23455 réponses à ce sujet

[lavacaverns]

http://www.youtube.c...s?feature=watch

This guy sums up all the fustrations i have at the ending....

[avantoreon]

Chris Priestly wrote...

(...)
What was your favorite moment?

This is a really tough question---I thought there were a lot of awesome moments. The action sequences were all very well done, but I was especially impressed by many of the companion interactions:

* Liara's time capsule bit was really, really cool. 
* Shooting things with Garrus on the Citadel was great.
* The Mordin sequence (Sur'kesh and Tuchanka) were great, and very bittersweet. 

[acidproof2]

Cypher333 wrote...

Is that the mass effect 3 ending thread or is it our favorite moment?
Maybe we should focus on the title...
:

I love your Marauder Shields banner... He tried to save us... LOL

[Millmedda]

I've waited so much this game. When I Installed it , I was so curious about how my choices through the other ME's will affect the galaxy and it's inhabitants. After minutes I realized that ...MAN, this is one of the best games I ever played. From the very beggining I wanted to see how the geth-quarian war will end , what will be the fate of the Genophane, the homeworlds of the other council races looks like ,...ect.

I am thankful for that you gave me this experience. After all those awesome things I wanted to see , how this remarkable game will end, after the epic ME1 ending where Shepard comes out the debris smiling, after the more epic ME2 ending where you defeat the collectors ,the human-reaper,and in the ending cutscene with that music Shepard wathing out to the space "seeing" the Reapers coming.

Then the ending came. First I didn't believe what I just saw, I was like: DAMN.... But I had faith , I tought that after the credits there will be something ( Actually there was something what I don't want to mention right now). I felt like an empty shell , I felt like if after a month of hard work I wouldn't get my payment, I felt like if my girlfriend would abandom me for another girl ( and thats bad ).

The major problem was that I did not know if all my efforts was worth it. Like a cutscene about Garrus looking up into the sky saying "we will meet in that bar" , or Liara teaching some kids about Shepard heroic deeds, or the races helping each other ( A Krogan carrying a Turian on his shoulder to the medical station , or something like that),...and so on. This could have be even some context like in DA:O but it's necessary to know that Shepard did not sacrifice himself for nothing, WE NEED THIS TO KNOW, IF IT WAS WORTH IT.

The minor problem was that Shepard died, but this can be understood, because we know that without sacrifices there is no victory.Also I wanted to see Harbringer mocking Shepard , because I liked the voice of the Reapers.

The game is 10/10 until the end. I know that you wanted a game ending witch comes with the fans speculating ,but the Old man speaking to the youngling after the credits would have been more than enough.

Anyway it's a great game.

[SUBTERRANEANguy]

Like I said, apart from a few plot holes at the end, which Mac will easily fill with the inevitable dlc, I don't see a problem with the endings. War is bleak. War is sacrifice. My major problems were with choba, Edi in a body and the jamaican prothean. It was fan pandering at its worst. I honestly was beginning to think that next I'd find adverts for coke on the citadel and discover that shepherd enjoyed playing fifa on the Normandy (sponsored by BMW.) The sticky/clumsy gears of War controls were also worse than the ending, and had me tearing my hair out more. Bioware has at least opened up a metaphysical debate concerning the endings, which can only be a positive step in video games. Afterall, we all want to know where we came from and how, and mac Walters ideas are nowhere near the worst in terms of science- first. If you want a lovely ending and the chance to marry your sweetheart, watch Twilight.

[Dolphin FFetus]

Honestly? I see it this way, the whole trilogy and 99% of ME3 were awesome. I have a few issues with stuff I wanted to see in 3 that didn't appear but I can live with it. I have my own theory about what happened during development of the ending: the headwriters (not going to say names because I don't really know who does what) KNEW that there was a 90% chance any ending they did would disapoint people. If ME3 had a well thought out resolution there would still be deaththreats, insults etc...so what better way to go out then to go for the whole arthouse, purposely vague "none of it really mattered LOL!!!!" ending? 

You stir up tons of contriversy but you get publicity from journalists who are going to defend you nomatter what then you have the people who think they really know art going around saying "Yeah...that ending..you guys just don't get it, man. DEEP STUFF." The ending is really the worst part of ME3, its the one thing that needs a fix very badly. The writers need to admit that what they did wasn't deep and "artsy" but a crappy, unsatisfying way to end the series. At the end of the day millions of people brought ME3 so that's all that matters anyway.

A "normal" person is going to play Mass Effect 3, beat it, then go "What the heck was that? What a crappy ending. Oh well.." I think only a small minority really like the ending. The truth is that the vast majority are experiencing emotions ranging from disapointment to pure unadultered rage. I think the writers believe this is a good thing and means they've succeeded, but no.

Mass Effect 3 is not a Stanley Kubrick product. Don't try to force us to swallow crap like that at the last 5 minutes. Really, no one is impressed. I'm just giving my opinion so please don't take this as me insulting the writers or Bioware.

[bpzrn]

bwFex wrote...

I really have been trying to let myself get over this nightmare, but since you guys promise you're listening here, I'll try to just say it all, get it all out.

I have invested more of myself into this series than almost any other video game franchise in my life. I loved this game. I believed in it. For five years, it delivered. I must have played ME1 and ME2 a dozen times each.

I remember the end of Mass Effect 2. Never before, in any video game I had ever played, did I feel like my actions really mattered. Knowing that the decisions I made and the hard work I put into ME2 had a very real, clear, obvious impact on who lived and who died was one of the most astounding feelings in the world to me. I remember when that laser hit the Normandy and Joker made a comment about how he was happy we upgraded the shields. That was amazing. Cause and effect. Work and reward.

The first time I went through, I lost Mordin, and it was gut-wrenching: watching him die because I made a bad decision was damning, heartbreaking. But it wasn't hopeless, because I knew I could go back, do better, and save him. I knew that I was in control, that my actions mattered. So that's exactly what I did. I reviewed my decisions, found my mistakes, and did everything right. I put together a plan, I worked hard to follow that plan, and I got the reward I had worked so hard for. And then, it was all for nothing.

When I started playing Mass Effect 3, I was blown away. It was perfect. Everything was perfect. It was incredible to see all of my decisions playing out in front of me, building up to new and outrageous outcomes. I was so sure that this was it, this was going to be the masterpiece that crowned an already near-perfect trilogy. With every war asset I gathered, and with every multiplayer game I won, I knew that my work would pay off, that I would be truly satisfied with the outcome of my hard work and smart decisions. Every time I acquired a new WA bonus, I couldn't wait to see how it would play out in the final battle. And then, it was all for nothing.

I wasn't expecting a perfect, happy ending with rainbows and butterflies. In fact, I think I may have been insulted if everyone made it through just fine. The Reapers are an enormous threat (although obviously not as invincible as they would like us to believe), and we should be right to anticipate heavy losses. But I never lost hope. I built alliances, I made the impossible happen to rally the galaxy together. I cured the genophage. I saved the Turians. I united the geth and the quarians. And then, it was all for nothing.

When Mordin died, it was heartwrenching, but I knew it was the right thing. His sacrifice was... perfect. It made sense. It was congruent with the dramatic themes that had been present since I very first met Wrex in ME1. It was not a cheap trick, a deus ex machina, an easy out. It was beautiful, meaningful, significant, relevant, and satisfying. It was an amazing way for an amazing character to sacrifice themself for an amazing thing. And then it was all for nothing.

When Thane died, it was tearjerking. I knew from the moment he explained his illness that one day, I'd have to deal with his death. I knew he was never going to survive the trilogy, and I knew it wouldn't be fun to watch him go. But when his son started reading the prayer, I lost it. His death was beautiful. It was significant. It was relevant. It was satisfying. It was meaningful. He died to protect Shepard, to protect the entire Citadel. He took a life he thought was unredeemable and used it to make the world a brighter place. And then it was all for nothing.

When Wrex and Eve thanked me for saving their species, I felt that I had truly accomplished something great. When Tali set foot on her homeworld, I felt that I had truly accomplished something great. When Javik gave his inspiring speech, I felt that I had inspired something truly great. When I activated the Citadel's arms, sat down to reminisce with Anderson one final time, I felt that I had truly accomplished something amazing. I felt that my sacrifice was meaningful. Significant. Relevant. And while still a completely unexplained deus ex machina, at least it was a little bit satisfying.

And then, just like everything else in this trilogy, it was all for nothing.

If we pretend like the indoctrination theory is false, and we're really supposed to take the ending at face value, this entire game is a lost cause. The krogans will never repopulate. The quarians will never rebuild their home world. The geth will never know what it means to be alive and independent. The salarians will never see how people can change for the better.

Instead, the quarians and turians will endure a quick, torturous extinction as they slowly starve to death, trapped in a system with no support for them. Everyone else will squabble over the scraps of Earth that haven't been completely obliterated, until the krogans drive them all to extinction and then die off without any women present. And this is all assuming that the relays didn't cause supernova-scaled extinction events simply by being destroyed, like we saw in Arrival.

And perhaps the worst part is that we don't even know. We don't know what happened to our squadmates. We didn't get any sort of catharsis, conclusion. We got five years of literary foreplay followed by a kick to the groin and a note telling us that in a couple months, we can pay Bioware $15 for them to do it to us all over again.

It's not just the abysmally depressing/sacrificial nature of the ending, either. As I've already made perfectly clear, I came into this game expecting sacrifice. When Mordin did it, it was beautiful. When Thane did it, it was beautiful. Even Verner. Stupid, misguided, idiotic Verner. Even his ridiculous sacrifice had meaning, relevance, coherence, and offered satisfaction.

No, it's not the sacrifice I have a problem with. It's the utter lack of coherence and respect for the five years of literary gold that have already been established in this franchise. We spent three games preparing to fight these reapers. I spent hours upon hours doing every side quest, picking up every war asset, maxing out my galactic readiness so that when the time came, the army I had built could make a stand, and show these Reapers that we won't go down without a fight.

In ME1, we did the impossible when we killed Sovereign. In ME2, we began to see that the Reapers aren't as immortal as they claim to be: that even they have basic needs, exploitable weaknesses. In ME3, we saw the Reapers die. We saw one get taken down by an overgrown worm. We saw one die with a few coordinated orbital bombardments. We saw several ripped apart by standard space combat. In ME1, it took three alliance fleets to kill the "invincible" Sovereign. By the end of ME3, I had assembled a galactic armada fifty times more powerful than that, and a thousand times more prepared. I never expected the fight to be easy, but I proved that we wouldn't go down without a fight, that there is always hope in unity. That's the theme we've been given for the past five years: there is hope and strength through unity. That if we work together, we can achieve the impossible.

And then we're supposed to believe that the fate of the galaxy comes down to some completely unexplained starchild asking Shepard what his favorite color is? That the army we built was all for nothing? That the squad whose loyalty we fought so hard for was all for nothing? That in the end, none of it mattered at all?

It's a poetic notion, but this isn't the place for poetry. It's one thing to rattle prose nihilistic over the course of a movie or ballad, where the audience is a passive observer, learning a lesson from the suffering and futility of a character, but that's not what Mass Effect is. Mass Effect has always been about making the player the true hero. If you really want us to all feel like we spent the past five years dumping time, energy, and emotional investment into this game just to tell us that nothing really matters, you have signed your own death certificate. Nobody pays hundreds of dollars and hours to be reminded how bleak, empty, and depressing the world can be, to be told that nothing we do matters, to be told that all of our greatest accomplishments, all of our faith, all of our work, all of our unity is for nothing.

No. It simply cannot be this bleak. I refuse to believe Bioware is really doing this. The ending of ME1 was perfect. We saw the struggle, we saw the cost, but we knew that we had worked hard, worked together, and won. The ending of ME2 was perfect. We saw the struggle, we saw the cost, but we knew that we had worked hard, worked together, and won.

Taken at face value, the end of ME3 throws every single thing we've done in the past five years into the wind, and makes the player watch from a distance as the entire galaxy is thrown into a technological dark age and a stellar extinction. Why would we care about a universe that no longer exists? We should we invest any more time or money into a world that will never be what we came to know and love?

Even if the ending is retconned, it doesn't make things better. Just knowing that the starchild was our real foe the entire time is so utterly mindless, contrived, and irrelevant to what we experienced in ME1 and ME2 that it cannot be forgiven. If that really is the truth, then Mass Effect simply isn't what we thought it was. And frankly, if this is what Mass Effect was supposed to be all along, I want no part of it. It's a useless, trite, overplayed cliche, so far beneath the praise I once gave this franchise that it hurts to think about.

No. There is no way to save this franchise without giving us the only explanation that makes sense. You know what it is. It was the plan all along. Too much evidence to not be true. Too many people reaching the same conclusions independently.

The indoctrination theory doesn't just save this franchise: it elevates it to one of the most powerful and compelling storytelling experiences I've ever had in my life. The fact that you managed to do more than indoctrinate Shepard - you managed to indoctrinate the players themselves - is astonishing. If that really was the end game, here, then you have won my gaming soul. But if that's true, then I'm still waiting for the rest of this story, the final chapter of Shepard's heroic journey. I paid to finish the fight, and if the indoctrination theory is true, it's not over yet.

And if it's not, then I just don't even care. I have been betrayed, and it's time for me to let go of the denial, the anger, the bargaining, and start working through the depression and emptiness until I can just move on. You can't keep teasing us like this. This must have seemed like a great plan at the time, but it has cost too much. These people believed in you. I believed in you.

Just make it right.

This  --->   We don't know what happened to our squadmates. We didn't get any sort of
catharsis, conclusion. We got five years of literary foreplay followed
by a kick to the groin and a note telling us that in a couple months, we
can pay Bioware $15 for them to do it to us all over again.

[MJF JD]

100 pages and no bioware presence.

[Dave3172]

MJF JD wrote...

100 pages and no bioware presence.

Don't worry...they're "listening" to us.

[cinderburster]

MJF JD wrote...

100 pages and no bioware presence.

To be perfectly fair, it's probably kinder (and less stressful) not to respond until they're allowed to say something.  There's going to be a public statement made eventually.  Devs and forum mods do not have that power, unfortunately.  Only the Powers That Be can give them the go-ahead.

[Icetea07]

my experiance exaclty

bpzrn wrote...

bwFex wrote...

I really have been trying to let myself get over this nightmare, but since you guys promise you're listening here, I'll try to just say it all, get it all out.

I have invested more of myself into this series than almost any other video game franchise in my life. I loved this game. I believed in it. For five years, it delivered. I must have played ME1 and ME2 a dozen times each.

I remember the end of Mass Effect 2. Never before, in any video game I had ever played, did I feel like my actions really mattered. Knowing that the decisions I made and the hard work I put into ME2 had a very real, clear, obvious impact on who lived and who died was one of the most astounding feelings in the world to me. I remember when that laser hit the Normandy and Joker made a comment about how he was happy we upgraded the shields. That was amazing. Cause and effect. Work and reward.

The first time I went through, I lost Mordin, and it was gut-wrenching: watching him die because I made a bad decision was damning, heartbreaking. But it wasn't hopeless, because I knew I could go back, do better, and save him. I knew that I was in control, that my actions mattered. So that's exactly what I did. I reviewed my decisions, found my mistakes, and did everything right. I put together a plan, I worked hard to follow that plan, and I got the reward I had worked so hard for. And then, it was all for nothing.

When I started playing Mass Effect 3, I was blown away. It was perfect. Everything was perfect. It was incredible to see all of my decisions playing out in front of me, building up to new and outrageous outcomes. I was so sure that this was it, this was going to be the masterpiece that crowned an already near-perfect trilogy. With every war asset I gathered, and with every multiplayer game I won, I knew that my work would pay off, that I would be truly satisfied with the outcome of my hard work and smart decisions. Every time I acquired a new WA bonus, I couldn't wait to see how it would play out in the final battle. And then, it was all for nothing.

I wasn't expecting a perfect, happy ending with rainbows and butterflies. In fact, I think I may have been insulted if everyone made it through just fine. The Reapers are an enormous threat (although obviously not as invincible as they would like us to believe), and we should be right to anticipate heavy losses. But I never lost hope. I built alliances, I made the impossible happen to rally the galaxy together. I cured the genophage. I saved the Turians. I united the geth and the quarians. And then, it was all for nothing.

When Mordin died, it was heartwrenching, but I knew it was the right thing. His sacrifice was... perfect. It made sense. It was congruent with the dramatic themes that had been present since I very first met Wrex in ME1. It was not a cheap trick, a deus ex machina, an easy out. It was beautiful, meaningful, significant, relevant, and satisfying. It was an amazing way for an amazing character to sacrifice themself for an amazing thing. And then it was all for nothing.

When Thane died, it was tearjerking. I knew from the moment he explained his illness that one day, I'd have to deal with his death. I knew he was never going to survive the trilogy, and I knew it wouldn't be fun to watch him go. But when his son started reading the prayer, I lost it. His death was beautiful. It was significant. It was relevant. It was satisfying. It was meaningful. He died to protect Shepard, to protect the entire Citadel. He took a life he thought was unredeemable and used it to make the world a brighter place. And then it was all for nothing.

When Wrex and Eve thanked me for saving their species, I felt that I had truly accomplished something great. When Tali set foot on her homeworld, I felt that I had truly accomplished something great. When Javik gave his inspiring speech, I felt that I had inspired something truly great. When I activated the Citadel's arms, sat down to reminisce with Anderson one final time, I felt that I had truly accomplished something amazing. I felt that my sacrifice was meaningful. Significant. Relevant. And while still a completely unexplained deus ex machina, at least it was a little bit satisfying.

And then, just like everything else in this trilogy, it was all for nothing.

If we pretend like the indoctrination theory is false, and we're really supposed to take the ending at face value, this entire game is a lost cause. The krogans will never repopulate. The quarians will never rebuild their home world. The geth will never know what it means to be alive and independent. The salarians will never see how people can change for the better.

Instead, the quarians and turians will endure a quick, torturous extinction as they slowly starve to death, trapped in a system with no support for them. Everyone else will squabble over the scraps of Earth that haven't been completely obliterated, until the krogans drive them all to extinction and then die off without any women present. And this is all assuming that the relays didn't cause supernova-scaled extinction events simply by being destroyed, like we saw in Arrival.

And perhaps the worst part is that we don't even know. We don't know what happened to our squadmates. We didn't get any sort of catharsis, conclusion. We got five years of literary foreplay followed by a kick to the groin and a note telling us that in a couple months, we can pay Bioware $15 for them to do it to us all over again.

It's not just the abysmally depressing/sacrificial nature of the ending, either. As I've already made perfectly clear, I came into this game expecting sacrifice. When Mordin did it, it was beautiful. When Thane did it, it was beautiful. Even Verner. Stupid, misguided, idiotic Verner. Even his ridiculous sacrifice had meaning, relevance, coherence, and offered satisfaction.

No, it's not the sacrifice I have a problem with. It's the utter lack of coherence and respect for the five years of literary gold that have already been established in this franchise. We spent three games preparing to fight these reapers. I spent hours upon hours doing every side quest, picking up every war asset, maxing out my galactic readiness so that when the time came, the army I had built could make a stand, and show these Reapers that we won't go down without a fight.

In ME1, we did the impossible when we killed Sovereign. In ME2, we began to see that the Reapers aren't as immortal as they claim to be: that even they have basic needs, exploitable weaknesses. In ME3, we saw the Reapers die. We saw one get taken down by an overgrown worm. We saw one die with a few coordinated orbital bombardments. We saw several ripped apart by standard space combat. In ME1, it took three alliance fleets to kill the "invincible" Sovereign. By the end of ME3, I had assembled a galactic armada fifty times more powerful than that, and a thousand times more prepared. I never expected the fight to be easy, but I proved that we wouldn't go down without a fight, that there is always hope in unity. That's the theme we've been given for the past five years: there is hope and strength through unity. That if we work together, we can achieve the impossible.

And then we're supposed to believe that the fate of the galaxy comes down to some completely unexplained starchild asking Shepard what his favorite color is? That the army we built was all for nothing? That the squad whose loyalty we fought so hard for was all for nothing? That in the end, none of it mattered at all?

It's a poetic notion, but this isn't the place for poetry. It's one thing to rattle prose nihilistic over the course of a movie or ballad, where the audience is a passive observer, learning a lesson from the suffering and futility of a character, but that's not what Mass Effect is. Mass Effect has always been about making the player the true hero. If you really want us to all feel like we spent the past five years dumping time, energy, and emotional investment into this game just to tell us that nothing really matters, you have signed your own death certificate. Nobody pays hundreds of dollars and hours to be reminded how bleak, empty, and depressing the world can be, to be told that nothing we do matters, to be told that all of our greatest accomplishments, all of our faith, all of our work, all of our unity is for nothing.

No. It simply cannot be this bleak. I refuse to believe Bioware is really doing this. The ending of ME1 was perfect. We saw the struggle, we saw the cost, but we knew that we had worked hard, worked together, and won. The ending of ME2 was perfect. We saw the struggle, we saw the cost, but we knew that we had worked hard, worked together, and won.

Taken at face value, the end of ME3 throws every single thing we've done in the past five years into the wind, and makes the player watch from a distance as the entire galaxy is thrown into a technological dark age and a stellar extinction. Why would we care about a universe that no longer exists? We should we invest any more time or money into a world that will never be what we came to know and love?

Even if the ending is retconned, it doesn't make things better. Just knowing that the starchild was our real foe the entire time is so utterly mindless, contrived, and irrelevant to what we experienced in ME1 and ME2 that it cannot be forgiven. If that really is the truth, then Mass Effect simply isn't what we thought it was. And frankly, if this is what Mass Effect was supposed to be all along, I want no part of it. It's a useless, trite, overplayed cliche, so far beneath the praise I once gave this franchise that it hurts to think about.

No. There is no way to save this franchise without giving us the only explanation that makes sense. You know what it is. It was the plan all along. Too much evidence to not be true. Too many people reaching the same conclusions independently.

The indoctrination theory doesn't just save this franchise: it elevates it to one of the most powerful and compelling storytelling experiences I've ever had in my life. The fact that you managed to do more than indoctrinate Shepard - you managed to indoctrinate the players themselves - is astonishing. If that really was the end game, here, then you have won my gaming soul. But if that's true, then I'm still waiting for the rest of this story, the final chapter of Shepard's heroic journey. I paid to finish the fight, and if the indoctrination theory is true, it's not over yet.

And if it's not, then I just don't even care. I have been betrayed, and it's time for me to let go of the denial, the anger, the bargaining, and start working through the depression and emptiness until I can just move on. You can't keep teasing us like this. This must have seemed like a great plan at the time, but it has cost too much. These people believed in you. I believed in you.

Just make it right.

This  --->   We don't know what happened to our squadmates. We didn't get any sort of
catharsis, conclusion. We got five years of literary foreplay followed
by a kick to the groin and a note telling us that in a couple months, we
can pay Bioware $15 for them to do it to us all over again.

[dafoster10]

Before purchasing Mass Effect 3 I did a play through of one and two, doing every mission, every side quest, and maintained a relationship with liara. Then mass effect 3, and i got to say i loved it, The story was believable and brought satisfaction to my story of Shepard. Even the deaths of a few crew members which i didn't have control over i accepted and felt sad that they left my story.

Like others out there i didn't like the ending, the three choices, the war readiness, it just wasn't right. I wanted the game to continue at the end with my relationship with liara to be something meaningful and not wasted. I hope the ending is transformed with free dlc, maybe with open suggestions from the community. I'm not saying mass effect 3 was a flop cause i still think the trilogy was great and i have to accept the ending in someways but it was not quite the ending i was hoping for.

[Bluebandit66]

I agree with the fact that the story needs closure. The journey to get to the end of this fantastic series was great, but the ending left a lot of questions, that will hopefully be answered in the near future.

P.S. This is my first post.

[jcmccorm]

Dave3172 wrote...

MJF JD wrote...
100 pages and no bioware presence.

Don't worry...they're "listening" to us.

Don't worry. They're also "waiting" for more people to finish. (Secretly hoping that later reviews might not be as horrible?)

[ssyyllaarr]

people keep linking it, so instead im just going to post it


A. First, a few pet peeves. Tropes are very popular for making generalizations about parts of stories we dislike, but they have a tendency to be overused and misused.

The Crucible isn't a MacGuffin. The best and most common example of an actual MacGuffin is the briefcase in Pulp Fiction; we don't know what is in the briefcase and we don't know how or why it functions, but it's important because it motivates the characters and drives the plot. Basically, a MacGuffin is important only because it's important. The Crucible in Mass Effect 3 is an actual plot device (a MacGuffin is a very specific subset of this); we are told what it is and what it's function is right from the beginning and it's use in the climax is in line with this.

The Crucible isn't an example of deus ex machina. Again, we know all along that the Crucible's function is to stop the Reapers, it's introduced at the beginning of the story, it's importance is reinforced throughout, and it's function during the climax is in line with what is expected. An example of Mass Effect ending with deus ex machina would be: the Reapers win the battle of Earth and are seemingly unstoppable, suddenly, and with no previous justification, an even more advanced race emerges from deep space and destroys the Reapers, saving Earth. The difference is obvious; one is a clearly defined plot device, the other is a magical fix with no precedent in the story.

Being the only time I'm going to talk about tropes, and for humorous purposes only, here are some I find more accurate for the ending: the lack of resolution after all the setting-shifting events, especially the lack of clarity in regards to the future of the setting and it's characters (including the protagonist and in some cases the antagonist force) may be considered no ending, the Reaper-God-Child and unexpected side effects of the Crucible may be considered diabolus ex machina, and the sudden shift of themes from hope and fighting the impossible fight to that of true art is angsty can be seen as an example of a sudden downer ending. I'm certain there are more we can shoehorn as applicable, but this is as far as I'm willing to go into tropes.

I want to iterate that I dislike how much we over analyze tropes and assign them as labels to similar and overgeneralized devices and themes. Stories are usually divergent enough from other stories that generalizing aspects of them with tropes rarely do them justice and are ambigous enough that what tropes a story actually uses are debatable. I only addressed the aforementioned devices of deus ex machina and MacGuffin because they are venerable and distinct enough that their usage in reference to Mass Effect 3 is clearly wrong. TL;DR: tropes are convenient but our time is better spent looking at the specifics of a given story.


B. The resolution of Mass Effect 3 falls short for many reasons. More than I'd care to get into, truth be told, so I'll try to punch on at least some of the major failings through the eyes of a screenwriter.


1. The ending feels jarring and out of place and there is little closure, this is a sympton of the ending failing to live up to what we come expect from the story. As I've previously said, "Mass Effect is a conventional story with conventional expectations". A conventional story, almost all stories, follow a pretty standard plotline: Introduction - Ascending Action - Climax - Descending Action - Resolution. In film we break it up into 3 acts, roughly: the first act is the introduction, the second act is the rising action and longest act of the story, and the third act is the climax and resolution.

Mass Effect 3 and the previous games follow this plotline both as individual stories and in the grand scheme of things as a trilogy (a trilogy is basically the three act structure writ large), that is until the final moments of 3. For reference, The battle for Earth is the climax of the series and the run across no man's land to the Citadel beam is the climax of the specific game; with this in mind, the Citadel sequence is the final part of the descending action and the resolution for both the game and series, the part where the antagonist is finally defeated, the themes and dramatic questions are answered, and the loose ends are tied. Or rather, it should be. After the defeat of the Illusive Man (the antagonist role is somewhat muddled and blurry towards the end of the story, more on that briefly), the protagonist has reached his goal, the defeat of the Reapers is at hand; conventionally, this is where the protagonist would succeed, the Crucible fire, and the Reapers destroyed. Instead, the story grows convoluted (once again, this is supposed to be the resolution) at the height of the scene by jarring us out of it with the bizarre, dreamlike sequence of Sheperd's ascent on the magic platform and the introduction of an ancient and seemingly god-like form who expounds the final choice between three options, all presented symbolically in appearance and action: one which mirrors a co-antagonist's desire which has been reinforced throughout as wrong and contradictory of the protagonist's; one which is downright bizarre and is almost completely outside the scope of the game's main themes save for being somewhat in line with the primary antagonistic forces' goal; and one which accurately mirrors the protagonist's goal from since the beginning. The results of these choices vary and are wide-reaching, creating a massive upheaval of the story world, while being unclear. All of the characters and the entire setting are left to an uncertain and sometimes confusing fate.

Just looking at what I've typed, it's apparent this is not a resolution. New information is introduced throughout the entire sequence rather than tying loose ends. New information shouldn't be introduced in a resolution unless it directly resolves something or is quickly resolved itself; definitively, it's the opposite of what a resolution is. In layman's terms, this is what makes us feel like there are more questions than answers.

The fate of the characters and the final destination they reach in the story are crucial to the resolution, especially on the scale of a trilogy. During the ascending action, right before the climax of the no man's land run, we are given a send off from all of the characters; this is both out of order for a conventional plotline (more fitting the descending action rather than ascending) and dimished by the implications of the ending. Ultimately, it is through the characters that we most directly identify with the story and find the meaning, the lack of resolution in this regard is especially unsatisfying.

The resolution is where the audience is supposed to find the tale's "ever after", be it happy or sad. Mass Effect 3 completely lacks any sense of "ever after".


2. Video games, like film, are a visual medium; the ending tells us what happens rather than shows us what happens. This is easy to overlook but very important. Visual mediums for story are all about what we see. Another cardinal sin of storytelling commited during the ending is the description of, and differences between, the options in the final choice are almost all conveyed through exposition. The cinematics themselves, what we actually see, are extremely similar and all the implications of the choice we make are conveyed through what the exposition had told us. This is very poor storytelling and worse still to be considered the resolution.


3. Ambiguity, lack of clarity, plot holes. Relating to the previous points, the ending is excessively ambiguous and unclear. With only unclear exposition before the choice and without sufficient data presented afterwards, many situations are unaccounted for and either lack clarity at best or appear as plot holes at worst. The crash landing of the Normandy is a clear example of this ambiguity, both in it's plausibility and implications for the fate of the crew.


4. Nothing is gained by breaking convention and attempting to make the ending enigmatic or profound. Assuming this was the writers' goal, this is another failing. Some believe, myself included, that the writers' tried to use the jarring impact of an unconventional, imperfect ending to hammer home a message or theme (presumably: pre-destination, the uncontrollable nature of fate, and the individual's limited ability to impact the world). This, however, comes at the cost of the story and the audience's pleasure, a cost that is far too high for the nature of storytelling.


5. The resurgence and emphasis on The Illusive Man during the resolution as well as the lack of interaction with the Reapers and, more specifically, Harbinger, detracts from the Reapers as the antagonist. A lot of people expected a "boss fight" of sorts or a closing discussion with Harbinger at the end. This is a perfectly understandable and legitimate expectation. During the climax, we are almost defeated by Harbinger, the avatar for the Reapers as antagonist, however, during the resolution, it is the indoctrinated Illusive Man that takes takes center stage. Though he unwittingly is an assisting force for the Reapers, he is not directly representative of them, merely their influence. TIM's role is more fitting that of an obstacle to be overcome during the rising action.

The prominance of The Illusive Man as the final foe to be overcome detracts from the overall threat and importance of the true antagonist, the Reapers.


These points were written as a stream of conscious, I'm sure there are plenty of things I've missed or didn't feel like going in depth about, but I think those are some of the most important ones.


C. As I was writing this I read the Final Hours thread containing comments from Mac Walters and Casey Hudson as well as Walters' scribbled notes for the ending. Honestly I was taken aback.

Judging the content Hudson cut based on his feel for "the moment", I'd say his feel for emotional beats and his judgement of what was expendable for story economy was atrocious. The first Mass Effect was inundated at times with exposition and had very poor economy, this ending, on the other hand, is something of an opposite with not nearly enough information.

Walters' notes scrawled across loose leaf disappointed me. The ideas are clearly not fleshed out at all, strictly drawing board material, the execution we see in game is indicative of that. " Lots of speculation from everyone" is somewhat repulsive, as if providing an unclear, poorly planned ending that leaves your audience unsatisfied and grasping at straws for answers is somehow good storytelling. It gives me the inclination that the ending really was just for publicity.

I hope it continues to backfire.

[Fred_MacManus]

Akael_Bayn wrote...

Quick, deflect the topic to something positive!

...yeah, we're not stupid, you know?
Don't give us this "We don't want to spoil things for people who aren't done BS.  How about a straight answer about where all the many and varied endings we were promised went?

This.

I am so disgusted with the ending that Bioware's choice of how to deal with the problem will determine whether I trust Bioware with my gaming dollars in the future. As of this point, I don't trust Bioware to produce a game that is worth playing - a statement I would not have made prior to March 6. 

[ilevakam117]

The majority of the game was wonderful. I was looking forward to this game the most out of both this year and last year. This game was also the first time I stood in line for a midnight launch to get the game as soon as possible.

It was spring break at my college and I wanted to spend my break with one of my favorite series of all time. Unfortunately once I got to the last 20 minutes I was completely disheartened. The disdain I felt from the ending was made worse because the entire experience was otherwise one of the best I've had.

[vrumpt]

cinderburster wrote...

MJF JD wrote...

100 pages and no bioware presence.

To be perfectly fair, it's probably kinder (and less stressful) not to respond until they're allowed to say something.  There's going to be a public statement made eventually.  Devs and forum mods do not have that power, unfortunately.  Only the Powers That Be can give them the go-ahead.

The only acceptable news is good news.  Telling us no alterations are going to be made would just ignite the fans again, far worse than this "final hours of mass effect" story has done.   There is only 1 correct option here for them.  It certainly takes a great deal of time to plan these things out.

I really hope they know this, but then again I was pretty certain they would get the ending right too...

[Kai212]

The side requests are not terribly interesting.

I miss all the loyalty missions, ME3 lacks the interactions with your teammates.

The earth mission has a epic cinematic start but is less interesting afterwards.
The final mission is not that breath-taking, it's kinda slow pace. You don't need to beat the time to get there (where ME2 does). You can leave your team there for an hour (the game is not paused) and come back and nothing would change. You don't really feel engaged into the battle.

Kai Leng should not be a ninja, kind of out of his character from the books. He should be a patient and coldblooded killer with guns(sniper,small pistol) and dagger.

Get rid of the scanner in your way to the war room, I don't know why it should be there in the first place.

[Tietj]

It was all wonderful. I'm incredibly happy about the addition of m/m romances; they were well done and they've earned Bioware my loyalty. My favorite moments were the "dates" with your crew, friendly or romantic. I loved the way the Geth seemed more sympathetic than the quarians; honestly, I like Tali well enough but if I couldn't make peace with them I would pick the Geth every time. Regarding the endings, I would buy dlc to "fix" them but I'm mostly ambivalent. I would like to be able to attain the "Shepard lives" ending without playing multiplayer, which it seems is impossible to do. Other than that, I loved every minute.

[jimbyjimb]

I don't like the ending as it sits either. Should it be they have something up their sleeves I'll be not only extraordinarily happy but impressed. Either way, I'd like to see either more OR a new ending should there be no more.

That being the case, I don't think being sarcastic or snarky is doing a whole lot. Rather than cracking wise at a team of people who worked a lot of overtime to make this happen it might be more useful to state your case and then hop on over to the Retake ME3 site and drop some coin for kids on their deathbeds. If nothing else at least some children who have real problems can have their minds taken off serious and extraordinarily painful physical maladies.

I am personally of the ilk that believe BioWare has something in store here. They've never let me down before and the in-game inconsistencies mixed with the cryptic information handed out by employees via electronic means indicate something's up. And if something is up I think there will be plenty of shame to be felt by those with loose lips and loud mouths.

You can bet BioWare knows it's fanbase is very upset. Quit cramming it down their throats. Give them an opportunity to make this right and not resent us and spit in our faces. I'll feel terrible should their willingness to provide content fitting the series be withheld or never created for lack of appreciation. Game developers bust their butts, it's a very high-stress job. Ask yourself if you'd like to have Gunny from Full Metal Jacket screaming at you while you were at work. Keep it mature, keep it civil and hold the line!

[DS Monkfish]

Dave3172 wrote...

MJF JD wrote...

100 pages and no bioware presence.

Don't worry...they're "listening" to us.

And high-fiving about how awesome all this "polarization" is.

[DoctorCrowtgamer]

MJF JD wrote...

100 pages and no bioware presence.

that's because they don't really care.  they wrote a bad ending that they knew was bad just to troll us and now they are trying to trick us into not being mad about by saying they are listening so that we will buy the DLC that comes out in a week or two.  We shouldn't fall for it.  Bioware is run by liars.

Hold the line don't buy anything from them.  They will not listen until they have lost some real money and Ea give them no choice.  They hate us and that is why they trolled us with the ending.

[Ja5ck]

Finally, some actual acknowledgement of the situation. ME3 was the best in the trilogy (Tuchanka was a masterpiece for emotional impact) but the endings just ruined the replayability.

[Xannerz]

bwFex wrote...

I really have been trying to let myself get over this nightmare, but since you guys promise you're listening here, I'll try to just say it all, get it all out.

I have invested more of myself into this series than almost any other video game franchise in my life. I loved this game. I believed in it. For five years, it delivered. I must have played ME1 and ME2 a dozen times each.

I remember the end of Mass Effect 2. Never before, in any video game I had ever played, did I feel like my actions really mattered. Knowing that the decisions I made and the hard work I put into ME2 had a very real, clear, obvious impact on who lived and who died was one of the most astounding feelings in the world to me. I remember when that laser hit the Normandy and Joker made a comment about how he was happy we upgraded the shields. That was amazing. Cause and effect. Work and reward.

The first time I went through, I lost Mordin, and it was gut-wrenching: watching him die because I made a bad decision was damning, heartbreaking. But it wasn't hopeless, because I knew I could go back, do better, and save him. I knew that I was in control, that my actions mattered. So that's exactly what I did. I reviewed my decisions, found my mistakes, and did everything right. I put together a plan, I worked hard to follow that plan, and I got the reward I had worked so hard for. And then, it was all for nothing.

When I started playing Mass Effect 3, I was blown away. It was perfect. Everything was perfect. It was incredible to see all of my decisions playing out in front of me, building up to new and outrageous outcomes. I was so sure that this was it, this was going to be the masterpiece that crowned an already near-perfect trilogy. With every war asset I gathered, and with every multiplayer game I won, I knew that my work would pay off, that I would be truly satisfied with the outcome of my hard work and smart decisions. Every time I acquired a new WA bonus, I couldn't wait to see how it would play out in the final battle. And then, it was all for nothing.

I wasn't expecting a perfect, happy ending with rainbows and butterflies. In fact, I think I may have been insulted if everyone made it through just fine. The Reapers are an enormous threat (although obviously not as invincible as they would like us to believe), and we should be right to anticipate heavy losses. But I never lost hope. I built alliances, I made the impossible happen to rally the galaxy together. I cured the genophage. I saved the Turians. I united the geth and the quarians. And then, it was all for nothing.

When Mordin died, it was heartwrenching, but I knew it was the right thing. His sacrifice was... perfect. It made sense. It was congruent with the dramatic themes that had been present since I very first met Wrex in ME1. It was not a cheap trick, a deus ex machina, an easy out. It was beautiful, meaningful, significant, relevant, and satisfying. It was an amazing way for an amazing character to sacrifice themself for an amazing thing. And then it was all for nothing.

When Thane died, it was tearjerking. I knew from the moment he explained his illness that one day, I'd have to deal with his death. I knew he was never going to survive the trilogy, and I knew it wouldn't be fun to watch him go. But when his son started reading the prayer, I lost it. His death was beautiful. It was significant. It was relevant. It was satisfying. It was meaningful. He died to protect Shepard, to protect the entire Citadel. He took a life he thought was unredeemable and used it to make the world a brighter place. And then it was all for nothing.

When Wrex and Eve thanked me for saving their species, I felt that I had truly accomplished something great. When Tali set foot on her homeworld, I felt that I had truly accomplished something great. When Javik gave his inspiring speech, I felt that I had inspired something truly great. When I activated the Citadel's arms, sat down to reminisce with Anderson one final time, I felt that I had truly accomplished something amazing. I felt that my sacrifice was meaningful. Significant. Relevant. And while still a completely unexplained deus ex machina, at least it was a little bit satisfying.

And then, just like everything else in this trilogy, it was all for nothing.

If we pretend like the indoctrination theory is false, and we're really supposed to take the ending at face value, this entire game is a lost cause. The krogans will never repopulate. The quarians will never rebuild their home world. The geth will never know what it means to be alive and independent. The salarians will never see how people can change for the better.

Instead, the quarians and turians will endure a quick, torturous extinction as they slowly starve to death, trapped in a system with no support for them. Everyone else will squabble over the scraps of Earth that haven't been completely obliterated, until the krogans drive them all to extinction and then die off without any women present. And this is all assuming that the relays didn't cause supernova-scaled extinction events simply by being destroyed, like we saw in Arrival.

And perhaps the worst part is that we don't even know. We don't know what happened to our squadmates. We didn't get any sort of catharsis, conclusion. We got five years of literary foreplay followed by a kick to the groin and a note telling us that in a couple months, we can pay Bioware $15 for them to do it to us all over again.

It's not just the abysmally depressing/sacrificial nature of the ending, either. As I've already made perfectly clear, I came into this game expecting sacrifice. When Mordin did it, it was beautiful. When Thane did it, it was beautiful. Even Verner. Stupid, misguided, idiotic Verner. Even his ridiculous sacrifice had meaning, relevance, coherence, and offered satisfaction.

No, it's not the sacrifice I have a problem with. It's the utter lack of coherence and respect for the five years of literary gold that have already been established in this franchise. We spent three games preparing to fight these reapers. I spent hours upon hours doing every side quest, picking up every war asset, maxing out my galactic readiness so that when the time came, the army I had built could make a stand, and show these Reapers that we won't go down without a fight.

In ME1, we did the impossible when we killed Sovereign. In ME2, we began to see that the Reapers aren't as immortal as they claim to be: that even they have basic needs, exploitable weaknesses. In ME3, we saw the Reapers die. We saw one get taken down by an overgrown worm. We saw one die with a few coordinated orbital bombardments. We saw several ripped apart by standard space combat. In ME1, it took three alliance fleets to kill the "invincible" Sovereign. By the end of ME3, I had assembled a galactic armada fifty times more powerful than that, and a thousand times more prepared. I never expected the fight to be easy, but I proved that we wouldn't go down without a fight, that there is always hope in unity. That's the theme we've been given for the past five years: there is hope and strength through unity. That if we work together, we can achieve the impossible.

And then we're supposed to believe that the fate of the galaxy comes down to some completely unexplained starchild asking Shepard what his favorite color is? That the army we built was all for nothing? That the squad whose loyalty we fought so hard for was all for nothing? That in the end, none of it mattered at all?

It's a poetic notion, but this isn't the place for poetry. It's one thing to rattle prose nihilistic over the course of a movie or ballad, where the audience is a passive observer, learning a lesson from the suffering and futility of a character, but that's not what Mass Effect is. Mass Effect has always been about making the player the true hero. If you really want us to all feel like we spent the past five years dumping time, energy, and emotional investment into this game just to tell us that nothing really matters, you have signed your own death certificate. Nobody pays hundreds of dollars and hours to be reminded how bleak, empty, and depressing the world can be, to be told that nothing we do matters, to be told that all of our greatest accomplishments, all of our faith, all of our work, all of our unity is for nothing.

No. It simply cannot be this bleak. I refuse to believe Bioware is really doing this. The ending of ME1 was perfect. We saw the struggle, we saw the cost, but we knew that we had worked hard, worked together, and won. The ending of ME2 was perfect. We saw the struggle, we saw the cost, but we knew that we had worked hard, worked together, and won.

Taken at face value, the end of ME3 throws every single thing we've done in the past five years into the wind, and makes the player watch from a distance as the entire galaxy is thrown into a technological dark age and a stellar extinction. Why would we care about a universe that no longer exists? We should we invest any more time or money into a world that will never be what we came to know and love?

Even if the ending is retconned, it doesn't make things better. Just knowing that the starchild was our real foe the entire time is so utterly mindless, contrived, and irrelevant to what we experienced in ME1 and ME2 that it cannot be forgiven. If that really is the truth, then Mass Effect simply isn't what we thought it was. And frankly, if this is what Mass Effect was supposed to be all along, I want no part of it. It's a useless, trite, overplayed cliche, so far beneath the praise I once gave this franchise that it hurts to think about.

No. There is no way to save this franchise without giving us the only explanation that makes sense. You know what it is. It was the plan all along. Too much evidence to not be true. Too many people reaching the same conclusions independently.

The indoctrination theory doesn't just save this franchise: it elevates it to one of the most powerful and compelling storytelling experiences I've ever had in my life. The fact that you managed to do more than indoctrinate Shepard - you managed to indoctrinate the players themselves - is astonishing. If that really was the end game, here, then you have won my gaming soul. But if that's true, then I'm still waiting for the rest of this story, the final chapter of Shepard's heroic journey. I paid to finish the fight, and if the indoctrination theory is true, it's not over yet.

And if it's not, then I just don't even care. I have been betrayed, and it's time for me to let go of the denial, the anger, the bargaining, and start working through the depression and emptiness until I can just move on. You can't keep teasing us like this. This must have seemed like a great plan at the time, but it has cost too much. These people believed in you. I believed in you.

Just make it right.

This. ^