207 réponses à ce sujet

[Deztyn]

manwiththemachinegun wrote...

I don't see how anyone can claim the Reapers won when you literally shatter their entire species and they cannot make any more of themselves regardless of what ending you pick.

Society is devasted, but the Reapers did not 'win'. They did not accomplish their goals. The galaxy is free.

And this would make for a great 'bad' ending. For reasons that Heldenbrand put so much more eloquently than I could.

[Unit-Alpha]

Nice try, but it does nothing to soothe the pain of the endings.

[Almostfaceman]

Rhayth wrote...

Yea' and if their had been a scene post battle where Shep had explained this...and showed people beginning to work together and start fixing things then we wouldn't be here right now.  The point is that we weren't suppose to be confused, and they did a crap job of expecting us to know what they know without telling us.  If life was that simple then misinterpretation wouldn't exist.

This.

It's nice the devs are starting to comment, but really there's no reason we couldn't be shown this in the end, along with what happens to our squadmates or Shepard if he lives.

A soldier doesn't fight and bleed for ideals, he fights for his brother next to him. You did an excellent job bringing us down into the trenches, Bioware, but then you ended it... somewhere else... sort of... in... a.... confused and muddled way....

[Superninfreak]

manwiththemachinegun wrote...

I don't see how anyone can claim the Reapers won when you literally shatter their entire species and they cannot make any more of themselves regardless of what ending you pick.

Society is devasted, but the Reapers did not 'win'. They did not accomplish their goals. The galaxy is free.

Besides, we saw the relays exploding so violently that we could see the explosions from a map of the galaxy. I doubt there's really anything left of the races aside from a couple outskirts who were lucky enough to not be in the same system as a relay.

See my first post, it was not dev intention that all life was killed. The Relays did not explode. They were destroyed. Society is rebuilding. The explosions from 'above' the galaxy were just the red wave that shut off the Reapers on Earth.

The game never mentions that the relays blew up in a special way, or that the pulse being given off by the relays as they exploded was not dangerous (it certainly seemed like a powerful explosion).

Even if the developer didn't intend it, it's unclear in the game.

[kramerfan86]

They did accomplish their goals, the reapers didnt destroy all life, they destroyed galactic civillization. That is why the humans were spared in the Prothean cycle or why the Yahg were being spared this cycle. At the end of the day that happened again, galactic society was destroyed and even though the species werent killed this time the same end result of them being stuck in a pre-interstellar travel level of tech was accomplished.

[Slappy Ya Face]

I don't care about earth, the quarians, the geth, the turians or even the krogan. Unite shepard with the squad and I'll walk away a satisfied fan.

[idunhavaname]

Explain why my crew is stranded on some backdrop planet. Normandy crashing is just unnecessary.

[Unit-Alpha]

Slappy Ya Face wrote...

I don't care about earth, the quarians, the geth, the turians or even the krogan. Unite shepard with the squad and I'll walk away a satisfied fan.

I'm pretty sure this would make almost everyone happy.

[Rhayth]

Destroying but not exploded? I'm pretty sure I saw an explosion xD

[Rocktel]

I actually like the Mass Relay's getting destroyed. Space travel takes much longer now, but it still exists, and may prompt the galaxy to develop new mass relays of their own. And the Reaper cycle is broken forever.

What I didn't like is in order to avoid any ambiguousness about whether we destroyed the Geth, my favorite race, Shepard has to die. And the lack of an Epilogue.

The concept of the endings are okay, its the execution that's horribly flawed.

Modifié par Rocktel, 10 mars 2012 - 08:38 .

[Beldamon]

Not to bash, honestly.

Even if the intention of the Devs was that all or some of the endings were good ones, and that Galactic civilization could recover (I wanted to love this game so much that yes I did in fact put my imaginitive resources to work to imagine the explosions were not the same type of explosion as in 'Arrival' -- but I just could not make myself believe it) then the ending is still a big fail.  

Looking at the responses to the endings on this forum, most people believed the galaxy destroying interpretation of the end as presented.

If it was not a fail in substance, it was an *enormous* fail in style or presentation.

Modifié par Beldamon, 10 mars 2012 - 08:39 .

[manwiththemachinegun]

That's fair Beldamon, I'm not saying people aren't right to criticize. But rather leaping to false conclusions about the fate of the galaxy doesn't do anyone any good.

The cost was high but the war was won. The relays did not kill everyone on Earth or other homeworlds. Sentient life gets to self determinate again.

[MPSai]

manwiththemachinegun wrote...


See my first post, it was not dev intention that all life was killed. The Relays did not explode. They were destroyed. Society is rebuilding. The explosions from 'above' the galaxy were just the red wave that shut off the Reapers on Earth.

Authorial intent has little merit, especially when something has become big enough that you can't say it's solely yours anymore. Especially with something like Mass Effect that demands so much personal involvement from the player. 

All the audience saw was a confusing, psuedo-philosophical scene with three choices that made little sense and had terrible implications, followed by an equally confusing scene of the entire Normandy crew fleeing the battle and crash landing on some unknown world.

I've thought about this while discussing the ending in various threads here, all of the endings are kind of terrible:

Control - Shepard chooses to indoctrinate the Reapers. There's no other reason I can see why a bunch of hyperintelligent machines would all be controlled remotely and obey the command given. And what happens to Shepard? If Shepard dies what goes beyond that last command to the Reapers? The Reapers could still come to the logical conclusion to do something even more terrible. And if Shepard becomes the Reapers how do we know s/he might not do something catastrophic now that s/he has been completely stripped of humanity. 

Destroy - Seemingly the only right choice, but as we see it ends up fire bombing Earth, potentially destroying it. It is also a terrible choice if Shepard worked hard to stop the Quarian/Geth conflict and earn the Geth their independence and place in the galaxy as a people. It also potentially messes with the synthetic elements installed in people so what are  translators, biotics, and other enhancements all going to stop functioning? What if some people need them to live? Adn what about the VIs that control machines and ships?

Synthesis - A good choice on the surface, but it also takes away peoples' free will. When I saw Joker in the end I thought he looked terrifying. You could say now every living creature is one thanks to Shepard's influence, but what does that mean? And how would it stop wars? Many people have complained this ending assumes the only conflict in Mass Effect has been synthetics vs organics. Also the science behind this ending gives me a headache.

[toots1221]

I appreciate what the dev was trying to do but his comments don't really help. I wasn't just fighting for the galaxy, that was part of it but mostly I was fighting for Shepard and my squad, the people I'd come to care about over the past 5 years. It's the unanswered questions about Shepard and the Normandy that are killing me. Even in the good ending, is Shepard really alive or was that just her last breath? What planet did the Normandy crash on? Why were they even flying over that planet? What happens to the crew now? If Shepard is alive will she ever find her crew again? These are the questions I want answered.

[cobrabrady]

From what I understand most contempt comes from a mix of:
Bad outline of reaper logic
holo child was just silly
plot holes on progression (such as why Joker was jumping a relay)
Crew being potentially stranded somewhere far away from anyone
No epilog texts endings on your actions (Such as Dragon Age: Origins)

While some are upset they can't get a happy ending, most seem angry that it's just a bad mess that doesn't seem right for a story that was told in three games.

[netarchy]

manwiththemachinegun wrote...

Not at all, what you pick determines how those societies rebuild. If certain species are alive or dead, and how fast they can rebuild.

Mass Relay technology is bad. ME1 said so (Sovy says we shape your societies by the Citadel/Relays), Legion goes over and over how depending on Reaper tech is bad. The galaxy gets a fresh start.

I know that's not what people want to hear, but it's also true.

The problem with this line of logic is that the universe is set up to make the same mistakes again generations in the future. Eventually civilization will recreate mass relays, etc, and the reaper cycle can eventually start anew (with the possible exception of one ending choice with its own flaws).

[christrek1982]

ChernenkoYuliya wrote...

No problem, it is ok that there is "dramatic" ending, but I want also a happy ending. I was sure that there will be one, and this was the reason to buy ME3. I hoped to have a nice romance, kill all Reapers, and live happy. But indtead I was crying for about 2 hours. I understand everything, but it is a game, and even more it is a RPG, let me decide what will happen.

This is also the issue I have with it 2

[GholaHalleck]

the problem with the analogy is this:

You didn't have the entire bulk of the war effort stuck in leningrad with no way out.

You didn't have entire FLEETS of highly trained military, low on food and supplies, now stuck in one system. Hell, stuck with ONE habitable planet that's just been ripped to high holy hell.

What are all the Turians going to do in Sol? They have NO FOOD, and probably no way to grow more, because you don't load a war fleet with biodomes!

Sure, the rest of the galaxy can probably recover, and be safe in their little islands in the void, but Sol? Is utterly SCREWED. Shepard saved the galaxy and doomed humanity's home planet.

[Johndoev2]

GholaHalleck wrote...

the problem with the analogy is this:

You didn't have the entire bulk of the war effort stuck in leningrad with no way out.

You didn't have entire FLEETS of highly trained military, low on food and supplies, now stuck in one system. Hell, stuck with ONE habitable planet that's just been ripped to high holy hell.

What are all the Turians going to do in Sol? They have NO FOOD, and probably no way to grow more, because you don't load a war fleet with biodomes!

Sure, the rest of the galaxy can probably recover, and be safe in their little islands in the void, but Sol? Is utterly SCREWED. Shepard saved the galaxy and doomed humanity's home planet.

actually since the relay exploded, they are all probably dead...

[Burnham1]

His response completely misses the point. We get that the Reapers are gone and the galaxy can begin to rebuild. We don't care.

I remember when Dragon Age II was coming out and there was an uproar about not playing as the Warden. I don't have an exact quote in hand, but I remember them stating Mass Effect was a story about Commander Shepard (which it clearly was) and Dragon Age was a story about the World and not one specific character.

This ending is terrible and heartbreaking because it isn't about Commander Shepard. It is about the Galaxy being saved. I couldn't care less about the Galaxy. I care about Shepard and those close to Shepard. The endings gave us pretty good results to the fate of the galaxy, (not perfect but acceptable). They gave us horrible results about the thing most of us care about, Shepard and his/her crew.

The Galaxy can be rebuilt better than before away from the Reaper's influence. The galaxy gets a happy ending. Shepard doesn't. What I care about doesn't. What (judging by nearly everyone having a similar reaction to me) WE care about doesn't.

That is why the endings sucked. They need to stop trying to convince us the galaxy is in a better state. That isn't the issue.

[Kastien]

Heldenbrand wrote...

The more accurate parallel would be; now imagine after Leningrad has been completely cut off from the rest of the world. Those few people who managed to survive the brutality of the war and its unadulterated destruction now have to somehow scrape together survival without trade, without agriculture (after all, I imagine the fields aren't in good shape, neither is the livestock) and with a population that has been severely depleted.

I imagine at this point many homeworld civilizations no longer depend upon locally grown crops but likely import due to massive urban congestion. The soil is likely in no shape to support growth and the amount of fires have likely polluted the atmospheres severely. Also consider that a majority of all the fleets are now stuck around Earth, very likely straining that one systems resources beyond survival.

Now consider also that the Quarians who fought so hard to get their home and numbers had already suffered extreme losses due to the war with the Geth are now trapped in the Sol system as well, with a smaller segment of their population on Rannoch. Now let's say you took the good ending and all those Geth that were supporting them suddenly are destroyed. All those Geth that were helping them rebuild and repair their immune systems.

Now lets look at the Krogan. They were cured of their genophage, but held together solely by the leadership of Wrex and Eve. Wrex has been trapped on Earth, so now Eve has to hold it together.  Their planet was already devastated by nuclear conflict; I doubt any livestock or crops are going to grow there.  Now look at the fact they are very likely facing a sudden population explosion and have suddently been cut off from the rest of the galaxy.  How long will it take them to turn on them in the same manner that Thane described happening to his own planet?

It's silly writing to expect that; "the war is over, things are rough but life goes on". They're right, life does go on but most of the civilizations would be absolutely ruined for thousands of years to come. Some civilizations may not survive at all.

Even in the 'nice' ending the goal of the Reapers has been accomplished. Space faring civilizations have been set back to industrial or pre-industrial levels and many other species may just go extinct.

Exactly.

[manwiththemachinegun]

The problem with this line of logic is that the universe is set up to make the same mistakes again generations in the future. Eventually civilization will recreate mass relays, etc, and the reaper cycle can eventually start anew (with the possible exception of one ending choice with its own flaws).

Only if you believe people never learn from mistakes. What Shepard says to the catalyst at the end is, "no, it's NOT inevitable."

This wasn't a conventional war, Shepard says this. This is a war about survival. You broke your arm punching out cosmic gods. It's not fun. We're shown in the good endings life on Earth does survive. Do people even realize the difference between a 'dark age' and losing Mass Effect technology is?

Humans aren't going back to living in caves. FTL travel still likely works. It may take generations but society will rebuild.

Modifié par manwiththemachinegun, 10 mars 2012 - 08:52 .

[Lparsons7641]

toots1221 wrote...

I appreciate what the dev was trying to do but his comments don't really help. I wasn't just fighting for the galaxy, that was part of it but mostly I was fighting for Shepard and my squad, the people I'd come to care about over the past 5 years. It's the unanswered questions about Shepard and the Normandy that are killing me. Even in the good ending, is Shepard really alive or was that just her last breath? What planet did the Normandy crash on? Why were they even flying over that planet? What happens to the crew now? If Shepard is alive will she ever find her crew again? These are the questions I want answered.

My thoughts exactly. I fought at the end for Garrus, Liara, and Tali among a few others. 


A better ending for me? Talking to Garrus before the battle on earth. End. Honestley I would have liked it more.

[GBGriffin]

It's really an odd move to make, to condition us to care about our squad, who become the closest to us as a PC and a player, and then to say, "They don't matter because the galaxy might be better off and your sacrifice was necessary for them."

I don't care about the millions, billions, trillions, whatever number of faceless characters in the galaxy I saved. I care about the outcome of the small group of lovable characters I've been leading for 3 games.