23455 réponses à ce sujet

[mullinavat]

So the lineage continues

[mullinavat]

 id pay for DLC for the ending I love the game and characters that much

[Subject One]

die-yng wrote...

subi211 wrote...
After that, I honestly just stared at the screen for a while.  Even the crassness of the final message box didn’t really register.  Emotionally I felt that I was left hanging - in fact, it was the same feeling I get when I get dumped.  And the simple fact is that I don’t play games to feel like crap at the end of them.

And ain't that the truth. Who came up with this glorious idea that games nowadays have to end with crushing defeat and loss of hope?

Getting the best possible ending through the skill with which you play, that used to be what gaming was about.

When I finish a game I want to feel good, maybe even proud of what I accomplished inside the games universe.

I don't want to feel empty and devastated.

I play games, listen music, read books and watch films to FEEL something. Good, depressing, uplifting or bad. What I don't want is to be bored. And I think that I wasn't bored for a second with ME3.

And yes, the ending is weird, depressing and thought provoking. And I understand why a lot of people hate it. But personally for me it's better a bitter ending than an average/ predictable ending that don't make me feel/ think anything. But maybe it's just me.

[Phobius9]

I think some people on here need to re-read the OP and maybe change the record, because it's starting to get boring.

[Dessalines]

Sir Fluffykins wrote...

Yeah that's another thing, someone complained earlier about Illusive Man being Saren version 2.0, but there IS NOTHING wrong with that. Being able to kill a boss with words and having it play out differently is exactly what people want, too have that 5 minutes later..../broken record

Gonig to start a new Insanity Level game now, typed all I could type

I think the problem was that synthesis was what SAren wanted. It is almos the same speech that the computer kid gives you.

[TheBigM145]

OK, well, see, the only reason I'm not up in total nerd rage after that ending was because I do put more weight on the journey than the ending. As for favorite moment, had to be Mordin's death/final farewell. As others had said, it just summed him up perfectly. Also loved every time Javik opened his mouth. His whole "you're all f***ed, but lets go kick some reaper hiney anyway" attitude was just amazing. Need to see what happens if you bring him to Thessia .

[JackofStaves]

Favorites?

Each of the important dialog sections with the characters we've come to know and love over the past couple of years. Ending aside, I don't think I've ever played a game that forced me to think so much about my decisions, or to actually make me worry that something I did might have consequences I won't see for some time, but have dramatic and lasting effects on my gameplay, let alone the ME universe. And I know I've never played a game (nor very few movies or TV shows) that have made me jump out of my chair and shout for victory, or be unable to speak for the lump in my throat and tears in my eyes.

Because of all that, that magic the writers, actors, developers and creative team have imbued my Mass Effect game with, I have faith that there's one, last, amazing trick left in the bag. My archetype is the Fool, so call me a fool if you wish, but given the ride they've given us so far, well, I think they love the game as much as we do.

For what it's worth, Bioware, I believe....

Modifié par JackofStaves, 16 mars 2012 - 12:52 .

[Arkennys]

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.

QFT This, exactly this.

[Xerkysz]

Here are some facts I'm putting together, that if people simply went to their Codex, down to Reapers, and hit Indoctrination, took notes of how it affects you, then looked back on the game, at your nightmares that contain the catalyst and the ghosts (As time passes, they have feelings of "Being watched" and hallucinations of "Ghostly presences"), they would realise it.

The high pitch ringing noise after you get hit by the reaper beam (Organics undergoing indoctrination may complain of headaches or ringing and buzzing in their ears. This is out of the Codex).
The fact that I was in Collector armor when I got hit, woke up in the N7 armor, then destroyed the reapers and woke up in London, back in my collector armor, the fact that I had Garrus and Javik on my squad during the run, yet when I got up and continued moving to the beam after being hit by the reaper, they were no where to be seen, and then Javik gets out of the Normandy after the crash landing? I never knew Javik could get from the earth, to the normandy, in the middle of a dog fight in space, in the short time it takes you to destroy the Mass Relays.

The fact that the Catalyst says...
"You can wipe out all synthetic life if you want, including the Geth. Even you are partly synthetic." (Trying to stop you from destroying them by saying you will die too.) This is where BioWare indoctrinated the player base, not Shepard.

If you choose control/synth, you're not destroying the reapers, which has been the aim of the game since the beginning of the series.

There's also the part where you just get onto the Citadel, and Anderson describes what he see's as you're about to go to it, yet you cannot see him.

The Indoctrination theory has solid facts proving it, and people just need to see it.

[Aedera]

The part I love the most is the constant "we are listening"mantra we are getting. My question is will you do anything about it? This isn't a grieving period for the end of a great game. It could have been but the "lol speculation" endings just enraged, confused and depressed a large portion of your fan base so that is pretty sweet right?

We are thankful you are listening. Now HEAR us and just tell us if our issues with the ending will be resolved or not. A simple "yes ending dlc is coming" or "no. This was our vision and it stays." Not some staged interview with a random website or magazine. An honest to goodness statement posted here or on the website.

The silence is what is killing us and the potentially false hope people are getting from leaks or twitter feeds keep us talking about how crappy we feel. Put a bullet in it. You've already put the bullet in your franchise. Do us a favor and do it to us too.

Modifié par Aedera, 16 mars 2012 - 12:55 .

[Wraithful]

I think you guys sold yourselves short on the ending.  For me Mass Effect is about the relationships I had with my crew, not the Reaper threat.  However, I am happy to ignore the ending as you guys have done such an amazing on literally everything else. 

I'm not sure that I've ever played a game series that has seen such a consistent improvement on each iteration.
Comparing where the combat mechanics started in the first game (functional) to where they have ended in the third game is simply astounding.  ME3 in my mind has surpassed all other mainstream third person shooters (Gears, etc) in terms of fun and playability.  It also has a perfect blend of tactics; any time combat starts getting a little over-whelming I just pop up the menu and start selecting targets and how I'm going to deal with them. 
My crew mates are alot more involved in combat this time round which is very nice.  Before, they were just bullet sponges but now they actively contribute to the battle - even when I wish they wouldn't (damn you Liara, stay away from the guardians, I'm trying to get the achievement!    ).  I also love the relationship between the number of weapons and their weight versus power cooldown. 

In terms of characters you did an awesome job on those also.  For me, Garrus wins the prize for favourite cutscene (on the citdael), but I also really enjoyed his interaction with the crew.  If I'm honest no other character stood a chance because my Shepard had a buddy cop relationship with Garrus. 

You did make me care about characters which before I had no attactment to such as Mordin and Thane - both their deaths surprised me by how bad I felt.  (Just a quick note to say that awarding me with paragon points after a character has died cheapens the scene.  By all means have that stuff happen in the background but don't give me a pop-up telling me how awesome I was whilst my friend died!  lol)

Right so, whilst Garrus's scene on the citadel was my personal favourite moment the absolute best moment is the final scene between Shepard, Tali (my love interest) and Legion.  In the other two games I was a renegade but ultimately a paragon in the choices I made.  The kind of guy that will stop an orphanage from burning but will kick a cat afterward.  Based off this charming template, any choice I was going to make was made in roughly the time it took for me to read the options available.  Well.  This choice had me staring at my screen paralysed for a few minutes, debating with myself over what decision I would make!  Whilst I loved the character of Tali, her people seemed to me to be space fascists.  So I told Legion to upload the code.  But wait!  It isn't over!  When Tali starts begging for the code not to be uploaded I felt so awful that I told Legion to stop and at which point I effectively betrayed one squad mate over another.  That whole scene blew me away.  After I finished Mass Effect 2 the first time I lost 3 crew members, however, given that potentially they were going to be in the third game I replayed it with everyone surviving.  I will not be doing that this time around.  That scene is just too powerful.  It felt awesome and I felt completely awful, all at the same time. 
I'm taking my imaginary hat off to you for that scene.

By the way, just wanted to say that your fans are the best I've ever seen.  When you meet up with other developers you can say 'our fans are so much more awesome than yours' 

Modifié par Wraithful, 16 mars 2012 - 01:01 .

[dizee]

All Bioware did really was rip off South Park's Guitar Hero episode.Big insult to their fans. In fact I would have preferred that simply did what South Park did and then let the credits roll than the ending garbage that we got.

Modifié par dizee, 16 mars 2012 - 12:55 .

[Bedevil123]

I loved the whole game, until the end that is.... but specifically i love the part where i got to punch the quarian admiral! that was a long time coming haha but i fixed their relations with the geth so they cant hold a grudge

[Bantz]

Chris Priestly wrote...

We appreciate everyone’s feedback about Mass Effect 3 and want you to know that we are listening. Active discussions about the ending are more than welcome here, and the team will be reviewing it for feedback and responding when we can. Please note, we want to give people time to experience the game so while we can’t get into specifics right now, we will be able to address some of your questions once more people have had time to complete the game. In the meantime, we’d like to ask that you keep the non-spoiler areas of our forums and our social media channels spoiler free.
 
We understand there is a lot of debate on the Mass Effect 3 ending and we will be more than happy to engage in healthy discussions once more people get to experience the game. We are listening to all of your feedback.

In the meantime, let's give appreciation to Commander Shepard. Whether you loved the ME3 ending or didn't or you just have a lot of questions, he/she has given many of us some of the best adventures we have had while playing games. What was your favorite moment?

anyone else read this as "We're glad your talking about this, and we'll be happy to explain to you simple minded folks the brilliance of our work after we've had enough time to ****** off another entire country of fans. Thank you for your patience."  ?

Hope i'm wrong and Chris is being genuine but it just seems based of twitter comments and such that you expect us to head cannon everything. IE I picked red and destroyed the reapers, geth and EDI (although if you listen to twitter the star child may have been lying!). My crew is stranded and I'm laying battered bruised and, 5 minutes before meeting star child I was bleeding out. So I take a half a breath which means i"m alive! So disregarding my dire medical situation and unknown location I'm to head cannon that I'm found, nursed back to health and find a pilot to fly me out on a wild goose chase to find my crew. Hey STEEEEEEEEVE !!!! crashed on earth somewhere and apparently "he's ok!" so maybe he'll help after all he'll do "anything for me".

Ok sarcasm and lack of faith aside. Chris you asked what my favorite parts of ME3 were? Just about all of it. I romanced tali, I LOVED the flirtations between her and shep all game. It really made the romance feel more organic. Now it would have been nice when i went to speak to her if i got something other then "shepherd". even in ME2 when you started romancing her you got a change in dialog when you asked "got time to talk". It went from "not now need to fix the engine", to "Ofcourse, always have time for you".    I loved the missions on rannoch and Tuchanka. And even though I romanced Tali I think the Tuchanka missions were your finest work. Between Moridins "Metal in tank excellent supliment for thresher maws diet", to his "I MADE A MISTAKE!" or "Would have liked to run tests on seashells". That series of quests had moments of absolute hilarity and moments that made you completely choke up and fight back tears.

Oh and being able to punch that headstrong quarian admiral that ordered the fleet to fire on the dreadnaught while I was still inside. GET THE HELL OFF MY SHIP MR. QUIB QUIB!

[Miiaah]

I can't pick a favourite moments of this game. Everything was so perfect, the epicness, the jokes, the romance, the sadness, the fear... I had a hard time keeping a social life while playing. I heard rumors that the end wasn't good. Well, it was better than the last game I played but it was awfully flat compared with all the emotions through the rest of the game.

[Zhor2395]

mastercheif-117 wrote...

 Come on guys, Chris was asking for favourite moments, irregardless of the ending. The ending's jarring, but even on a single thread you guys can't look past the ending for a few moments and remember the positive qualities of ME3?

yeah, i think at this point they get the picture that most of us do not like the ending, telling them what they did right helps make sure it doesn't get broken when they go to fix whats wrong

[Aditya_the_warrior_within]

so much replies in less than 24 hours! see THIS shows how much ppl are concerned/upset/raged however you put it.
I hope the devs read all this and do what needs to be done, we need a much better ending it is deserved.
I seriously won't mind paying for it (dlc) even now, many will crib but eventuallly everyone will get it 'when' it happens (yeah Im being optimistic, it should happen)

[BigglesFlysAgain]

Xerkysz wrote...

Here are some facts I'm putting together, that if people simply went to their Codex, down to Reapers, and hit Indoctrination, took notes of how it affects you, then looked back on the game, at your nightmares that contain the catalyst and the ghosts (As time passes, they have feelings of "Being watched" and hallucinations of "Ghostly presences"), they would realise it.

The high pitch ringing noise after you get hit by the reaper beam (Organics undergoing indoctrination may complain of headaches or ringing and buzzing in their ears. This is out of the Codex).
The fact that I was in Collector armor when I got hit, woke up in the N7 armor, then destroyed the reapers and woke up in London, back in my collector armor, the fact that I had Garrus and Javik on my squad during the run, yet when I got up and continued moving to the beam after being hit by the reaper, they were no where to be seen, and then Javik gets out of the Normandy after the crash landing? I never knew Javik could get from the earth, to the normandy, in the middle of a dog fight in space, in the short time it takes you to destroy the Mass Relays.

The fact that the Catalyst says...
"You can wipe out all synthetic life if you want, including the Geth. Even you are partly synthetic." (Trying to stop you from destroying them by saying you will die too.) This is where BioWare indoctrinated the player base, not Shepard.

If you choose control/synth, you're not destroying the reapers, which has been the aim of the game since the beginning of the series.

There's also the part where you just get onto the Citadel, and Anderson describes what he see's as you're about to go to it, yet you cannot see him.

The Indoctrination theory has solid facts proving it, and people just need to see it.

I wish I could belive it too, but the final hours app puts nearly beyond all doubt that this was the ending they wanted and they thought it was a great idea. I only hope they decide not to change the ending, but to simply continue the story, lol

[BWGungan]

The ending just undoes everything you as a player achieved in the entire series. It's that bad.

[Mobius-Silent]

Xerkysz wrote...
The Indoctrination theory has solid facts proving it, and people just need to see it.

No, it has speculation, I have no problem with that speculation, but there is nothing there that doesn't have a more likely "design shortcut", "slipup" or WAI explaination. It's grasping at "Emergency induction ports" we can (mostly) all see the reasons for the theory and most of us can see the counterpoints, none of that makes the current ending any better.

Also, _if_ there is indoctrination going on here then there is even _less_ of an ending in the game as stands

Modifié par Mobius-Silent, 16 mars 2012 - 12:59 .

[Defiantfa11]

Right from the start ME3 really hit hard, action, great story, reaper forces overwhelming you, then the Illusive Man comes into it once more and we hear the amazing voice of Martin Sheen, the voice cast really did themselves proud this time around! As well as for number 2. I was disappointed with the absense of Michael Beattie as Mordin, but he still kind of sounded the same..

I also wanted to express my own view on the ending as it is the main topic of focus everywhere on the internet I didn't hate it, It left me with more questions and after saying that this game would end Shepards story I thought to myself "This is gonna be great! There's more content to come!!" Although I believe in the indoctrination theory myself, it makes perfect sense!

Just want that closure as most people do, Surprise us all Bioware. Hopefully they will give us some solid news about it soon.

[Book buster]

There was so much to love...

My favourite moment is actually a tiny little one: on the Citadel, talking to Liara after talking to Matriarch Aethyta and getting confirmation that she's Liara's 'dad'. The whole, brief little conversation is perfect from start to finish. Shepard's petulant 'I never get to surprise you with anything' and Liara's smug reply... I just love that you eventually get the option to make Liara talk to Aethyta, and Shepard's way of getting her to go is a withering look a 'Liara!". Liara's huffy "Oh, fine!" just caps it off.

The whole conversation the Liara and Aethyta have after that is a hoot too. If you're ever looking to explore backstories some more, Aethyta gets my vote.

It's been a while since a game provoke such a wide range of emotions in me. Great moments of humour that made me laugh aloud: the above, the 'emergency induction straw', the 'hair tentacles' scene, Joker and Garrus trading jokes, catching Garrus and Tali making out, giving a hungover Ashley crap... There were, too, crowing moments of awesome - the Reaper/Thresher Maw fight springs to mind, and the Quarian fleet killing a Reaper almost by accident - and moments of great pathos. I cried when Mordin died a hero, and again when Thane's son why the chosen passage had been read, and yet again when Liara gave me her final gift. When I ended the Geth/Quarian conflict, I was left full of hope, only to be shattered and enraged by the events of Thessia. Killing Kai Leng was so very satisfying after that.

The ending though... it just felt *wrong*, on a very visceral level (incidentally, the ‘buy our stuff’ popup at the end did not help. My Shepard just died in a very bizarre fashion and now you’re trying to sell me things? Not. Happy. Jan.). My immediate reaction was that I, as a player, had missed something, somewhere, and, after the moment of shock and bewilderment, off I dashed to google. Where the hell did this AI thing come from? Was there exposition that I missed? What would have been different if I’d used my Renegade? Was my war-score not high enough? Did I just luck out and get the bad ending?
When I say ‘bad’, as with others, the problem is not that it wasn’t a ‘happily ever after’ Hollywood ending. I am, frankly, quite partial to ‘downer’ or ‘realistic’ endings (for example, I loved the way ‘We Have a Pope’ ended though most of the other people in the cinema left muttering darkly). I expected Shepard to die. Hell, her mythic arc effectively calls for it, and the game spends quite a bit of time preparing it us for it. I went into that final battle knowing that wouldn’t really be marriage, old age and a lot of little blue children for my Paragon Shepard. I secretly hoped otherwise, of course (and did everything I could towards that end), but I didn’t believe a happily ever after was on the cards. With my Renegade Shepard, who made a great many bad choices over the course of his career, I expected a near-total Reaper victory when I made the playthrough.

It’s actually more of a question of what Shepard’s death achieves within the game universe, and how it’s set-up. If you compare Shepard’s sacrifice to Mordin’s sacrifice, Mordin’s is much, much more satisfying. Why? Because Mordin’s sacrifice results in an immediate, visible and commensurate payoff. He not only cures the genophage, giving an entire race of people a future, but redeems himself – and, by extension, redeems his people - for his involvement in the disease in the first place. Sacrifice is balanced with reward, and the result is a Big Damn Hero moment. Tears, applause, curtains.

Shepard, though, is called upon to sacrifice not only her life but, particularly if you were playing a Paragon Shepard, her *ideals*. Each of the three choices contains at least one thing that is deeply repugnant to her character: collateral genocide, enslavement and tampering with people without their consent. What is more telling is that universe has spent three games telling us that these things are repugnant, abhorrent. The best outcomes in-game are achieved when you stop wars, free slaves, and fight those who seek to, among other things, speed up evolution along by experimenting on the unwilling and unconsenting. The people that enslave, control and experiment are your enemies, and the enemies of your friends.

Shepard’s sacrifice is unsatisfying in the first instance because the payoff is not seen but implied. It’s unsatisfying in the second instance because, what little payoff we *do* see is not commensurate with the sacrifice she makes. Sacrifice of life in the service of your fellow sentients is one thing, but sacrifice of both life and *ideals* in service of the greater good is even harder. The payoff, therefore, needs to be even greater. It also needs to be unambiguous. If my Shepard is going to sacrifice herself and everything she believes in, I want to know that it was worthwhile.

If the ending is unsatisfying narratively, in terms of the epic arc, it is also unsatisfying thematically. There’s forced embrace of the abhorrent, as I mention above and could probably delve into in more detail. While one of the meta-arcs of Mass Effect - particularly seen in ME3 – is the coming-of-age of the council races, the ending infantilizes them: Daddy knows best, and you’d best do what Daddy says. Mass Effect is the story of exceptional people doing exceptional things? Of different peoples and races coming together to achieve the impossible, to create something greater than the whole? In the ‘best ending’, uniformity rules.

Finally, using the kid? I can’t be the only person who instinctively rebels when creators use such an obvious and hackneyed ploy to try to forcibly generate sympathy. I disliked him immediately. It was bad enough when Shepard started dreaming about him, let alone when he showed up at the catalyst’s avatar.

[Phobius9]

Guys, there are literally hundreds of threads on this board that discuss the endings and people's thoughts about them in extensive detail.

Those discussions are not what this thread is intended for. Please can we try and avoid de-railing it and stick to the topic?

I'd be interested in know what Bioware's favourite parts were in the story? 

Modifié par Phobius9, 16 mars 2012 - 01:00 .

[gunslinger_ruiz]

I honestly loved 100% of the game, even the random (minor) bugs and glitches, even the endings though I hope there will be more to them eventually. I've spent countless hours playing the Mass Effect series, and I'm happy to say that ME3 delivered the best gaming experiences I've ever played.

My favorite scene: no matter what ending choice you pick, you see flashes of Joker, Anderson and your love interest as Shepard makes the sacrifice. My LI being Liara, the flashback of her looking up at Shepard and smiling just about broke my heart. Second favorite, Anderson's last words.

All in all, this game, this entire trilogy, has been a memorable experience. I can't wait to see what else Bioware has planned. And thank you, Bioware, for giving us gamers this masterpiece.

[Arppis]

I loved Mass Effect 3.

Ofcourse the ending came behind the tree, but after initial shock I accepted it. It could have been done a bit better. But I can see the reason behind the "bigger picture" of the endings, just some details needed a bit more work.

My favourite momment in the game? Well, I have to say the Tuchanka last part. Modrin's death, Wrex's last words to Shepard and finaly seeing the Genophage cured. It was rather touching and beautiful momment to see things turning out well. I enjoyed the fact that my past decissions were carrying fruit and meaning.