of the plot, but the core of the story was how those characters reacted to them. It wasn't so much about what was happening as much as how Mal, Wash, Zoe, etc. reacted to what was happening. Mass Effect seems to have been written on a similar basis, using the scenario only as a tool to expand upon the characters. Garrus goes a little more crazy watching his planet burn. Liara is paralyzed by grief when her world goes down. Shepard himself starts having nightmares after Earth, Joker deflects grief with humor, etc. etc.

At the end of Serenity, we didn't see what happened to the Alliance, or what the Reavers were doing. That didn't really matter. What mattered was what Mal was doing, how Zoe was coping, how Simon and Kaylee had evolved, and so on. We learned a little about the aftermath, but only as a means to shed some light on how the Operative was reacting to it. The ending of Mass Effect 3 had none of these qualities, which feels awkward because the rest of the game executed that sort of focus so brilliantly. I don't really care for the idea of a cosmic dark age. But, if that was the goal, it could have been executed in a satisfactory way by telling us about it through the characters' reactions to it, and not through an explosion and a small bout of closing narration. Even just a few short pieces of narration from each character, reflecting how they responded, could have made such an immense difference. (Of course, most of those narrations would be somewhere along the lines of "oh god oh god no food and horrible jungle diseases why is this happening," but still.)

[KILLER SQUIDZ]

FoxShadowblade wrote...

Spot on OP.

Sure, the ideas have credence when presented on paper, but the flawed execution and the feeling of being rushed, combined with the fact it ends with so many loopholes...make the endings feel like complete crap.

None of the choices at the end factor in the choices you've made as Shepard. Where's the "Screw you, shut the Reapers down, leave the mass relays because I've proven synthetic and organic life can work past even the harshest differences" option? I had 7000+ War Assets, 100% readiness, 100+ Hours into the playthrough, and I get those choices?

None of the choices leave you feeling like you've beaten the game. Sure, the galaxy is saved from the Reapers, but so what? It's stuck being fragmented because the mass relays are gone, most people will probably die. What happened to people on board the Citadel? What is going to happen to the Normandy and her crew? Why did the two squadmates right behind me on the way down get obliterated, then walk out at the end? You just feel dissatisfied and cheated. I'm not sure what the thought process of BioWare was with these endings, and I don't see why cliche endings couldn't work.

And yes, I want a disney good ending, I want to save Earth, beat the Reapers and have the galaxy intact and live, I'm not a fatalist, I hate dark endings. But I also wanted endings where you lost to the Reapers, even that is better than...whatever the hell happened at the end. It was so random and confusing, it feels last minute and poorly done all around(Well, that's not true, it was pretty good graphics wise)


-steps off soapbox- I could rant all day...but I gotta stop before I make the game unplayable for myself again.

That pretty much sums it all up. Though I can live with a dark ending, as long as it makes sense.

[KILLER SQUIDZ]

The worst thing Bioware could do right now is to just completely ignore our complaints and go on as if nothing is wrong with the endings.

[Orwain]

I agree, really loved the game till the final choices, a lot of things made real sense in the talk with the catalyst but then it left me with a WTF feeling

[Dark_Caduceus]

The largest problem I have is that none of the endings were actually hopeful, the undercurrent of hope in all the installments is nowhere to be seen.

Control the Reapers: Your actions against the Illusive Man are for nought and he was right all along, Shepard is dead, the crew stranded, doesn't matter what you do.
Synthesis: Everyone becomes an organic/synthetic hybrid. First off, this is ridiculous in concept, how the hell does this work? It's such a massive deviation from the relatively rooted science fiction of the previous 99% of the series. Secondly, isn't this just what the Reapers want? Haven't we played right into their hands, isn't anyone disapopointed that EDI, the geth and all the organic's attempts to self-determine are wrong and the "ultimate evolution" is essentially becoming the Reapers? Might as well have let them harvest.
Destroy the Reapers: This one wouldn't be too bad, but Casper the Not-So-Friendly Space Ghost destroys this resolution full stop with a couple choice lines of dialogue. "The peace won't last", "The created will always rebel against their creators", and "Soon your children will make synthetics, and the chaos will return". This is patently false, I helped EDI disover what it means to self-determine, to be human. And I brokered peace and cooperation ebtween the geth and quarians. And these lines offer no hope. Even if the race's rebuild, repopulate, reconnect their civilizations the Reapers will jsut re-emerge once AI is developed.

None of the endings are happy endings. And that's fine, what's damning is that none of the endings even have a chance of being positive down the road, and that isn't good story telling, it's a way to invalidate all our previous efforts to engage in the game and its narrative.

[Shayuri]

My complaint about the ending isn't so much about the content (though synergy does make my eyebrow raise skeptically), it's about the paucity of information. The ending consists, essentially, of a series of very brief cutscenes that are triggered by very specific conditions in the game.

There's a cutscene of Earth, and the fate of the forces on it. Either the wave causes the Reapers to leave, or die...or the wave causes those things AND kills everyone. Mysteriously, the deciding factor is your military force level. Bring enough ships, the wave only affects Reapers. Otherwise it kills everyone. ...Huh.

Then there's the cutscene of the Normandy's getaway. Joker gets away from the wave of destruction...which is true no matter what you picked. Makes me wonder what happened to the Alliance fleet. Hell, the Quarians were still packed mostly into their ships. Sure hope they're okay. Joker disembarks on the planet he managed to crash land on. Two others do too. In my game it was Liara and Jarvik...and Liara had been on my squad. If you synergize, Joker and EDI come out, and their eyes are both glowy and green and weird.

And then the much-debated "Sheperd Lives" cutscene, if you earned it.

Annnnnd that's all.

I guess I just expected more. Like the scene when the fleet jumps in and engages the reapers. That was an awesome scene! Hell, the ENTIRE GAME was awesome! I figured the ending would be SPECTACULAR. Like the last cutscene in ME1, which practically rewrote the book on how to end a video game in style (I mean the death of Sovereign, though Shep coming out of the wreckage was good too).

In my way of thinking, The ending doesn't need to be rewritten. Just...fleshed out. This feels like...the outline of the ending. The major points are hit, but the details we need aren't there yet. A first draft, if you will.

I'm not angry about it, really. A little surprised, I guess. And I suppose it IS a bit presumptuous of an audience to say to an author (though ME3 had many) and say, "Redo this ending," I do think it's fair for fans of the series to have questions, and fair to hope...if not necessarily to DEMAND...that those questions be answered. If this truly is the end of Sheperd's story, then there's nothing left to spoil. Why not let us peek behind the curtain with a bit more info?

-- Oh, and while I'm whining, it'd be nice to be able to get rid of the Reapers and Citadel, but not blow up the Geth and EDI. For all the talk of 'Destroy' being Renegade, it does seem to me to be the most reasonable choice...in every way except that. On the other hand, since there's really no way to end the game without condemning billions to a terrible fate, maybe that's not so bad after all. Hee. :happy:

Modifié par Shayuri, 12 mars 2012 - 06:22 .

[BahamutZ]

I just read the OP's post regarding the philosophy behind the ending... and it does make more sense in that context.

I would however state that I agree with everyone that it felt rushed and incomplete. Here is my rationale:

What the OP provided is a good motivation for the choice and even the catalyst. What many people find incredibly frustrating is that that entire sequence feels rushed and that it came from left field.

It isn't a problem of a bad plot-line but is more a fact of poor storytelling. It isn't clear what the god-child's purpose is nor what role shepard has in deciding the future (as presented in the game). I feel more dialogue and the ability to question what is going on would have made the "choice" more understandable and why shepard was chosen to make that choice.

There were two things I feel bioware could have done to make the ending more palatable for the majority of gamers.

1.) Provided more exposition for what happens at the end. A cardinal rule of writing is that if your reader cannot understand a piece of text it is not the fault of the reader, but in the writer in failing to communicate well. My personal opinion is that the set-up for the end of the game was set up poorly and did not correctly foreshadow what was coming to prepare gamers for the choice. Given the demonstration of incredible delivery of emotions and story in their games, I feel that bioware is more than sufficient to give the ending to their only successfully completed trilogy of games (they rarely made sequels on their own except BG2 as all others were outsourced to other companies) the attention it deserved.

2.) Provided the emotional closure that they must have known that gamers would have wanted for their shepard and for these characters. The fact that this choice has no significant expository difference barring a change in color of the super-beam along with some very confusing ending scenes that have no connection to the fate of the galaxy is the primary factor that is raging gamers.

What the OP said was spot on: we invested time in these characters and in this world, we want to see what our choices had impact-wise on their lives. We want to see if Wrex is able to keep his promise of reigning in the Krogan, or if the Geth and Quarians can truly co-exist. We want to know that our LI did not forget us (assuming shep dies) and that our sacrifice at least made their life safer if not happy. This kind of emotional conclusion makes the sacrifice worthwhile, and its the key crux to any story that wants to tell a tragic hero ending.

Many a fan of Mordin or Thane or Legion even if they wish that they would have lived... I feel can at least feel content with the way things ended with them, because it fit with their characters and saw them achieving a major goal that we desperately hoped they would. We saw Mordin redeem himself for his guilt over the genophage by curing it, we saw thane reunited with his son and brought on the right path, and we saw legion save his race and them becoming an intelligent race in their own right. These are the tools that bioware mastered in emotional storytelling, and it was left un-used when they were sending off Shepard, who is the biggest character of them all.

While some gamers would prefer a fairy-tale ending as well... I am OK with the idea of a dark ending. There is no way to end Shepard's story without him dying or being incapacitated (like frodo at the end of LoTR). What is compelling me to comment is that I feel the delivery was either incredibly mis-handled and did not do justice to the legacy that bioware has created for this series that has become almost a mainstream phenomena.

I wish that a redo was available and we could get that closure that we all want, but I will wait and see if that will happen. Thanks OP for putting some of that conclusion in context.

[statistx]

My problem with an open ending is, that it's the goddamn last part of the series. I have no issues with bad endings (though in an epic space saga with a character that i play and define, i'd rather not have him killed off), i have not as big as an issue with cliffhangers, BUT only if i know that this cliffhanger will be revealed at another time.

Also the ending with the stranded Normandy is kinda bugged (?) cause Cortez was with me on the run to the beam back on earth, so why is he stepping out of the Normandy?
If he made it somehow through that big ass laser before you stumble to the beam, wouldn't he be rather somewhere in a base on earth, instead of magically getting to the Normandy that can't really pick people up as long as the Reapers are there?

Oh yeah and Joker is stupid sometimes, but he is a good pilot and I can't imagine him trying to outrun a big ball of EMT, instead of trying to land on the nearest planet (like the earth)

[UnbornLeviathan]

 While I agree not screwing over the Normandy would be a great brush up, the fact I just stopped Wrex and Jacob from ever seeing their unborn children, as well as potentially murdered Edi makes me grumpy.

[Belhawk]

i had 3556, and shep and anderson dies, along with the relays & repears. I picked blue because i thought that was paragon and i would get a good ending for everybody but shep & anderson. But i didn't.
I checked videos of the other endings online and saw all endings were depressing as the 1 i had. I have decided not to play ME 3 anymore because when i play i think about all the depressing endings and fighting does no good at all. So why play when everything will go to heck no matter what u do.

[FlyinElk212]

Phenomenal read, and completely agree with this final ending gripe.

The problem with the endings for me basically stems from "all of my decisions and choices" simply not getting a satisfactory conclusion. Don't get me wrong, I love the ending through and through, but it would've been great to have scenes (or even DA:O-style slides) explaining what happened to the galaxy after we saved it, based on all our decisions we made.

[Konges]

I understand the endings better from this point of view. I do not agree with it 100% but it makes more sense then alot of the other things people Have been posting.

I have made it to the end for the 2nd time and I am on the fence about the endings. So many questions that come up in the last 10min.

The one thing that I hate more then anything else is that lack of closue on what happend to Tali, Jacker, EDI, ect. I want to just know about the people I have come to love.

I would like to ask, what happend to the "Dark Energy Story Line from ME 2?" To me that is a HUGE! Plot hole and want to know more about the plot line. (Does anyone know? or remeber what I am talking about?)

[Lambda Diamond]

I stopped reading after you said Paragon which is the Illusives man choice is to control them WHAT THE F!? and renegade is to destroy them Andersons choice so your words are invalid. Also the Relays are destroyed and all galaxy is destroyed and cooperation means nothing.

[NubXL]

This pretty much echoes my thoughts on the matter.  I was fine with the endings until the Normandy bit, and the lack of explanation on how the other races moved forward.  It felt rushed and cut.  Half-assed slop ending to a great game.

[jla0644]

Agree with OP. Give me a proper epilogue and I can live with the endings. This is the last time (presumably) that we're going to see these characters, and we can't know what happened to them? It's just a slap in the face imo.

[staindgrey]

SomeBug wrote...

*snip*

Everything up to this point is perfect. It has cohesion, it has a great philosophical slant to it. It also has consistency with the rest of the series, explaining just enough about the Reapers without making them seem trite or pathetic. It
ties in with the mechanics of the game also, merging the experience in a way few other games have. This is all good.

I'm sorry, but despite your eloquent attempt at explaining it (really, nice work), I cannot possibly agree on this point. Alas, I'm tired, both physically and mentally (I have been posting about this topic nonstop since I beat the game nearly 48hrs ago), but I'll try to explain my stance in some bullets...

1) The introduction of the catalyst is not thoroughly explained or even implemented into the established lore. The rules are essentially changed. We move on from grounded science fiction to a sudden borderline Deus Ex Machina god-kid, whose explanation for the Reapers undermines what Sovereign himself presented them as. "We are each a nation, independent, free of all weakness." That's what he said. This is not the case at all; they are essentially just a .exe "exterminate organics" command. Nothing more.

2) Going along with the lore, Arrival showed that destroying a mass relay will wipe out an entire system. Remember that organics live near relays. Also remember that all their fleets are in the Sol Sytem right now. With a relay. Regardless of what decision you make in the final moment, judging by Arrival's outcome, all of these people will die. And that's not even taking into account the laws of space, and what so many explosions would cause in a frictionless vacuum. Just saying.

3) From a gameplay standpoint, this is the worst "final decision" possible, because it doesn't take into account anything you've done as anything more than a number to be crunched in the background. The series has established itself as an interactive cinematic in which your decisions have consequences, and those consequences will lead to an ultimate conclusion. This "ultimate conclusion" is not a result of your former actions. It is completely unrelated and shoehorned for the sake of giving you one last decision (thus undermining all other decisions as moot points). You don't get to see what curing the genophage did for your war; you don't get to see how the new AI geth contributed; you don't get to see what a lack of salarian support created. All of it becomes insignificant. Rather than giving us a conclusion to which every other action has been building, we get a conclusion that is entirely independent of past action besides "did you build the crucible", which is almost entirely impossible not to build.

4) Another factor to consider is Shepard's involvement. It breaks the established character to see Shepard suddenly willingly submit without choice. She (I'm going to say "she" because that's my canon Shep) went against the Council's wishes and pursued Saren. Then she broke out of the Citadel to go into Terminus space, which she was forbidden from doing. Then she worked with Cerberus, and even then could go against what TIM wanted. Each squadmate's involvement was a choice. Each major conflict was a choice. This ending consists of, "Oh, hey organic. These are your choices," and Shepard responding with, "...ohhhh. I get it. Okay." This is not Shepard. She doesn't even argue that the geth and quarians have achieved peace, or at the very least give a speach about how life is so much more than a simple calculation of death tolls. She doesn't explain that this POS VI couldn't possibly understand what it means to love someone, to fight for a planet full of people who were just trying to live their lives in peace. These are the things Shepard would do. The Shepard who willingly submitted to the choices presented-- for my story-- isn't even recognizable.

5) All this doesn't even take into account how the Crucible was made, or how an ancient race would possibly predict any of this. What would happen if a particularly adept race created weapons that could defeat what the original race deemed impossible to defeat-- the Reapers? (It would be subjective to that civilization's concept of what was impossibly strong, and since they had to make them, there was a strong possibility a future race would simply beat their creation outright.) Why would they even administer this test if the plan was originally to cut off all the mass relays and strand every world's resources? Of COURSE they didn't finish the Crucible. They had no means to. And, goddammit, with all of these brilliant minds working on it at once, someone had to take into account what they were building. They didn't just find random pieces and plug them together. They had to build it. Assuming that no one had a clue what it did is just stupid. And the fact that no one even stayed ON the Crucible to see it through? Everyone just left it and hoped for the best?


This ending is pretty much the worst way to end it, IMO, and that's before we even take into account what happens after the "choice". In ME2, you saw direct outcomes for your assets. You got the new cannon? Congratulations, you see a new part of the cutscene in which you kick Collector ass and no squadmate dies. You don't? You watch someone die. THIS is the sort of outcome that ME3 needed: a direct correlation between former action and current consequence. Something like a battle's tide turning because of Krogan forces, or the Reapers gaining an advantage because they actually indoctrinated the Rachni queen and you trusted her. None of this happens; we get the same ending with slightly different variables based on a number. A goddamn number. Shepard's story deserves so much more than that.

Now, I'm tired and I've got a headache. Won't proofread. I still can't believe this ending happened; I've never had an experience soured to this degree before by the final moments. It's... horribly depressing, really.

[Shunt Mcblunt]

Does anyone remember looking at the ME2 logs about the people who were in the Reaper. They became confused and memories would jumble together and they would have weird dreams not getting much sleep.

Have you figured it out yet????

[Big McLargeHuge]

What I really would have wanted. An ending like Dragon Age. I want to know what happened to everyone.

Did Grunt survive the attack on Earth? What about Wrex, or Zaeed? I mean, it was pretty sucky they only got cameo appearances at best, but then they don't even let me see what happens to them? That's just insulting. These characters had so much effort put into them to feel like characters you could sympathize with, and genuinely care if they lived or died. And then they just get brushed off.

[HooblaDGN]

I would rather have a broader variety of endings. Keep the original endings in, sure, but also add in some ending where Star Child isn't even there, and the Crucible is actually a weapon that destroys reapers and saves the galaxy, or an ending where we fail completely, but find some solace in preparing knowledge for future cycles, etc.

Read my signature. What's described there is not what we have right now. What we have is three colors to choose between that NOTHING I have done can BROADLY change. Relays gone, crew stranded. Variables are possibly living (though, unless illusion theory is true, you've destroyed EDI and the geth), Citadel possibly alive, Earth possibly not destroyed (though in a universe with no relays). And then the three different colors. No matter what I've done, my only choice is to obey this deus ex machina abomination who thought the reapers were a dandy solution.

And THEN there's still the issues of closure and catharsis to deal with.

Modifié par HooblaDGN, 12 mars 2012 - 09:03 .

[Ricvenart]

 I may get lynched for this but I actually liked most of the end...except the actually end bit. Although even what I did like felt too short or too little a build up. But the Child explaining stuff to Shepard making him look like a Child was great, I like his facial expression and Dialogue though it all and seeing him so beat up ...but it's like they got so far and just though "oh lets just throw whatever here to end a long series, theres plenty of other bits, and how cares for missing chunks before the ending when there is an ending". The later being one of the greatest sins a Developer can do in my eyes, DA2 done time constraint better where it ends but the extra story can be added after in a DLC and not slotted inbetween the game that exists (which devs will never do anyway). Tbh I could have gave themes and ideas before seeing it to try make a better one but it was just so bad I'm left with no clue where you'd begin (ME1 maybe?) Nice try bring faunts back but it's not as good.

Kaidan was with my team and I was left wondering for ages where the hell he got to and if he survived/how, so why was he on the normandy and why did they flee the galaxy wide pulse they expected and thought was good. Good job joker destroying the ship for nothing and still surviving.
When it came to the choice I didn't know what to do, not in a good way, not well the Rachni/Krogan might kill us all if left to live way or weighing out the options, to be honest even though it's all explained there it's not enough info, especially with a completely bias instructor to come to a conclusion. It wouldn't surpise me if I ended up taking Synthesis because it was walking in a striaght line, which I'm sure is not what Bioware was going for, although it's probally the better of 3 poor choices, even if it means forcing it on everyone, something I spend 3 games fighting against, but Destroy you are screwed in so many ways including letting machines raise again down the line. Control is what TIM wanted but what was already happening anyway, the Reaper solution is not a good one, rather then perserve a race they have become entirely machines, massively arrogant even to thier own purpose. How hard would it have been for Harbringer or Sovriegn to say they are a living "time capsule" of sorts, a way thier race can go on forever, on top of that, hello mister Creator but I did just wipe out synthetics of my time, so no it's not dead cert that synthetics will always wipe out organics, you're solution is the only one who actually has been doing that.
And Jokers Grin at the end...*cringe* something is seriously wrong with his face model in this game, he looked better one 1. And thanks for showing me so little to nothing on most of my crew, including how Kaidan got there or how he felt but just walking and focusing on J/EDI.
Seriously it's hard to make clear because these endings are such a mess in so many ways, it's hard to get clear in you're own head it's so...just Eh?!

Modifié par Ricvenart, 12 mars 2012 - 09:05 .