53 réponses à ce sujet

[MajorStranger]

Here's how I envision the finale of Mass Effect. Up until Shepard's meeting with Anderson and The Illusive Man everything stay the same. TIM mortally wound Anderson and Shepard kill TIM. Then Shepard is left to calibrate the Crucible to destroy the reapers. Depending on how many war assets-Crucible you gained, you are able to either:

0) Crucible Failed. Reapers win.

A) Calibrate to a a frequency that destroy every synthetic life-form and electronics in the Galaxy, killing everyone stuck on a spaceship but saving those who are on a planet.

Calibrate to destroy every synthetic life-form in the Galaxy (Geth, EDI, Reapers) and destroying the Mass Relay.

C) Only destroy Reapers and Relay

D) Only destroy Reapers

Then, with choice B, C and D you can either:

A) Shepard bleed to death

Hackett Manage to send a rescue team and save Shepard.


Now, depending on how many war assets total you gained:

A) Earth is devastated.

Earth will survive.

I could continue for long with all the possible choice. But I'm tired right now.

[lasertank]

The catalyst is the story killer. All logic breaks down because of it. A dark ending does not rationalize the weird plot. Shepard will never listen to the load of crap the kid AI gave unless he's indoctrinated. "We fight or we die" that's what he says. The ending sucks not because it's dark, and we don't want a fairy-tale ending. We want a ending that makes sense.

[Holoe4]

pomrink wrote...

Whenever someone doesn't want the ending changed, they say "fairy tale"? No one wants a fairy tale ending, they want one that makes sense and is internally consistant. They don't even formulate an argument, just say fairy tale

Agreed, closure would be nice as well. I just want an ending that makes sense in the Mass Effect universe.

[Alex06]

I actually proposed a much better way to integrate what happened in ME 1 and ME 2 and the choices you made throughout the trilogy to have an effect on the ending. Because now, it doesn't matter whether you save the Geth, Quarians or propose peace. Killing the Quarians actually even allows to gain more War Asset points! That's the only place the choices will play in. Same with the Genophage Cure.

I wish that if we chose to save the Quarians, propose peace between Geth and Quarians, or sabotage to Genophage to secure Salarian aid, that we can choose to instead alter the Crucible's frequency to destroy ONLY the Reapers, and not the Relays and all synthetic life. Perhaps being able to save synthetic life would require peace between Quarians and Geth, whereas to only save the Relays, would only require Salarians or Quarians.

Also, with enough War Assets, I would have the Normandy crash on Earth rather than be stranded on some unknown world.

4500 - Shepard survives
5000 - Normandy crashes on Earth

And with Garrus having survived, and all upgrades from ME2 installed on the Normandy, all the crew would survive, too. (Otherwise, just Joker and EDI survive, or something like that)

Modifié par Alex06, 10 mars 2012 - 05:32 .

[Trisskit]

It's not the only argument, I think it's just one coming from some of the people that believe that after all his/her hard work, Shepard of all people would deserve at least a chance at a happy ending.

[C Trayne]

its not the lack of a "fairy tale" ending people are mad about, its the fact that the endings make no sense and the fact that all the choices we've made that were supposed to be so important meant nothing when it came down to the final choices.

[eye basher]

Der Estr Bune wrote...

QuirkyGroundhog wrote...

You're Shepard on the Citadel. The Crucible is connected. The fleet is losing badly, as we knew it would, the Crucible was our last hope. The Catalyst tells you the deal.

What internally consistent and sensible solution is there at this point? Short of changing the plot up until the ending?

All of that is totally fine. Just through in an ending where you make it work, and everyone is completely happy. Even if it's just a button push, that's fine. I'll walk through the corpse hallway to kill TIM and push a button, and then gleefully watch credits.

I remember a few months back when people said they didn't want a win button ans now the complain because they didn't get it yet another reason why i don't take this place seriously anymore.

[Alex06]

eye basher wrote...

Der Estr Bune wrote...

QuirkyGroundhog wrote...

You're Shepard on the Citadel. The Crucible is connected. The fleet is losing badly, as we knew it would, the Crucible was our last hope. The Catalyst tells you the deal.

What internally consistent and sensible solution is there at this point? Short of changing the plot up until the ending?

All of that is totally fine. Just through in an ending where you make it work, and everyone is completely happy. Even if it's just a button push, that's fine. I'll walk through the corpse hallway to kill TIM and push a button, and then gleefully watch credits.

I remember a few months back when people said they didn't want a win button ans now the complain because they didn't get it yet another reason why i don't take this place seriously anymore.

Some people always wanted it. There isn't going to be one same opinion across the forum. Different people have different opinions. Not take this place seriously? Well, look at who said they didn't want this kind of solution, and look at who did. Doesn't mean it will be the same people. And even if it is, a few people in a crowd of hundreds of thousands is really not going to make the large crowd look less than serious.

In any case, an ending you have to work hard to get would be more than acceptable, as I've outlined in a post earlier, on this same page. In a game where we have so much choice and the coincidences are supposed to matter in the end, relegating all our choices to either +100 or +50 points is really not acceptable, if you ask me. Those points ultimately only make a difference in that Earth survives or not, and even then, the difference we see is a large fire blast or none. To someone who didn't read the spoilers, they wouldn't necessarily understand the difference. For all we know, that blast was concentrated in London and killed 200 people out of 10,000.

I am fine with not having all endings be happy, but in a game like Mass Effect, where choices matter and consequences are born out of those choices, and where those changes will reshape the galaxy and the galactic community, having an ending that's good seems necessary and rewarding. It doesn't have to be easy to get, and it could well be the only good ending, but not having one such ending in this kind of game seems...underwhelming and unrewarding.

Modifié par Alex06, 10 mars 2012 - 06:07 .

[Kitten Tactics]

Nobody wanted a win button, but the option of winning would have been nice.

[John Locke N7]

I think magicaly fusing all oragnic, and somehow all sythetics, with new green glowing DNA is fairy tale. the ending needed to be grounded in reality, like everything els about mass effect.

[QuirkyGroundhog]

eye basher wrote...

Der Estr Bune wrote...

QuirkyGroundhog wrote...

You're Shepard on the Citadel. The Crucible is connected. The fleet is losing badly, as we knew it would, the Crucible was our last hope. The Catalyst tells you the deal.

What internally consistent and sensible solution is there at this point? Short of changing the plot up until the ending?

All of that is totally fine. Just through in an ending where you make it work, and everyone is completely happy. Even if it's just a button push, that's fine. I'll walk through the corpse hallway to kill TIM and push a button, and then gleefully watch credits.

I remember a few months back when people said they didn't want a win button ans now the complain because they didn't get it yet another reason why i don't take this place seriously anymore.

But the Crucible isn't a win button. What you thought was a generic sci fi 'win button last hope' is in fact another layer in the system of control. Mass Relays, the Citadel, and now the Crucible. Organic life is allowed to develop but only in the way the creator's want it to. Sound familiar? Sort of like a sci fi RPG with a fixed protagonist and limited choice? Developing how you want to but on a fixed, controlled path?

The final choice of the system, it turns out, being the one that gives organic life true self determination, eliminating the relay network, and throwing off their shackles. How is that choice presented? By a red choice, a middle choice, and a blue choice....a reference to the dialogue wheel that has controlled choice throughout the entire franchise. And what ending did we get? An ambiguous one where the relays are gone and now anything is possible.

The Crucible isn't a win button. It adds extensively to the franchise's internal mythology and serves as meta commentary on the franchise as a whole up to this point.

[tenacious_err]

Arthorius wrote...

You answered your own question. 

You. Are. Shepard. 

Shepard doesn't care about rules, about odds. That's the whole point about him/her. He can accomplish the impossible, and s/he never bows  before adversity. Shepard always finds a way. That is, until now. 

^ This. Shepard can survive a fight with Saren after it looks like s/he is dead. Shepard can get blasted out into space without oxygen and be put back together by Cerberus. Shepard can unite the Quarians and the Geth and the Krogan and the Turians. But it's not "realistic" that Shepard can save the universe? That's a fairy tale?

For me, it's not so much that I want a happy ending as it is that the lack of even so much as the option of a happy ending (and I would spend literally hours scouring back through all three games if that's what it took. I wouldn't expect it to be easy,) is what I find unrealistic. My Shepard can fly to the collector's base on a suicide mission and get herself and her entire team out without a casuality. That's certainly not "realistic", so forcing me into a certain bleak ending at the end of the series is dissapointing to say the least.

[kevin332]

Kitten Tactics wrote...

Nobody wanted a win button, but the option of winning would have been nice.

Exactly. I spent 3 games doing everything right with the best possible results and then in the last 5 minutes I'm told I can't win.

Destroy the Geth? I just gave them all free will and they've completely united with their creators. That alone broke the cycle.

Turn everyone into a hybrid of organic and synthetic? So the moral of the story is that nobody can get along unless they're forced to be the same?

Control? Does that mean I control the Geth and EDI too? Because I've generally played a pro-free will Shepard and I doubt he'd want to control anything other than telling the reapers to put the citadel back where it belongs, rebuild the relay network, and fly themselves into the nearest star.

Modifié par kevin332, 10 mars 2012 - 06:21 .

[Nobrandminda]

QuirkyGroundhog wrote...

You're Shepard on the Citadel. The Crucible is connected. The fleet is losing badly, as we knew it would, the Crucible was our last hope. The Catalyst tells you the deal.

What internally consistent and sensible solution is there at this point? Short of changing the plot up until the ending?

In no particular order.

-Follow up on the dark energy plot that was introduced on Halstrom

-Follow up on the "humans are special" idea that has been hinted at multiple times.

-Show how all of Shepard's decisions influence this moment.  I think a lot of us were expecting the ending to basically be the ending to ME2 times one million, where instead of making a decision that could get Thane killed, you make a decision that risks getting the Drell killed.

-Give us an ending that actually explains what happens.  The ending is so vague we have no reason to believe anyone other than Joker and company survived.  Smart asses like to joke about the Endor Holocaust at the end of Return of the Jedi, but since we don't ever see Earth after the citadel explodes, we have no reason to assume that such a thing did not happen.  And the red/green/blue pulse of energy is clearly detrimental to space craft, so what happened to the rest of the fleet?  I doubt all of them were able to make a safe crash landing.  Even if their ships weren't crippled by the blast, will they be able to get home?  The Quarian homeworld is clear on the other side of the Galaxy according to the galaxy map, that's a long way to go without the Mass Relays.

-And most importantly, give the reapers a motivation that is consistant with what we have seen them do up to this point.  Or at the very least, don't have it directly conflict with the overall theme of the game(s).  The current ending leaves several plot holes and inconsistancies such as:

1.  Why is destruction from synthetics inevitable?  The reapers have clearly been following the orders of their creator for untold millions of years.  If you do it right, you can achieve peace between the Geth and Quarians (which is the single most satisfying moment in the entire franchise in my opinion).  EDI is the only unrestrained AI created by humans and she is one of our strongest assets.  Sure Project Overlord ended baddly, but that's just because the human inside it couldn't handle it.  So of every major example of a synthetic life form, exactly none of them measure up to the stated doom for organic life.

2.  Why didn't they create a Prothean reaper?

3.  Why did the reapers start the Rachni war?

4.  Why is there a pattern to the destruction?  This one might be easy to miss, but on Thesia, the prothean VI points out that there is a pattern to the destruction wought at the end of every cycle, and this is demonstrated with a map of the galaxy.  What's up with that?

Modifié par Nobrandminda, 10 mars 2012 - 06:26 .

[Lmaoboat]

I don't really get how a happy ending is any more cliche than a bad one anyway. As if cynical platitudes about how you can't always win are somehow deeper.

[bubs]

Revan312 wrote...

As others have stated ad nausium, the reason the ending makes zero sense is thus.

Reapers = synthetic/organic hybrid race, that kills all organic civilizations every 'cycle', yes that's right, kills, as being liquefied doesn't leave much room for living on no matter how much they want to spew the "we're ascending your people" line.

These reapers do this to make sure synthetics don't rise up and kill all organics.. So to solve all organics being killed by synthetics, you systematically kill all organics, over and over and over..

Makes total sense.. Hey, I heard you've got cancer, lemme bash your brains out to save you from it... Oh, you're having trouble paying your mortgage? I'll just light your house on fire so you don't have to worry about it. What's that? The oceans are being over fished? Well lets just nuke all the fish so that doesn't happen.

This.

[Alex06]

ragewin wrote...

Revan312 wrote...

As others have stated ad nausium, the reason the ending makes zero sense is thus.

Reapers = synthetic/organic hybrid race, that kills all organic civilizations every 'cycle', yes that's right, kills, as being liquefied doesn't leave much room for living on no matter how much they want to spew the "we're ascending your people" line.

These reapers do this to make sure synthetics don't rise up and kill all organics.. So to solve all organics being killed by synthetics, you systematically kill all organics, over and over and over..

Makes total sense.. Hey, I heard you've got cancer, lemme bash your brains out to save you from it... Oh, you're having trouble paying your mortgage? I'll just light your house on fire so you don't have to worry about it. What's that? The oceans are being over fished? Well lets just nuke all the fish so that doesn't happen.

This.

Exactly.

[Sashimi_taco]

PineappleSalad wrote...

The catalyst was complete crap, and I don't know how anyone could think otherwise. It has NO context in the game whatsoever. Just letting the Citadel remain as the catalyst and having Harbinger explain these same three options to Shepard would have been a better ending, because Harbinger at least has a reason to be there. The ending still would have been unfulfilling, but at least it would have made a tiny bit more sense.

You need to play the endings or at least know what they are before complaining. If you complain about things in the endings that are not there, you just make the rest of us look bad. 

[phoenixds24]

QuirkyGroundhog wrote...

eye basher wrote...

Der Estr Bune wrote...

QuirkyGroundhog wrote...

You're Shepard on the Citadel. The Crucible is connected. The fleet is losing badly, as we knew it would, the Crucible was our last hope. The Catalyst tells you the deal.

What internally consistent and sensible solution is there at this point? Short of changing the plot up until the ending?

All of that is totally fine. Just through in an ending where you make it work, and everyone is completely happy. Even if it's just a button push, that's fine. I'll walk through the corpse hallway to kill TIM and push a button, and then gleefully watch credits.

I remember a few months back when people said they didn't want a win button ans now the complain because they didn't get it yet another reason why i don't take this place seriously anymore.

But the Crucible isn't a win button. What you thought was a generic sci fi 'win button last hope' is in fact another layer in the system of control. Mass Relays, the Citadel, and now the Crucible. Organic life is allowed to develop but only in the way the creator's want it to. Sound familiar? Sort of like a sci fi RPG with a fixed protagonist and limited choice? Developing how you want to but on a fixed, controlled path?

The final choice of the system, it turns out, being the one that gives organic life true self determination, eliminating the relay network, and throwing off their shackles. How is that choice presented? By a red choice, a middle choice, and a blue choice....a reference to the dialogue wheel that has controlled choice throughout the entire franchise. And what ending did we get? An ambiguous one where the relays are gone and now anything is possible.

The Crucible isn't a win button. It adds extensively to the franchise's internal mythology and serves as meta commentary on the franchise as a whole up to this point.

You make some very good points--in fact, we're explicitly told in ME1 by Sovereign that the mass relays are a system of control.  However, there is still one flaw in this line of thinking.

If the point of the ending is Shepard throwing off all the methods of control upon them by destroying everything, including the mass relays, then the ending has failed.  Because the only choices presented to you are the choices the Catalyst has given you.  In other words, you are still being controlled.  The only way for Shepard to truly remove all measures of control is to defy the Catalyst and make a new choice.  This is my biggest problem with the endings.  All the choices are false because they are just things which you are presented with--and then are told there are no other options.  Besides which, they're all based on the false premise that organics and synthetics inevitably will try and destroy each other.  This is clearly untrue!

[Superninfreak]

MajorStranger wrote...

Here's how I envision the finale of Mass Effect. Up until Shepard's meeting with Anderson and The Illusive Man everything stay the same. TIM mortally wound Anderson and Shepard kill TIM. Then Shepard is left to calibrate the Crucible to destroy the reapers. Depending on how many war assets-Crucible you gained, you are able to either:

0) Crucible Failed. Reapers win.

A) Calibrate to a a frequency that destroy every synthetic life-form and electronics in the Galaxy, killing everyone stuck on a spaceship but saving those who are on a planet.

Calibrate to destroy every synthetic life-form in the Galaxy (Geth, EDI, Reapers) and destroying the Mass Relay.

C) Only destroy Reapers and Relay

D) Only destroy Reapers

Then, with choice B, C and D you can either:

A) Shepard bleed to death

Hackett Manage to send a rescue team and save Shepard.


Now, depending on how many war assets total you gained:

A) Earth is devastated.

Earth will survive.

I could continue for long with all the possible choice. But I'm tired right now.

Something like this would have been great. This would let my actions actually affect the ending, like with ME2.

[hawat333]

Because what people is asking for falls under the fairy tale category.
Everyone reunited, everyone alive, everyone happy forever and ever after.

We have a war with the Reapers here. A race of invincible machinces that wipe out advanced life every 50 000 years. We cannot defeat a force like that without heavy sacrifices.
Because then they wouldn't be the Reapers. They would be the Bunnies if it could be done without taking heavy losses.

We have a good ending in here.
Shepard lives, the crew lives, the Reapers are destroyed. Life, as chatoic as it is, can continue.
That's actually a better outcome than I expected.

[Supersomething]

Would have been nice to have an ending where the crucible targeted reaper IFF signatures only and not the Mass Relays.... but then the Normandy would be destroyed. As for other claiming we want a fairy tail ending... I have come to the conclusion that those who say that are content with an Emo/Matrix ending .

[Anareth]

hawat333 wrote...

Because what people is asking for falls under the fairy tale category.
Everyone reunited, everyone alive, everyone happy forever and ever after.

We have a war with the Reapers here. A race of invincible machinces that wipe out advanced life every 50 000 years. We cannot defeat a force like that without heavy sacrifices.
Because then they wouldn't be the Reapers. They would be the Bunnies if it could be done without taking heavy losses.

We have a good ending in here.
Shepard lives, the crew lives, the Reapers are destroyed. Life, as chatoic as it is, can continue.
That's actually a better outcome than I expected.

The reapers are not gods. They are an overly powerful barbarian horde with delusions of godhood.