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Was the ending a hallucination? - Indoctrination Theory


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#8351
Vyrii

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2_BR4ZIL_2 wrote...

Lugaidster wrote...

Lugaidster wrote...

I'd say a more telling tweet was a retweet from MikeGamble:

https://twitter.com/#!/GambleMike

It basically points to an article from penny arcade explaining why the current ending is good as it is... If that isn't hope-shattering I don't know what is...


Did you guys intentionally ignored this? Please _do_ check it out!


It doesnt matter really, its just this one PA guy defending ME3's ending (which he fails to see how badly it is actually) besides the same guy who posted that tweet also said:

@CoreyG: I am just posting an article folks, please be nice, I am not making a statement :}

Also, i like how one guy wrote a comment that is actually better than the PA article:

Unigolyn:

"DEUS EX MACHINA:

You're getting your literary devices mixed up. The Crucible is not deus ex machina, it is a MacGuffin. It's largely irrelevant except as a plot device. It is the exhaust port on the Death Star.

The narrative of ME3 is not about finding the Crucible, it is about building the greatest alliance ever seen in the galaxy (which the Crucible, as a plot device, allows to happen).

Why the Catalyst AI and his Monty Hall spiel of the Adjust Hue/Saturation is a deus ex machina is that it is the resolution to the narrative. The fact that he is also literally a "god from the machine" is irrelevant, albeit ironic. He is a deus ex machina in the literary sense, i.e. a handwaved contrivance that shows up out of the blue to quickly whisk away all the dangling story threads, and to abruptly end the story.

This is abysmal writing. This is abysmal game design; a Pick Your Own Adventure book where all choices take you to the same final chapter. It is counter to everything this game is. And what is this game?

In a recent Extra Credits, Portnow discussed core elements of a game. The Mass Effect series is really not a third person shooter. It is also really not a roll-the-dice-and-level-up CRPG. Mass Effect is, at its core, interactive fiction. All the memorable moments in these games take place in cutscenes that play out in myriad ways based on prior choices. You are role-playing in the most literal sense of crafting a character's personality based on your choices. The climax of Mass Effect 2 was not shooting the Human Reaper in the eye, the climax of Mass Effect 2 were the cutscenes that played and showed the results of your actions. Did you defy TIM? Did your crewmates survive? If your choices were poor enough, you could defeat the final boss, only to make a desperate leap towards the Normandy with no one to catch you.

The desperate leap in Mass Effect 3 is your dash towards the Beam. The only input that matters at all past this point is the encounter with TIM. That encounter is true to Mass Effect, and honors your previous choices, and provides closure for the secondary antagonist.

But for the main antagonist (Reapers), nothing you did matters. You are given three arbitrary choices to solve a problem that, depending on your actions, may be proven to be a false dilemma in the first place. If you saved both the Quarians and the Geth, witnessed Legion's messianic sacrifice, and humanized EDI - the Catalyst's claim of organic/synthetic conflict being unavoidable is patently false.

The Catalyst AI is completely incongruous with the narrative and the themes of the game. It shows up, provides a complete strawman of a conflict, and then offers three vapid, plot-hole ridden resolutions to this conflict, which abruptly end the narrative in a blinding flash of Space Magic (pick your color!).

CHOICES DON'T MATTER

Again, you're missing the point. No one is complaining about the preceding 30 hours of gameplay. Choices did seem to matter. Your treatment of the Rachni queen from two games ago ended up gaining you a seemingly valuable ally. Saving Wrex can gain a hopeful future for the Krogan. Your choices regarding Legion and the Migrant Fleet in ME2 have incredibly strong consequences in the seeming conclusion of the Geth/Quarian storyline. This is why we loved the game up to the ending.

And the ending completely demolished all of it, and made it completely illusory. Who gives a **** if you saved the Rachni? They just end up giving you Space Points and don't affect your ending at all. Who gives a **** if the Quarians or Geth or both survived? They're all dead anyway. Who cares if you cured the genophage and saved the one leader who could lead the Krogan into a less brutish, more hopeful future? He's either trapped on earth or dead, and the radioactive husk that is Tuchanka cannot sustain their race without supplies anyway.

And even more egregiously, the choices you made in the development of YOUR Shepard don't matter. She acts EXACTLY the same when facing the ultimate antagonist regardless of whether she's a Space Racist Renegade or Never Surrender Paragon or whatever your Shepard actually is, and what (insert pronoun) stands for.

You accept Space Hitler's premise without argument, and dejectedly pick one of the three Slightly Less Turning Everyone Into Paste final solutions he has to offer.

How does it matter in the slightest that I've done the frickin' impossible and united the Geth and the Quarians into a hopeful future, shown that we need not fear synthetic life, seen a nascent artificial sentience freely decide to set "Love and compassion" as their main motivation, and fought for the reactionary, bleak idea of "AI will always rebel" to be proven wrong? Space Hitler shows up, says "AI will always rebel, here are drastic fixes to this undeniable problem". And I go "yessuh"?

WHY IS EVERYTHING SO SAD

It's not sad. You are being incredibly myopic and dismissive of our experiences by reducing it to "y every1 has 2 diezorz?". The ending of the story is not actually sad, it's just anticlimactic, contrived, incongruous, and ridden with plot holes.

The part that's sad and what's tearing me apart is that this is not a case of people writing themselves into a corner. This is not a case of glorified hacks like Ronald D. Moore or Cuse/Lindelof making **** up as they go along, to find themselves at the end with no way to tie all the crap together in a cathartic way.

This is a beautifully written game, for the majority of the experience. Bioware has bona fide talent within their ranks. And the story, up to the very end, is redeemable in dozens of ways. Even the contrived, out-of-the-blue Star Child could be made into an interesting character by presenting it as a shackled AI who was given a specific, limited goal born of fear (stop AI from wiping out organic life forever), and it arrived at the grotesque solution of Reapers not because AI is evil, but the constraints never allow it to look past the false dilemma it's attempting to solve.

Most importantly, this is not a TV show or a movie. This narrative is, by design, told in a unique medium which is NOT doomed to give us a singular ending. Our Shepards can be varied, yes, but there is a finite amount of paradigms that lead you to the end, and they could all have a cathartic, poignant, and persistent ending. Let the Renegades ascend to rule the galaxy. Let the Paragons defeat primitive fear and xenophobia.

I do not care if the Relays have to go down, but don't do it in such a thoughtless way as to destroy everything meaningful I accomplished. I do not care if my Shepard dies. In fact, I expected her to go down in a blaze of glory, in the greatest battle that shall ever be fought, for the most meaningful (to her) victory a soldier could ever earn. She did not get this. I did not get this.

TENS OF THOUSANDS of people didn't get this. We are not asking for a Disney ending. We are not asking for a dance party with Ewoks. We are just asking for our Big Damn Heroes to go out on their own terms, win or lose"


BAHAHAH!!! I was in the process of quoting this!!!!

HOLD THE LINE PEOPLE!

They don't know what they're talking about!

#8352
Evil_medved

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jackncoke28 wrote...

AscendBaldur wrote...

blooregard wrote...

mr.surv wrote...

hmmm.

Maybe I miss something in whole series... but did Protheans ever build synthetics?
If not.....



from what I can tell the protheans had a great distrust of synthetics so aside from VIs I don't believe they made anything similar to the geth


By Javik's own telling the Zha built synthetics in their cycle, then merged with the tech and became the Zha'til, who the Protheans fought the Metacon war with. Protheans HATE synthetics.

Wasnt there a convo with tali speaking about what amounted to signs of possible future merging of quarians and geth, something about enviornmental suits and boosting of imune systems?


I think it was about opposite, that quarians wont need suits anymore very soon. I didnt payed much attention coz Tali said that Shep is the only one who she lets into her suit and i was busy lol'ing.

#8353
Melaneth

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On a side note: I finally figured out how to post in these forums. Even though I had every Forums requirement met, my game had never been registered. Not sure how when it's a digital copy from Origin in the first place...but whatever. After going through 7 links, I got it done.

On the stuff I've wanted to actually say:

I believe. My hope has been getting more concrete as this thread progresses and I've discussed it more and more with my boyfriend, dad and a few friends. It makes perfect sense for the indoctrination theory, and even though the cryptic answers from the tweets can be taken in other ways, I want to take them positively...with a grain of salt, of course.

It all adds up honestly, and how else can it not? The non-"changed" endings were changed -such as the cut Anderson dialogue and Joker saving your butt in London -but it doesn't mean this is the true ending. As much as I am hoping, I still have to refrain, for being hurt again by BioWare if they come out and say "these were intended."

I loved the game. ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT. I cried several times, I yelled at my screen, I hoorahed in other scenes, I almost reached out a few times hoping to smack the people I smacked in the game with my Shepard. It was a wonderful experience, a wonderful ride from the beginning to the end beam.

Until I went up to the citadel and everything turned into Wonderland, and I somehow followed the rabbit down the hole. But the thing is, that....icky, weird, distatesful part can still be turned around and seen in a positive light. That's where the indoctrination comes in. Having discussed this with others, we're all positive that it can't be anything other than Shepard being indoctrinated throughout the game, ending with a culmination with the Reaper child (who I am firmly in the party of the child being a manifestation of Harbinger in your mind).

But, I still think BioWare has done their job. They're making us talk about it, air out our thoughts, making us form theories of our own, and take control of the game: which is what this series has been about - having control, and choosing what you, as the gamer, want.

I'm not in favor of the ending(s) (only logical choice, in my opinion is destroy - what we've set out to do since we all booted up Mass Effect for the first time, even though my favorite color is green :( ) and I'm not in favor of the staggered release dates, nor the silence and cryptic messages. But I am a fan of BioWare, and the games they have put out I've enjoyed immensely. EA has changed them, certainly, but if they come out with something else that will be mind blowing awesome, like Mass Effect, I will continue to buy their products.

I just wish my heart can handle either the positive outcome or the negative outcome, whichever happens.  (Crossing my fingers for the positive outcome and everyone in this forum that is for the indoctrination/hallucination theory is right...or something along those lines happens *prays fervently*)

#8354
ArkkAngel007

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GreenSoda wrote...

mmL wrote...

HallucinationEnd wrote...

Hmm foud this :

http://s3.amazonaws....res=1331651551



Holy ****.

This means the sequence with the normandy fleeing from the blast and landing on a tropical vacation island might have been real. Which would not contradict our indoctrination/hallucination theory, as the real ending could still happen inbetween!

The source is 4chan.

4chan.

Better to simply pay no attention to it.


Total BS.  Forget that it's 4chan, but an anonymous user is saying "hey, capture this if you don't believe me and wait and see."  Yes, because that actually matters when you're an anonymous user.  The partner in crime sounds like the worst of really bad fan-fic, and I've seen plenty of poor things out of the Romance discussions.  

The Rescue DLC is completely nonsensical as well.  They claim to know nothing on details, yet they know how it plays out?  It doesn't match well with anything to be honest...

#8355
mmL

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[/quote] 
Again, already has been discussed. EA like Activision is no stranger to negative press, but if the Doctors (who are VPs in EA now) got Ricitiello on board with this and Bioware pulls it all off, everyone but the silly people who think the endings are artistic are going to come back to Bioware and drop to their knees bowing. They would have shaken the industry to it's very core and that would make for some VERY positive press in the end, and Activision would be but a squandering company with a pisspoor Pokemon/Panda filled MMO and a recycled ****ty FPS. EA and Bioware would be at the top. Why wouldn't they go for it?

[/quote]

This

Modifié par mmL, 13 mars 2012 - 06:24 .


#8356
2_BR4ZIL_2

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Terraforming2154 wrote...

Lugaidster wrote...

Lugaidster wrote...

I'd say a more telling tweet was a retweet from MikeGamble:

https://twitter.com/#!/GambleMike

It basically points to an article from penny arcade explaining why the current ending is good as it is... If that isn't hope-shattering I don't know what is...


Did you guys intentionally ignored this? Please _do_ check it out!


Well, that sucks.
Weren't some of Gamble's tweets the ones we felt were being the most intentionally vague? I'm not going to read the Penny Arcade article, because I really don't believe that anything can justify the ending, but why would he tweet about the article if he didn't agree with it?  Posted Image


Read what i said before, the guy who told about taht Penny article is not Gamble, its Corey Gaspur (combat designer for biware) and even so said right after " I am just posting a article folks, please be nice, I am not making a statement"

#8357
BlackDragonBane

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jackncoke28 wrote...

AscendBaldur wrote...

blooregard wrote...

mr.surv wrote...

hmmm.

Maybe I miss something in whole series... but did Protheans ever build synthetics?
If not.....



from what I can tell the protheans had a great distrust of synthetics so aside from VIs I don't believe they made anything similar to the geth


By Javik's own telling the Zha built synthetics in their cycle, then merged with the tech and became the Zha'til, who the Protheans fought the Metacon war with. Protheans HATE synthetics.

Wasnt there a convo with tali speaking about what amounted to signs of possible future merging of quarians and geth, something about enviornmental suits and boosting of imune systems?


In a conversation, if the geth and quarian are working together, Tali marvels at how they not only started rebuilding homes, but that some of the geth are uploading to the Quarians suits and running fake symptoms of common ailments to strengthen their immune systems.

#8358
Dessalines

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GreenSoda wrote...

mmL wrote...

HallucinationEnd wrote...

Hmm foud this :

http://s3.amazonaws....res=1331651551



Holy ****.

This means the sequence with the normandy fleeing from the blast and landing on a tropical vacation island might have been real. Which would not contradict our indoctrination/hallucination theory, as the real ending could still happen inbetween!

The source is 4chan.

4chan.

Better to simply pay no attention to it.

Anonymous is a liar.  Aria is taking back Omega.  From who? Cerebus is wiped out or turned in huskified humans without someone controlling them. How can the Alliance be coming for him,  when he is not on the ship? Did the beam transport him back with his friends?  Even if the endings are real, those dlc do not make any sense.

#8359
Vyrii

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Savber100 wrote...

AscendBaldur wrote...

mmL wrote...

HallucinationEnd wrote...

Hmm foud this :

http://s3.amazonaws....res=1331651551



Holy ****.

This means the sequence with the normandy fleeing from the blast and landing on a tropical vacation island might have been real. Which would not contradict our indoctrination/hallucination theory, as the real ending could still happen inbetween!


That img is OLD news, and largely got discredited due to it being from 4chan if i recall correctly.


Also ZERO mention of MP DLC. 

Yeah... it's fake. :mellow:


Has the MP DLC been confirmed?
Also: keep in mind that with Joker's cut dialogue which I've linked earlier the last jungle DLC actually seems legit.
I'm not backing 4chan by any means, but sometimes you do get information there earlier than anywhere else.
You just need to know how to weed the garden, that's all.

#8360
blooregard

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jackncoke28 wrote...

AscendBaldur wrote...

blooregard wrote...

mr.surv wrote...

hmmm.

Maybe I miss something in whole series... but did Protheans ever build synthetics?
If not.....



from what I can tell the protheans had a great distrust of synthetics so aside from VIs I don't believe they made anything similar to the geth


By Javik's own telling the Zha built synthetics in their cycle, then merged with the tech and became the Zha'til, who the Protheans fought the Metacon war with. Protheans HATE synthetics.

Wasnt there a convo with tali speaking about what amounted to signs of possible future merging of quarians and geth, something about enviornmental suits and boosting of imune systems?




I don't think so the geth were merging into their enviromental suits and that somehow simulates the quarian in question getting a virus thus adapting their immune system to life outside the enviro-suit  yeah that whole thing right there is space magic more so then the teleporting citadel


as for the synthetics in javik's time I was under the impression that the zha simply made implants and augmentations that ultimately caused them to become full on robot the prothean empire itself I don't believe used anything outside of VIs so no geth, no combat mechs, nothing of that nature

#8361
Aunrielle

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JFedora wrote...

BadlyBrowned wrote...

Now, the easy solution is to say, well, Bioware just screwed up and got lazy there. However, considering the quality of the rest of the game, and even the rest of the series, it just seems so enourmously out of place to have the game end the way it did. 


Exactly. I had a fairly long conversation with a friend of mine about our thoughts on the ending, before either of us had even heard of this thread, and we noted that "The whole ending just feels like it was tacked on by an entirely different team; it doesn't fit with the rest of the game or the series as a whole". (Then, of course, we found this thread and were overjoyed to find out we weren't the only ones thinking that.) All of these little clues in the game are, put together, a fairly convincing argument - but for me, at least, this is the most convincing one. Bioware isn't perfect; they have certainly made mistakes before, but for right now, at least, the choice is between believing that the developers finished the game with a plot-hole-ridden terrible ending, or that they HAVEN'T finished the game, and they're doing something unprecidentedly creative. I would much rather believe this conspiracy theory and hope that Bioware has something incredible planned then believe that they managed to produce an absolutely exceptional 30-hour game right up until the last 10 minutes.


I would rather believe the "conspiracy theory" as well. It is the only thing that is a realistic explaination of what happens, especially in the "space magic" synthesis ending. 

#8362
N3vDawg

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My favorite tweet so far

@masseffect too late, already into my third play through of #ME3.....its like the game is indoctrinating me! Did you sell me reaper tech?
@masseffect

@gman214 No way! *innocent eyes*

#8363
Smiley556

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lavosslayer wrote...

lookingglassmind wrote...

Smiley556 wrote...

lookingglassmind wrote...

Hi, guys!

I had to sleep, so I've missed the part where the thread jumped from 260 pages to 332.

Any new, significant developments?


http://social.biowar...ex/9872108&lf=8 

Ill let someone else update all the twitter stuff, dont really follow the twitter PR myself.


Awww, that really sucks. :( This was our theory, our thread. And Stanley Woo directs them to someone else's.

Although, it makes sense logistically, due to its length, but damn!


Seriously WTF?! that thing was only posted 8 hours ago...our is 4 days in the making!!


Seriously? thats your response? There are many people, among multiple threads vying for this explenation and all you can think of is 'this is our theory we want credit for it'. Its not a theory, its thruth, many threads have pointed it out. Including this one, and including the one linked by the mod.

#8364
AscendBaldur

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Vyrii wrote...

Savber100 wrote...

AscendBaldur wrote...

mmL wrote...

HallucinationEnd wrote...

Hmm foud this :

http://s3.amazonaws....res=1331651551



Holy ****.

This means the sequence with the normandy fleeing from the blast and landing on a tropical vacation island might have been real. Which would not contradict our indoctrination/hallucination theory, as the real ending could still happen inbetween!


That img is OLD news, and largely got discredited due to it being from 4chan if i recall correctly.


Also ZERO mention of MP DLC. 

Yeah... it's fake. :mellow:


Has the MP DLC been confirmed?
Also: keep in mind that with Joker's cut dialogue which I've linked earlier the last jungle DLC actually seems legit.
I'm not backing 4chan by any means, but sometimes you do get information there earlier than anywhere else.
You just need to know how to weed the garden, that's all.


No, no DLC whatsoever has been confirmed. In fact no Bioware employess has used the letters DLC other than discussing the From Ashes situation. All the DLC stuff stems from player fears that we would have to pay for an ending, which  is just that at this point, fear.

#8365
lavosslayer

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Dessalines wrote...

GreenSoda wrote...

mmL wrote...

HallucinationEnd wrote...

Hmm foud this :

http://s3.amazonaws....res=1331651551



Holy ****.

This means the sequence with the normandy fleeing from the blast and landing on a tropical vacation island might have been real. Which would not contradict our indoctrination/hallucination theory, as the real ending could still happen inbetween!

The source is 4chan.

4chan.

Better to simply pay no attention to it.

Anonymous is a liar.  Aria is taking back Omega.  From who? Cerebus is wiped out or turned in huskified humans without someone controlling them. How can the Alliance be coming for him,  when he is not on the ship? Did the beam transport him back with his friends?  Even if the endings are real, those dlc do not make any sense.



The take back omega one is the only one there that seems 100% certain...even when you talk to her in Purgatory she says thats what she is planning on doing....since this DLC takes place before the events on earth it is totally plausible....the rescue shepard one sounds like he makes it onto the normandy and crashlands on the tropical planet like the others...definitely missing some key details to make that happen...

#8366
Jade5233

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AscendBaldur wrote...

again, already has been discussed. EA like Activision is no stranger to negative press, but if the Doctors (who are VPs in EA now) got Ricitiello on board with this and Bioware pulls it all off, everyone but the silly people who think the endings are artistic are going to come back to Bioware and drop to their knees bowing. They would have shaken the industry to it's very core and that would make for some VERY positive press in the end, and Activision would be but a squandering company with a pisspoor Pokemon/Panda filled MMO and a recycled ****ty FPS. EA and Bioware would be at the top. Why wouldn't they go for it?


Yeah.  That's what I am hoping for.  That they have had a plan.  That the current ending isn't the real ending and they did this to prevent spoilers/datamining and to rock the industry.  Esp since they said/knew in advance that people were going to be angry.

But until there is an answer about the endings from BioWare, they can show any additional pay content they come up with.  Why would I even invest $5 in something when the $70 product was unsatisfactory?

#8367
Fledgey

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https://twitter.com/...633929538637824 GODDAMMIT MASS EFFECT TWITTER. Stop teasing me T_T

#8368
noobcannon

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2_BR4ZIL_2 wrote...

Lugaidster wrote...

Lugaidster wrote...

I'd say a more telling tweet was a retweet from MikeGamble:

https://twitter.com/#!/GambleMike

It basically points to an article from penny arcade explaining why the current ending is good as it is... If that isn't hope-shattering I don't know what is...


Did you guys intentionally ignored this? Please _do_ check it out!


It doesnt matter really, its just this one PA guy defending ME3's ending (which he fails to see how badly it is actually) besides the same guy who posted that tweet also said:

@CoreyG: I am just posting an article folks, please be nice, I am not making a statement :}

Also, i like how one guy wrote a comment that is actually better than the PA article:

Unigolyn:

"DEUS EX MACHINA:

You're getting your literary devices mixed up. The Crucible is not deus ex machina, it is a MacGuffin. It's largely irrelevant except as a plot device. It is the exhaust port on the Death Star.

The narrative of ME3 is not about finding the Crucible, it is about building the greatest alliance ever seen in the galaxy (which the Crucible, as a plot device, allows to happen).

Why the Catalyst AI and his Monty Hall spiel of the Adjust Hue/Saturation is a deus ex machina is that it is the resolution to the narrative. The fact that he is also literally a "god from the machine" is irrelevant, albeit ironic. He is a deus ex machina in the literary sense, i.e. a handwaved contrivance that shows up out of the blue to quickly whisk away all the dangling story threads, and to abruptly end the story.

This is abysmal writing. This is abysmal game design; a Pick Your Own Adventure book where all choices take you to the same final chapter. It is counter to everything this game is. And what is this game?

In a recent Extra Credits, Portnow discussed core elements of a game. The Mass Effect series is really not a third person shooter. It is also really not a roll-the-dice-and-level-up CRPG. Mass Effect is, at its core, interactive fiction. All the memorable moments in these games take place in cutscenes that play out in myriad ways based on prior choices. You are role-playing in the most literal sense of crafting a character's personality based on your choices. The climax of Mass Effect 2 was not shooting the Human Reaper in the eye, the climax of Mass Effect 2 were the cutscenes that played and showed the results of your actions. Did you defy TIM? Did your crewmates survive? If your choices were poor enough, you could defeat the final boss, only to make a desperate leap towards the Normandy with no one to catch you.

The desperate leap in Mass Effect 3 is your dash towards the Beam. The only input that matters at all past this point is the encounter with TIM. That encounter is true to Mass Effect, and honors your previous choices, and provides closure for the secondary antagonist.

But for the main antagonist (Reapers), nothing you did matters. You are given three arbitrary choices to solve a problem that, depending on your actions, may be proven to be a false dilemma in the first place. If you saved both the Quarians and the Geth, witnessed Legion's messianic sacrifice, and humanized EDI - the Catalyst's claim of organic/synthetic conflict being unavoidable is patently false.

The Catalyst AI is completely incongruous with the narrative and the themes of the game. It shows up, provides a complete strawman of a conflict, and then offers three vapid, plot-hole ridden resolutions to this conflict, which abruptly end the narrative in a blinding flash of Space Magic (pick your color!).

CHOICES DON'T MATTER

Again, you're missing the point. No one is complaining about the preceding 30 hours of gameplay. Choices did seem to matter. Your treatment of the Rachni queen from two games ago ended up gaining you a seemingly valuable ally. Saving Wrex can gain a hopeful future for the Krogan. Your choices regarding Legion and the Migrant Fleet in ME2 have incredibly strong consequences in the seeming conclusion of the Geth/Quarian storyline. This is why we loved the game up to the ending.

And the ending completely demolished all of it, and made it completely illusory. Who gives a **** if you saved the Rachni? They just end up giving you Space Points and don't affect your ending at all. Who gives a **** if the Quarians or Geth or both survived? They're all dead anyway. Who cares if you cured the genophage and saved the one leader who could lead the Krogan into a less brutish, more hopeful future? He's either trapped on earth or dead, and the radioactive husk that is Tuchanka cannot sustain their race without supplies anyway.

And even more egregiously, the choices you made in the development of YOUR Shepard don't matter. She acts EXACTLY the same when facing the ultimate antagonist regardless of whether she's a Space Racist Renegade or Never Surrender Paragon or whatever your Shepard actually is, and what (insert pronoun) stands for.

You accept Space Hitler's premise without argument, and dejectedly pick one of the three Slightly Less Turning Everyone Into Paste final solutions he has to offer.

How does it matter in the slightest that I've done the frickin' impossible and united the Geth and the Quarians into a hopeful future, shown that we need not fear synthetic life, seen a nascent artificial sentience freely decide to set "Love and compassion" as their main motivation, and fought for the reactionary, bleak idea of "AI will always rebel" to be proven wrong? Space Hitler shows up, says "AI will always rebel, here are drastic fixes to this undeniable problem". And I go "yessuh"?

WHY IS EVERYTHING SO SAD

It's not sad. You are being incredibly myopic and dismissive of our experiences by reducing it to "y every1 has 2 diezorz?". The ending of the story is not actually sad, it's just anticlimactic, contrived, incongruous, and ridden with plot holes.

The part that's sad and what's tearing me apart is that this is not a case of people writing themselves into a corner. This is not a case of glorified hacks like Ronald D. Moore or Cuse/Lindelof making **** up as they go along, to find themselves at the end with no way to tie all the crap together in a cathartic way.

This is a beautifully written game, for the majority of the experience. Bioware has bona fide talent within their ranks. And the story, up to the very end, is redeemable in dozens of ways. Even the contrived, out-of-the-blue Star Child could be made into an interesting character by presenting it as a shackled AI who was given a specific, limited goal born of fear (stop AI from wiping out organic life forever), and it arrived at the grotesque solution of Reapers not because AI is evil, but the constraints never allow it to look past the false dilemma it's attempting to solve.

Most importantly, this is not a TV show or a movie. This narrative is, by design, told in a unique medium which is NOT doomed to give us a singular ending. Our Shepards can be varied, yes, but there is a finite amount of paradigms that lead you to the end, and they could all have a cathartic, poignant, and persistent ending. Let the Renegades ascend to rule the galaxy. Let the Paragons defeat primitive fear and xenophobia.

I do not care if the Relays have to go down, but don't do it in such a thoughtless way as to destroy everything meaningful I accomplished. I do not care if my Shepard dies. In fact, I expected her to go down in a blaze of glory, in the greatest battle that shall ever be fought, for the most meaningful (to her) victory a soldier could ever earn. She did not get this. I did not get this.

TENS OF THOUSANDS of people didn't get this. We are not asking for a Disney ending. We are not asking for a dance party with Ewoks. We are just asking for our Big Damn Heroes to go out on their own terms, win or lose"


thanks for the post.  very good!

#8369
2_BR4ZIL_2

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Fledgey wrote...

https://twitter.com/...633929538637824 GODDAMMIT MASS EFFECT TWITTER. Stop teasing me T_T


Heh... thats almost as confirming our theories. Posted Image

#8370
Elendstourist

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I remember reading an interview with Casey (I believe) in a german games magazine. He said something like "we are having plans for great DLC", I cant reproduce his exact words. Need too look if I can find that magazine somewhere around here.

Trolling the players with an incomplete ending would be something I'd call great, no irony.

#8371
Flapperrr

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https://twitter.com/...307366397902848
There are no happy endings, because nothing ends

WOW!!!

#8372
mmL

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It's from 4chan, so it's highly unlikely to be true.

BUT: The scene with joker escaping the blast could very well fit into our theory. After Shepard wakes up again in the rubble in London, goes up the beam into the citadel, somehow kick some Reaper ass in the most epic and badass manner, he sets the crucible on a 10 minute timer and escapes the blast on the ship with his crew, landing on a tropical jungle planet.

Basically the scene with joker and the planet happens AFTER Shepard wakes up from his dreams and therefor AFTER he has saved the Galaxy.

#8373
Fledgey

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2_BR4ZIL_2 wrote...

Fledgey wrote...

https://twitter.com/...633929538637824 GODDAMMIT MASS EFFECT TWITTER. Stop teasing me T_T


Heh... thats almost as confirming our theories. Posted Image

All it confirms is that they have heard the theory and know of it, unfortunately. Don't get too worked up :P

#8374
jackncoke28

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Dessalines wrote...

GreenSoda wrote...

mmL wrote...

HallucinationEnd wrote...

Hmm foud this :

http://s3.amazonaws....res=1331651551



Holy ****.

This means the sequence with the normandy fleeing from the blast and landing on a tropical vacation island might have been real. Which would not contradict our indoctrination/hallucination theory, as the real ending could still happen inbetween!

The source is 4chan.

4chan.

Better to simply pay no attention to it.

Anonymous is a liar.  Aria is taking back Omega.  From who? Cerebus is wiped out or turned in huskified humans without someone controlling them. How can the Alliance be coming for him,  when he is not on the ship? Did the beam transport him back with his friends?  Even if the endings are real, those dlc do not make any sense.


The only way i see an omega dlc working is if it takes place before the ending. Probably have missions in it to add to your ems score, giving ppl who dont play the multiplayer a better shot at perfect ending, maybe even add your LI to the mission, those are the only reasons i would even be remotely interested in gettin something like that

#8375
Stealthy Cake

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masseffect Is there going to be a statement to address your fans discontent with ME3's ending? We're all waiting for something..Please guys

Mass Effect‏@
@nozilna Stay tuned for all news via http://www.masseffect.com

Interesting..