Ce sujet est fermé
I literally loved the whole game until the last 10mins just after Anderson dies and shepherd loses conciousness.. how can something done so right suddenly take a nosedive and be so wrong in the last 10 mins that it destroys what i feel was an amazing game up till that point.
I would go so far as to call ME3 a future classic until the last 10mins where you just go huh??!? WTF??!? huh??!? you have got to be kidding me.......
Basically i have reached the acceptance stage of the grieving process. To be the destroy option will forever be canon to me if Bioware does not fix the endings. I am torn between future DLCs. I am a completionist and don't mind spending on DLCs. I bought every DLC from DA2, ME2 including the weapon and armor packs but i just don't know if i really want to get any DLC for ME3 because the ending left me with a sick taste in the mouth. On the other hand the rest of the game was so brilliant...... i really don't understand how Bioware could get it so wrong at the end.
On the Mass Effect 3 endings. Yes, we are listening.
Débuté par
Chris Priestly
, mars 15 2012 02:55
Retour en haut
#3902
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 04:56
AGogley
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- Members
- 325 messages
I hated the ending. It offered closure but also killed replay value and doesn't want to make me buy and DLC (I mean why bother?).
#3903
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 04:56
Morhonri
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- Members
- 10 messages
To me one of the most powerful moments throughout the game (if not the franchise) was watching Thane sacrifice his life for another and then dieing. The twist at the end of the prayer was awe inspiring.
#3904
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 04:56
Neuthung
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- 215 messages
Ilzairspar wrote...
Neuthung wrote...
So... Are we going to be getting a reply from a BW rep, or did they create this just to herd complaints into one spot?
If that was their intention I don't think it is working.
No? Because the forums look to me like most of the complaints are here and a huge amount of threads are people saying we should stop whining.
#3905
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 04:57
Tairram
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- Members
- 73 messages
[quote]Neuthung wrote...
[quote]TheLastThought wrote...
[quote]Stygian1 wrote...
[quote]StripedStocking wrote...
[quote]
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.
[/quote]
^This is absolutely perfect.
Agree with everybody. Just read this of bwfex
[quote]TheLastThought wrote...
[quote]Stygian1 wrote...
[quote]StripedStocking wrote...
[quote]
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.
[/quote]
^This is absolutely perfect.
Agree with everybody. Just read this of bwfex
Modifié par Tairram, 16 mars 2012 - 04:58 .
#3906
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 04:58
dkear1
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- Members
- 618 messages
TheRealMithril wrote...
bwFex wrote... wall -1
A you get -100 for posting the same thing over....and over........and over........
Oh wait isn't that why your upset at someone else...........
#3907
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 04:58
Iam2ugly
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- Members
- 82 messages
Ok, since Asians already speak about the ending, so maybe it's time for a statement?
#3908
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 04:58
Lurchibald
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- Members
- 178 messages
-4 Seriously, Stop reposting, yeah it's great but all i can see is that damn post and i have to sift through to find something different
Modifié par Lurchibald, 16 mars 2012 - 05:00 .
#3909
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 04:59
CoolEraser
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- Members
- 10 messages
Just felt like I needed a little more cut scenes about how the galaxy is afterwards, and what happened to the team on the Normandy. (I'm also fine with just text balloons similar to DA:O ending).
#3910
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 05:00
Midna Shepard
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- Members
- 25 messages
NamiraWilhelm wrote...
Favourite moment? Everything Kaidan.
I agree!
#3911
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 05:00
Neutral Ground
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- Members
- 82 messages
as someone who is fairly opposed to the endings, I LOVED the majority of the game and I definitely had a favorite moment. There will be spoilers, but I guess that's okay on this forum.
Because of my own colossal screw-up, I didn't do enough to keep the geth AND quarians (I forgot to do one of the Rannoch missions before I went to the Reaper base). I had to choose between Tali and Legion, and the first time I let the geth get their data. Watching the quarian fleet get destroyed was gut-wrenching, and Tali's suicide--and the BRILLIANT move of providing a fruitless paragon interrupt to save her--was probably the most genuinely heartbreaking moment I have experienced in a videogame in AGES.
Then I reloaded because that couldn't be what happened in MY Shep's story (that "gamer as author" impulse is strong with this one) and I sac'd the geth and Legion. And Legion's sacrifice was NEARLY as heart-breaking! When he asked Tali if he had a soul, man, I was actually having to fight back tears. Such a BRILLIANTLY executed narrative moment, finely interweaving both typical narrative aspects as well as elements of the genre of gaming. My hat is off, Bioware!
(Even if I still think the ending sucks
)
Because of my own colossal screw-up, I didn't do enough to keep the geth AND quarians (I forgot to do one of the Rannoch missions before I went to the Reaper base). I had to choose between Tali and Legion, and the first time I let the geth get their data. Watching the quarian fleet get destroyed was gut-wrenching, and Tali's suicide--and the BRILLIANT move of providing a fruitless paragon interrupt to save her--was probably the most genuinely heartbreaking moment I have experienced in a videogame in AGES.
Then I reloaded because that couldn't be what happened in MY Shep's story (that "gamer as author" impulse is strong with this one) and I sac'd the geth and Legion. And Legion's sacrifice was NEARLY as heart-breaking! When he asked Tali if he had a soul, man, I was actually having to fight back tears. Such a BRILLIANTLY executed narrative moment, finely interweaving both typical narrative aspects as well as elements of the genre of gaming. My hat is off, Bioware!
(Even if I still think the ending sucks
)
#3912
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 05:00
Chimera2402
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- Members
- 1 messages
This is the quality the endings should have been and would have kept the game firmly at my top spot. The endings we got unfortunately ruined the whole series for me. Not because they were unhappy but because there was no thought to them nor variation. What's the point in a game that promised choice if it made no difference when it comes to the end? (sorry, you can choose the colour of an explosion)
No accounting for your previous decisions at all
No explanation as to why joker would leave you behind (he wouldn't)
No epilogue
No reason why shepherd would accept such poor choices offered, he's always fought on before
No thought to the fact the entire armada of the galaxy is now stranded by earth doomed to starvation and lack of resources
Its just like they got to the end, run out of time and money then threw the script in the bin and had a five minute discussion on the quickest way to end the game.
[quote]Archonsg wrote...
(Version 1.01b Paragon Shepard Dies)
Been thinking about the ending a bit more and about that first one I came up with. And thought it was pretty weak. So here’s another attempt, though this time Shepard dies.
*note : Most people Should get this ending. I do have a “Paragon Shepard Lives” ending scenario floating up in my noggin but that will be done another day, maybe.
Also my version of events scraps everything right after the combined Galactic fleet enters Earth space, assumes the player has completed all side quests and has at least 3300 EMS. Why only 3300. I feel that “forcing” players to play Multi-player just to get the “best” possible ending is rubbish.
Higher EMS just skews a slightly different cut scene of your ground troops.
Higher EMS = more varied troops based on which races you have recruited to the cause.
The trigger on what causes Shepard to live or die however I’ll post later.
This ending also assumes you have saved every companion in ME2 (just mentally edit them out if you got yours killed) and Assumes that certain paths are followed in ME3. Again you can mentally edit those characters out of the cut scenes if yours are absent or dead. Liara assumed to be LI and Shepard to be male. (just switch him for her if your Shepard is female) Also this is an entire “re-write” of events in London.
So no, I don’t follow the Shepard was indoctrinated” school of thought. Sorry shep-zombie fans. And no Star Child crap either. Sorry Bioware.
Scenario:
Cut Scene
Combined Galactic ground forces consisting of all the forces and assets Shepard has gathered. Krogan on Keiosaur mounts charging, Geth and Quarian engineers setting up hack proof auto turrets, mercs fighting dirty in hand to hand, pistol shot to the face combat, Turian and Human infantry and armor supported by Asari commandoes and Grissom Academy (Jack!) Biotics form a linked shield system and together they all carve a path and finally take down the Guardian at the Conduit.
Shepard and team go in, and it’s a race find the master control and open the Citadel Arms so that that Crucible can dock.
Shepard and team fights way to Citadel central command room which EDI helps to pin point. Within the Citadel itself Shepard faces a combined force of indoctrinated Cerberus forces and reaper forces.
Midpoint : Cut Scene.
Harbinger’s holo appears and in the course of talking to it. Player learns that the Citadel is not only a huge mass relay, it is also the Reaper’s command and control centre from which the reapers direct their systematic “cycles” and that means it’s also one big galactic broadcasting device and that some ancient race finally figured this out and came up with the Crucible which is essentially one big “signal booster” . This old race figured out that you can send a kill switch from the Citadel but such a signal would only effects its local space for the kill switch to work, the signal needs to be sent simultaneously across the galaxy using the Mass Relays as piggy back signal towers.
Shepard also learns that the Reapers were once AI meant to protect a race, created at a time when there was another war of organics and Synthetics. The AI’s primary directive was to Protect and dictate the race’s war efforts. In the course of time the AI decided that to win the war against Synthetics, organics had to become Synthetics themselves and thus the Reapers and Cycles came about.
Harbinger shows nothing but disdain for Shepard, for all organics. It demands that Shepard submit as it is the only way to salvation that it is the only logical outcome.
Shepard tells it to go to hell.
Harbinger then tells Shepard that Organic life in this Cycle had become too much of a problem, that order was disrupted when Sovereign was destroyed and later the planned entry point in Batarian space blocked. That it has decided that the best solution for the current situation is for the galaxy to reboots itself and life and the Cycle can start anew.
Shepard is confused by what it meant till Admiral Hackett communicates that reports are coming in that EVERY Mass Relay is powering up, gathering Charge at a rate that would when would make each relay go critical and cause Ultra Super Novas in every system that holds a Mass Relay. Everyone is shocked and horrified by the implications. Harbinger gloats that order will be restored and the Cycle can start anew again.
Shepard Speech.
Chooses final Squad members and assigns the rest to rear guard to cover his back and come up behind when they can.
Player fights to last checkpoint.
Meets Illusive man who holds the final key to unlocking the Citadel. Illusive man tries takes control of Shepard’s implants. Makes Shepard shoots both squad members and they are out of combat (not dead …yet)
If Love interest is in squad however, Shepard finds strength to resist after he shoots the first squad member and the illusive man tries to make Shepard shoot his LI. (Love has to count for something ya?)
Boss Fight. One on One
Shepard vs Illusive man or two vs one if Shepard is with LI
Shepard wins, Illusive Man slumps to the ground. Seemingly lifeless.
Cut Scene.
Harbinger arrives too late at the Conduit but starts blasting at ground troops. (poor EMS = more die, not just nameless troops but Jack, Grunt, Wrex and any other non-squad companions from previous games at the scene, we will however assume high EMS for this cutscene) More Reaper Destroyers land with Harbinger and starts blasting as well. Jack plays mother hen and orders Asari commandoes around to help bolster the linked shields so that ground forces can hold ground. She refuses to leave but realise her shields cannot withstand a direct hit from a Reaper canon. Reluctantly leaves when Miranda tells her, “Shepard will find a way, he always does.”
Meanwhile on the Citadel, Shepard with EDI’s help shuts down the Relay Nova sequence and finds the kill switch.
Harbinger’s Avatar appears one last time, but this time it shows fear. It knows death is imminent and it doesn’t want to die.
Harbinger admits that perhaps its assessment is wrong and gives Shepard a choice, instead of killing every reaper, Shackle them. Each Reaper would then be Humanity’s tool and weapon against anything or anyone, organic or synthetic. Through them, Humanity would achieve power unimaginable and through humanity’s control of the reapers, order be imposed on all organic life. (Renegade Choice of course)
Shepard refuses.
Takes the Paragon path and triggers the kill switch.
THE CITADEL DOES NOT BLOW UP, BREAK APART OR GETS DESTROYED.
The signal goes off and Every Reaper in Earth Space flatlines, including Harbinger.
Now that the Earth space is safe and cleared of Reapers, the Crucible goes through its docking sequence shedding its protective armor anddocks.
(I ALWAYS hated that part in the original Ending. WHAT Military Genius decides to try and dock a “soft” target in the middle of a fire fight while your “air space” isn’t clear of bogies and hostiles? You still have REAPERS around the Citadel firing Reaper beams left and right and you want to advertise “hey guys over here …SHOOT ME!!!”)
(Final moments)
Garrus : “So Shepard, do the honours?”
Shepard: “I thought you’d do it, I mean, isn’t that why you calibrate stuff so much?”
Garrus : “The guns. Are. On. The. Normandy Shepard.” ”But now that you mentioned it, why not? I could never resist pushing big red buttons. Uhhh There is a big red button right?”
EDI. : “No Garrus. Just your standard VI overlay”
Garrus : “Pity. Well Palaven isn’t free of Reapers yet while we stand here talking.” *reaches up and touches controls*
*Signal beam goes out to the Charon Relay, Relay pulses then shoots out beam to other Relays.”
RELAYS ARE NOT DESTROYED.
Pretty colour signal rings Galactic map display depicting each relay receiving and sending the kill switch out. Reapers across the Galaxy flatlines. Cheers from groundtroops in Palaven, Asari on Thessia, everywhere, troops emerge bloodied but not beaten.
*Everyone in room cheers*
Ashley : “We did it! We finally did it! Its all because of you Shepard, I am sorry I doubted ….”
*Rapid auto gun fire. Shepard’s Shields flare then in slow motion, HEAD SHOT*
Liara : “Goddess! Noooooooo…”
*everyone turns to see a shakily Illusive man standing with a modified machine pistol in hand .. Everyone unloads their weapons into Illusive man. All except Liara who is cradling Shepard and crying.
*Fade to black.*
*scene opens 5 years later. We see a small Asari child playing in the grass on Thessia laughing and giggling with another Asari child. She turns when she hears someone approaches and it is Liara and Matriarch Aethyta. One of the girls run up to Liara.*
Child : “Mother, Aria here says that everyone is nice to me only because my father is famous. Why do you never talk of him?
Liara : “Oh Hannah, *breathes in deeply* your father was the most important man in the galaxy. He is why we still have Thessia, our home.”
Hannah : “Aria says he’s human. Aria’s mother says humans are at best centuary flings. I don’t understand ….*looks up and sees Liara in tears* I am sorry mommy. I didn’t mean to make you cry. *stays silent for a few seconds* What was he like, my father?”
Liara : “He was …he was….*sobs*
Aethyta : “ He was a man. Had a quad on him for sure but he had heart, he….."
*scene cuts to Garrus at SPECTRE Academy*
Garrus : “ … was not just a SPECTRE, he was THE SPECTRE. I was there when he took down Saren, when at the time we Turians still thought all humans were only good for canon fodder."
Spectre trainee: “Bbut sir, surely he could not outshoot you.”
Garrus : *touches side of his face* You see this, got this from a Gunship’s rocket in Omega. Shepard took it down, with small arms and saved my life. No, I learned from the best and that was Shepard. I learned that no matter how good you are, nothing is better than a true friend guarding your back and Shepard was …”
*scene cuts to Wrex and Grunt*
Wrex : “….an Honorary Krogan because I made him so! Ahhahahh!”
Grunt : “Bah, I knew that before you. You were there, he fought beside me on my Rites of Passage and at the time he said he was “my krant” *does finger air quotes* …huh. When that Thresher Maw popped up and he didn’t flinch, just stared down that big ass rifle of his and shot, I knew then, that he’s no one’s Krant. That I was lucky to be in his.”
Krogan : “Clan Utnev says The Shepard is human and they spit on humans.”
Wrex and Grunt : “SHEPARD IS URDNOT! Shepard is why our women are whole again! We will stomp on Utnev and make them say SHEPARD IS …”
*scene cuts to Tali. ALL Qurians have their helmets off*
Tali : “ ….the most compassionate man I know.”
Quarian girl : *giggles* what is it like travelling with the humans? With Shepard?
Tali: “Trying. Often you just want to shoot them. *she grins* sometimes I don’t get them but when I see Shepard I see the best humanity has to offer. Let me tell you of a story about a Quarian named Lia’Vael nar Ulnay a young quarian girl on her pilgrimage. She went to the citadel but before long, her money was stolen, she was beaten and people spat on her. All because she was Quarian. We met her while a Csec officer and a Volus had her held for questioning and NO ONE wanted to help. Shepard did. He cared. He didn’t see us as Quarians or aliens but as people. As someone of worth and Lia was someone worth helping. I asked him afterwards, why did he helped. He just said “Its what I do.”
Quarian girl : “Was he dreamy? *giggles*
Tali : “Uhhh what? …Shepard was …”
*scene cuts to Aethyta*
Aethyta : “…. Many things to many people. But most of all he was hope. He never stopped trying. They took away his ship, they took away his command they took everything that he was but they could not take away his spirit. Your mother loves him very much because of that spirit. Hell, if she didn’t already claim him, I would have been tempted to myself! Bet I can teach him a thing or two…”
Liara : “Aethyta!”
*Hannah climbs into Liara’s lap*
Hannah : “He sounds wonderful. I wished he was here.”
Liara : *wraps arms around Hannah and hugs her tightly* “We all do, little dove, we all do.”
*FADE TO BLACK*
END CREDIT ROLL.
[/quote]
Bump.
This is some good stuff... great headcannon.
[/quote]
No accounting for your previous decisions at all
No explanation as to why joker would leave you behind (he wouldn't)
No epilogue
No reason why shepherd would accept such poor choices offered, he's always fought on before
No thought to the fact the entire armada of the galaxy is now stranded by earth doomed to starvation and lack of resources
Its just like they got to the end, run out of time and money then threw the script in the bin and had a five minute discussion on the quickest way to end the game.
[quote]Archonsg wrote...
(Version 1.01b Paragon Shepard Dies)
Been thinking about the ending a bit more and about that first one I came up with. And thought it was pretty weak. So here’s another attempt, though this time Shepard dies.
*note : Most people Should get this ending. I do have a “Paragon Shepard Lives” ending scenario floating up in my noggin but that will be done another day, maybe.
Also my version of events scraps everything right after the combined Galactic fleet enters Earth space, assumes the player has completed all side quests and has at least 3300 EMS. Why only 3300. I feel that “forcing” players to play Multi-player just to get the “best” possible ending is rubbish.
Higher EMS just skews a slightly different cut scene of your ground troops.
Higher EMS = more varied troops based on which races you have recruited to the cause.
The trigger on what causes Shepard to live or die however I’ll post later.
This ending also assumes you have saved every companion in ME2 (just mentally edit them out if you got yours killed) and Assumes that certain paths are followed in ME3. Again you can mentally edit those characters out of the cut scenes if yours are absent or dead. Liara assumed to be LI and Shepard to be male. (just switch him for her if your Shepard is female) Also this is an entire “re-write” of events in London.
So no, I don’t follow the Shepard was indoctrinated” school of thought. Sorry shep-zombie fans. And no Star Child crap either. Sorry Bioware.
Scenario:
Cut Scene
Combined Galactic ground forces consisting of all the forces and assets Shepard has gathered. Krogan on Keiosaur mounts charging, Geth and Quarian engineers setting up hack proof auto turrets, mercs fighting dirty in hand to hand, pistol shot to the face combat, Turian and Human infantry and armor supported by Asari commandoes and Grissom Academy (Jack!) Biotics form a linked shield system and together they all carve a path and finally take down the Guardian at the Conduit.
Shepard and team go in, and it’s a race find the master control and open the Citadel Arms so that that Crucible can dock.
Shepard and team fights way to Citadel central command room which EDI helps to pin point. Within the Citadel itself Shepard faces a combined force of indoctrinated Cerberus forces and reaper forces.
Midpoint : Cut Scene.
Harbinger’s holo appears and in the course of talking to it. Player learns that the Citadel is not only a huge mass relay, it is also the Reaper’s command and control centre from which the reapers direct their systematic “cycles” and that means it’s also one big galactic broadcasting device and that some ancient race finally figured this out and came up with the Crucible which is essentially one big “signal booster” . This old race figured out that you can send a kill switch from the Citadel but such a signal would only effects its local space for the kill switch to work, the signal needs to be sent simultaneously across the galaxy using the Mass Relays as piggy back signal towers.
Shepard also learns that the Reapers were once AI meant to protect a race, created at a time when there was another war of organics and Synthetics. The AI’s primary directive was to Protect and dictate the race’s war efforts. In the course of time the AI decided that to win the war against Synthetics, organics had to become Synthetics themselves and thus the Reapers and Cycles came about.
Harbinger shows nothing but disdain for Shepard, for all organics. It demands that Shepard submit as it is the only way to salvation that it is the only logical outcome.
Shepard tells it to go to hell.
Harbinger then tells Shepard that Organic life in this Cycle had become too much of a problem, that order was disrupted when Sovereign was destroyed and later the planned entry point in Batarian space blocked. That it has decided that the best solution for the current situation is for the galaxy to reboots itself and life and the Cycle can start anew.
Shepard is confused by what it meant till Admiral Hackett communicates that reports are coming in that EVERY Mass Relay is powering up, gathering Charge at a rate that would when would make each relay go critical and cause Ultra Super Novas in every system that holds a Mass Relay. Everyone is shocked and horrified by the implications. Harbinger gloats that order will be restored and the Cycle can start anew again.
Shepard Speech.
Chooses final Squad members and assigns the rest to rear guard to cover his back and come up behind when they can.
Player fights to last checkpoint.
Meets Illusive man who holds the final key to unlocking the Citadel. Illusive man tries takes control of Shepard’s implants. Makes Shepard shoots both squad members and they are out of combat (not dead …yet)
If Love interest is in squad however, Shepard finds strength to resist after he shoots the first squad member and the illusive man tries to make Shepard shoot his LI. (Love has to count for something ya?)
Boss Fight. One on One
Shepard vs Illusive man or two vs one if Shepard is with LI
Shepard wins, Illusive Man slumps to the ground. Seemingly lifeless.
Cut Scene.
Harbinger arrives too late at the Conduit but starts blasting at ground troops. (poor EMS = more die, not just nameless troops but Jack, Grunt, Wrex and any other non-squad companions from previous games at the scene, we will however assume high EMS for this cutscene) More Reaper Destroyers land with Harbinger and starts blasting as well. Jack plays mother hen and orders Asari commandoes around to help bolster the linked shields so that ground forces can hold ground. She refuses to leave but realise her shields cannot withstand a direct hit from a Reaper canon. Reluctantly leaves when Miranda tells her, “Shepard will find a way, he always does.”
Meanwhile on the Citadel, Shepard with EDI’s help shuts down the Relay Nova sequence and finds the kill switch.
Harbinger’s Avatar appears one last time, but this time it shows fear. It knows death is imminent and it doesn’t want to die.
Harbinger admits that perhaps its assessment is wrong and gives Shepard a choice, instead of killing every reaper, Shackle them. Each Reaper would then be Humanity’s tool and weapon against anything or anyone, organic or synthetic. Through them, Humanity would achieve power unimaginable and through humanity’s control of the reapers, order be imposed on all organic life. (Renegade Choice of course)
Shepard refuses.
Takes the Paragon path and triggers the kill switch.
THE CITADEL DOES NOT BLOW UP, BREAK APART OR GETS DESTROYED.
The signal goes off and Every Reaper in Earth Space flatlines, including Harbinger.
Now that the Earth space is safe and cleared of Reapers, the Crucible goes through its docking sequence shedding its protective armor anddocks.
(I ALWAYS hated that part in the original Ending. WHAT Military Genius decides to try and dock a “soft” target in the middle of a fire fight while your “air space” isn’t clear of bogies and hostiles? You still have REAPERS around the Citadel firing Reaper beams left and right and you want to advertise “hey guys over here …SHOOT ME!!!”)
(Final moments)
Garrus : “So Shepard, do the honours?”
Shepard: “I thought you’d do it, I mean, isn’t that why you calibrate stuff so much?”
Garrus : “The guns. Are. On. The. Normandy Shepard.” ”But now that you mentioned it, why not? I could never resist pushing big red buttons. Uhhh There is a big red button right?”
EDI. : “No Garrus. Just your standard VI overlay”
Garrus : “Pity. Well Palaven isn’t free of Reapers yet while we stand here talking.” *reaches up and touches controls*
*Signal beam goes out to the Charon Relay, Relay pulses then shoots out beam to other Relays.”
RELAYS ARE NOT DESTROYED.
Pretty colour signal rings Galactic map display depicting each relay receiving and sending the kill switch out. Reapers across the Galaxy flatlines. Cheers from groundtroops in Palaven, Asari on Thessia, everywhere, troops emerge bloodied but not beaten.
*Everyone in room cheers*
Ashley : “We did it! We finally did it! Its all because of you Shepard, I am sorry I doubted ….”
*Rapid auto gun fire. Shepard’s Shields flare then in slow motion, HEAD SHOT*
Liara : “Goddess! Noooooooo…”
*everyone turns to see a shakily Illusive man standing with a modified machine pistol in hand .. Everyone unloads their weapons into Illusive man. All except Liara who is cradling Shepard and crying.
*Fade to black.*
*scene opens 5 years later. We see a small Asari child playing in the grass on Thessia laughing and giggling with another Asari child. She turns when she hears someone approaches and it is Liara and Matriarch Aethyta. One of the girls run up to Liara.*
Child : “Mother, Aria here says that everyone is nice to me only because my father is famous. Why do you never talk of him?
Liara : “Oh Hannah, *breathes in deeply* your father was the most important man in the galaxy. He is why we still have Thessia, our home.”
Hannah : “Aria says he’s human. Aria’s mother says humans are at best centuary flings. I don’t understand ….*looks up and sees Liara in tears* I am sorry mommy. I didn’t mean to make you cry. *stays silent for a few seconds* What was he like, my father?”
Liara : “He was …he was….*sobs*
Aethyta : “ He was a man. Had a quad on him for sure but he had heart, he….."
*scene cuts to Garrus at SPECTRE Academy*
Garrus : “ … was not just a SPECTRE, he was THE SPECTRE. I was there when he took down Saren, when at the time we Turians still thought all humans were only good for canon fodder."
Spectre trainee: “Bbut sir, surely he could not outshoot you.”
Garrus : *touches side of his face* You see this, got this from a Gunship’s rocket in Omega. Shepard took it down, with small arms and saved my life. No, I learned from the best and that was Shepard. I learned that no matter how good you are, nothing is better than a true friend guarding your back and Shepard was …”
*scene cuts to Wrex and Grunt*
Wrex : “….an Honorary Krogan because I made him so! Ahhahahh!”
Grunt : “Bah, I knew that before you. You were there, he fought beside me on my Rites of Passage and at the time he said he was “my krant” *does finger air quotes* …huh. When that Thresher Maw popped up and he didn’t flinch, just stared down that big ass rifle of his and shot, I knew then, that he’s no one’s Krant. That I was lucky to be in his.”
Krogan : “Clan Utnev says The Shepard is human and they spit on humans.”
Wrex and Grunt : “SHEPARD IS URDNOT! Shepard is why our women are whole again! We will stomp on Utnev and make them say SHEPARD IS …”
*scene cuts to Tali. ALL Qurians have their helmets off*
Tali : “ ….the most compassionate man I know.”
Quarian girl : *giggles* what is it like travelling with the humans? With Shepard?
Tali: “Trying. Often you just want to shoot them. *she grins* sometimes I don’t get them but when I see Shepard I see the best humanity has to offer. Let me tell you of a story about a Quarian named Lia’Vael nar Ulnay a young quarian girl on her pilgrimage. She went to the citadel but before long, her money was stolen, she was beaten and people spat on her. All because she was Quarian. We met her while a Csec officer and a Volus had her held for questioning and NO ONE wanted to help. Shepard did. He cared. He didn’t see us as Quarians or aliens but as people. As someone of worth and Lia was someone worth helping. I asked him afterwards, why did he helped. He just said “Its what I do.”
Quarian girl : “Was he dreamy? *giggles*
Tali : “Uhhh what? …Shepard was …”
*scene cuts to Aethyta*
Aethyta : “…. Many things to many people. But most of all he was hope. He never stopped trying. They took away his ship, they took away his command they took everything that he was but they could not take away his spirit. Your mother loves him very much because of that spirit. Hell, if she didn’t already claim him, I would have been tempted to myself! Bet I can teach him a thing or two…”
Liara : “Aethyta!”
*Hannah climbs into Liara’s lap*
Hannah : “He sounds wonderful. I wished he was here.”
Liara : *wraps arms around Hannah and hugs her tightly* “We all do, little dove, we all do.”
*FADE TO BLACK*
END CREDIT ROLL.
[/quote]
Bump.
This is some good stuff... great headcannon.
[/quote]
#3913
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 05:01
MelinaDrop
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- Members
- 4 messages
I have finished Mass Effect 3 three days ago but I am still sad about the ending. So I thought about my own idea.
It is clear that with a higher readiness rating the endings are getting better and better. I have also noticed that the enemies shortly before you enter the laser beam to the citadel are getting less with a higher rating. I’d love to see the possibility where no no, I do not mean zero enemies, I want to see that my squad mates help me up and follow me to the citadel. Together we will confront the starchild. After realizing that three people have reached him (with EDI even an AI) he hopefully can offer us a fourth choice. An option which puts a smile on Shepard`s face.
I like this idea because it is simple and the current endings need no change.
It is clear that with a higher readiness rating the endings are getting better and better. I have also noticed that the enemies shortly before you enter the laser beam to the citadel are getting less with a higher rating. I’d love to see the possibility where no no, I do not mean zero enemies, I want to see that my squad mates help me up and follow me to the citadel. Together we will confront the starchild. After realizing that three people have reached him (with EDI even an AI) he hopefully can offer us a fourth choice. An option which puts a smile on Shepard`s face.
I like this idea because it is simple and the current endings need no change.
#3914
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 05:01
DrDark101
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- Members
- 83 messages
Love everything about the game, except the last 10 minutes or so. It's just so bad, it feels hollow, out of place and lacks any real connection to previous decision makeing, heck its not even alligned with paragon or rengade leanings. And the finality of it! Sheesh... saying this is the end of Shepards journey is one thing, but good Lord! Granted I never expected a ride off into the sunset option as the defacto ending, but I did expect to be offered options based on how I played in the game and over the years. I didn't play as a paragon through 3 games to be treated to "gray" in the end, but thats excactly what I got. It was a buzzkill of rediculous porportions. Still glad to hear you are listening ti us, I just hope the listening turns into doing.
#3915
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 05:02
Dread Boy
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- 43 messages
While I'm sure someone has already said it somewhere I'm gonna anyway. Why tell us the Reapers' motivations? Why make the end a Macguffin crapshoot? All the way through the three games I thought the "moral" was simple: We stand together. Or Renegade "Survival at any cost" Hell that's shepard's choice of intent 5 minutes in!
The ending should of been a colossal battle... maybe the crucible still exists but takes down the reaper shields?
At the end (if you had a TONNE of EMS) then the reapers are destroyed with casualties but it is a simple choice (for once in Mass Effect) we fight and win or we die. None of this sudden Reapers are necessary despite what the games have SHOWN YOU.
Essentially: Straight up Big Battle, outcome depends on your military strength. Simple.
Oh! and afterwards we see what happens to Garrus, Tali and everyone else.
Why is that so hard?
The ending should of been a colossal battle... maybe the crucible still exists but takes down the reaper shields?
At the end (if you had a TONNE of EMS) then the reapers are destroyed with casualties but it is a simple choice (for once in Mass Effect) we fight and win or we die. None of this sudden Reapers are necessary despite what the games have SHOWN YOU.
Essentially: Straight up Big Battle, outcome depends on your military strength. Simple.
Oh! and afterwards we see what happens to Garrus, Tali and everyone else.
Why is that so hard?
#3916
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 05:02
C Trayne
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- 263 messages
wow 4000 posts in a day... I'm guessing people don't like the endings lol
#3917
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 05:02
DESTRAUDO
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- 969 messages
I think the ending was well crafted. I think it carried enough ambiguity to make it something worth discussing and debating. However, the ending did indeed happen. The indoctrination theories are grasping heavily at straws, totally ignore anything that would be considered a hit against the credibility of their logic.
The entire indoctrination theory is based on the idea that at some point shepard loses control. Some suggest that the rubble at the end means he was still in london and that it was all an indoctrination dream after he was hit by the reaper beam. Why would the reapers bother to engage in that, when they could just fire a second beam, or stomp on his half dead corpse.
People suggest that Anderson getting to the control room before you also indicated it is a dream/indoctrination. In the game Anderson specifically states that he was dropped off by the beam somewhere different to you. He was also in a lot better condition than you, and from the timeline of events only beat you to the control room by 30-60 seconds. The fourth wall reality though is that he had to be in the room before you because that was how they wanted the three way conversation between you two and the illusive man to play out, and by they i mean devs, not reapers.
As for the ending, i chose to blend organic and synthetic life. I thought the tech/synthetic pattern on jokers skin at the end was pretty awesome to boot. Why did i choose that ending? Because it was the best ending. It brought an end to all war between organics and synthetics now and in the future. I did it for the same reason Mordin sacrificed himself to cure the genophage, for the same reason legion sacrificed himself to raise the geth to a new level. If any of the people complaining played towards paragon, what makes your shepard deserving of a cheat out of the consequences of the situation. If you want that cheat, blow up all synthetic life in the galaxy. Blow up the get you saved, and blow up EDI while you are at it. You get to live at the end but you wiped out at least 2 races to do it. That to me is not the paragon option, that is two counts of genocide. Taking control of the reapers is better, you are not wiping out the geth, but you still enslaving a machine race.
The last thing i want to hit on is some of the bizarro world scenarios people are coming up with. The universe is doomed and all the fleets are trapped and they will all die of starvation. Where does this even come from? The leaps of negative logic required to come to these conclusions are staggering.
I have seen it painted as being the end of the mass effect universe. Not in the least.
In the mass effect universe, FTL drives are capable of doing at least 12 light years per day cruising. Any time you make a trip on the galaxy map that does not involve a mass relay you are using this drive system. While it would be long haul, you could get to the krogan dmz in about a year. You would not have to, but i will get to that in a moment. The point here is that at the very least, there would be dozens and dozens of systems within easy range of the fleet. Days travel tops, so stranded or starved for resources they are not. And that is not even considering what would happen when they have the necessity to improve the speed and efficiency of their standard ftl drives.
Not that it matters. Even presuming you took what i think is the worst ending, blowing up the reapers, the destruction of the mass relays is at best, a minor inconvenience. There are pockets of super advanced tech in the galaxy, for example where all the galaxys greatest minds gathered to build the crucible. In me2 an asari barmaid casually referred to the asari needing to get off their ass and start building mass effect relays. I think it is well within the abilities of the current cycle to get the relay system back up in a not unreasonable volume of time. I mean they built the crucible in what was in theory a couple of months tops, a mass relay is not beyond their abilities. And if you controlled the reapers or fused organic with synthetic then i would happily speculate that the reapers would have the knowledge to construct mass relays.
Yes, the ending changed the mass effect universe immeasurably. It did not end it. I would LOVE to see some prologue DLC, or a MMO set in the mass effect universe some time before or after these events but i was honestly very happy with the ending i got and i would be really disappointed if the devs cave and rewrite it.
The entire indoctrination theory is based on the idea that at some point shepard loses control. Some suggest that the rubble at the end means he was still in london and that it was all an indoctrination dream after he was hit by the reaper beam. Why would the reapers bother to engage in that, when they could just fire a second beam, or stomp on his half dead corpse.
People suggest that Anderson getting to the control room before you also indicated it is a dream/indoctrination. In the game Anderson specifically states that he was dropped off by the beam somewhere different to you. He was also in a lot better condition than you, and from the timeline of events only beat you to the control room by 30-60 seconds. The fourth wall reality though is that he had to be in the room before you because that was how they wanted the three way conversation between you two and the illusive man to play out, and by they i mean devs, not reapers.
As for the ending, i chose to blend organic and synthetic life. I thought the tech/synthetic pattern on jokers skin at the end was pretty awesome to boot. Why did i choose that ending? Because it was the best ending. It brought an end to all war between organics and synthetics now and in the future. I did it for the same reason Mordin sacrificed himself to cure the genophage, for the same reason legion sacrificed himself to raise the geth to a new level. If any of the people complaining played towards paragon, what makes your shepard deserving of a cheat out of the consequences of the situation. If you want that cheat, blow up all synthetic life in the galaxy. Blow up the get you saved, and blow up EDI while you are at it. You get to live at the end but you wiped out at least 2 races to do it. That to me is not the paragon option, that is two counts of genocide. Taking control of the reapers is better, you are not wiping out the geth, but you still enslaving a machine race.
The last thing i want to hit on is some of the bizarro world scenarios people are coming up with. The universe is doomed and all the fleets are trapped and they will all die of starvation. Where does this even come from? The leaps of negative logic required to come to these conclusions are staggering.
I have seen it painted as being the end of the mass effect universe. Not in the least.
In the mass effect universe, FTL drives are capable of doing at least 12 light years per day cruising. Any time you make a trip on the galaxy map that does not involve a mass relay you are using this drive system. While it would be long haul, you could get to the krogan dmz in about a year. You would not have to, but i will get to that in a moment. The point here is that at the very least, there would be dozens and dozens of systems within easy range of the fleet. Days travel tops, so stranded or starved for resources they are not. And that is not even considering what would happen when they have the necessity to improve the speed and efficiency of their standard ftl drives.
Not that it matters. Even presuming you took what i think is the worst ending, blowing up the reapers, the destruction of the mass relays is at best, a minor inconvenience. There are pockets of super advanced tech in the galaxy, for example where all the galaxys greatest minds gathered to build the crucible. In me2 an asari barmaid casually referred to the asari needing to get off their ass and start building mass effect relays. I think it is well within the abilities of the current cycle to get the relay system back up in a not unreasonable volume of time. I mean they built the crucible in what was in theory a couple of months tops, a mass relay is not beyond their abilities. And if you controlled the reapers or fused organic with synthetic then i would happily speculate that the reapers would have the knowledge to construct mass relays.
Yes, the ending changed the mass effect universe immeasurably. It did not end it. I would LOVE to see some prologue DLC, or a MMO set in the mass effect universe some time before or after these events but i was honestly very happy with the ending i got and i would be really disappointed if the devs cave and rewrite it.
#3918
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 05:03
Archonsg
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- Members
- 3 560 messages
jeweledleah wrote...
TopcatPlayer wrote...
jeweledleah wrote...
TopcatPlayer wrote...
And this unfortunately doesn't explain the later stuff with Joker.... hrmmmm, how they gonna retcon/explain that?
Shepard imagining that people, he/she cares most for, escaped and landed in paradise >_>
still doesn't make sense, he's destroyed/indoctrinated if he chose the blue or green, only red has him fight the indoctrination process and wake up in the rubble of London.
I know. just like quite a few other things in ME workd that they just gloss over and ask you to just go with. imagine that this is what he's seeing before his/her body disintegrates.
funny thing with Mass effect that for all its richness, it still encourages a great deal of headcanoning, becasue otherwise things don't add up much at all. the difference between prior inconsistencies and this ending are in scope really. minor things are easier to ignore and/or explain away, make up your own story in your head.
the endings? they don't really make much sence unless you try to see them as allegory/indocrination/hallucinations and not face value.
I don't know. If I accept the "indoctrination" theory then all three endings still equate to the same thing. Its all a trap.
1) Contol option tells you you will die.
2) Synthesis option again has your characher willingly die.
So if you are indoctrinated, both first options have you willingly give yourselves up. You give up your will and you die. Husk. Zombiefied. Whatever.
3) Destroy option is the only "way out" but, if so then the following dream sequence of the Normandy running away and people he knows to be with him during that charge "magically" appearing on the normandy unharmed and blowing up relays (Relays is blown up, that is not in question, though people seem to refuse to accept that you DO need a certain ammount of kenitic / momentum energy to rip apart structures that can withstand Super Nova's unharmed. and that ammount of energy used = shockwave = not good for systems as a whole)
So the ONLY "resolution" is Shepard is indoctrinated. I am sorry but that goes back to Shepard being a "husk." He / She is gone didn't save earth and Harbinger and other Reapers are still there, the Crucible never docked and the fleet that was brought to Earth Space depending on Shepard doing something to give them a fighting chance. Dies.
#3919
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 05:03
Frank0605
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- Members
- 62 messages
[quote]Tairram wrote...
[quote]Neuthung wrote...
[quote]TheLastThought wrote...
[quote]Stygian1 wrote...
[quote]StripedStocking wrote...
[quote]
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.
[/quote]
^This is absolutely perfect.
Agree with everybody. Just read this of bwfex
[/quote]
This
[quote]Neuthung wrote...
[quote]TheLastThought wrote...
[quote]Stygian1 wrote...
[quote]StripedStocking wrote...
[quote]
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.
[/quote]
^This is absolutely perfect.
Agree with everybody. Just read this of bwfex
[/quote]
This
#3920
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 05:04
EliteOp-11
-
- Members
- 61 messages
If you guys do re-do the ending(Either way you do or you dont im fine) can you at least put more creativity into it rather than possibly the most cliche ending ever? It was almost like you guys couldn't create a better ending so you settled and said "Well lets just go with self sacrifice" as if that hasn't been done thousands of times. For the amount of story you put into this galaxy, It astounds me that that was the "Best" ending you guys could come up with. I would've preferred the cruicable not working at all and the reapers laying waste to the galaxy over what you gave us.
#3921
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 05:04
Merc UK
-
- Members
- 15 messages
[quote]Tairram wrote...
[quote]Neuthung wrote...
[quote]TheLastThought wrote...
[quote]Stygian1 wrote...
[quote]StripedStocking wrote...
[quote]
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.
[/quote]
^This is absolutely perfect.
Agree with everybody. Just read this of bwfex
[/quote]
[quote]Neuthung wrote...
[quote]TheLastThought wrote...
[quote]Stygian1 wrote...
[quote]StripedStocking wrote...
[quote]
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.
[/quote]
^This is absolutely perfect.
Agree with everybody. Just read this of bwfex
[/quote]
#3922
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 05:04
Chicken Farmer
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- Members
- 5 messages
Countless since the whole game was amazing. If I had to pin point an epic moment, it'd be when Kalros attacked the mini reaper. If it had to be an emotional moment I would say either Mordin's or Legion's death. Liara's time capsule is probably pretty high up there too.. BAH, it was all amazing... Why did the ending have to ruin it?... QAQ
#3923
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 05:05
f_rancis
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- Members
- 2 messages
Garrus taking me up at the Presidium. I let him win the shooting competition and he starts shouting like a kindergarden boy: "I am Garrus Vakarian and this is my favourite spot on the Citadel!" Amazing moment!
And so much more. Thanks for so many hours of fantastic gameplay!!!
And the end: Poor Shepard is indoctrinated, nothing in the Citadel above London actually happened. And we will save him and earth with a new hero rising in the upcoming Mass Effect MMO :-)
And so much more. Thanks for so many hours of fantastic gameplay!!!
And the end: Poor Shepard is indoctrinated, nothing in the Citadel above London actually happened. And we will save him and earth with a new hero rising in the upcoming Mass Effect MMO :-)
#3924
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 05:05
Yorumu
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- Members
- 10 messages
Coughing blood, crawling on the floor. Mind had just been under attack by TIM and just a few moments before Harbinger death-beam disintegrated weapons and armour. What does the hero respond when someone calls for help?
"What do you need me to do?"
The last line in the game before the deus ex machina hit and made everything meaningless. It has become rather bitter thing to remember all the good parts when the gamer suddenly decides to be nihilistic and rob the meaning out of all the good memories.
The "rocks fall, everyone dies" ending has been a joke in traditional games from the 70s. Too bad that with video games I can't just call bull**** and discuss the problem with the game master. KL was another railroad character that I didn't like, but his demise was so satisfying that I forgave the obvious train that I had been sitting in.
"What do you need me to do?"
The last line in the game before the deus ex machina hit and made everything meaningless. It has become rather bitter thing to remember all the good parts when the gamer suddenly decides to be nihilistic and rob the meaning out of all the good memories.
The "rocks fall, everyone dies" ending has been a joke in traditional games from the 70s. Too bad that with video games I can't just call bull**** and discuss the problem with the game master. KL was another railroad character that I didn't like, but his demise was so satisfying that I forgave the obvious train that I had been sitting in.
#3925
Posté 16 mars 2012 - 05:08
Zacharelli
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- Members
- 9 messages
Tali drunk was one of the best moments in a game for me ever. Well written and genuinely hilarious, you all should be proud of that one.
As for the endings, keep what you have, they have neat ideas, but I'm definitely for creating additional content that could EXPAND on the ending to Shepard's story. Namely more choices/paths that could be based on EMS or your Shepard's decisions. I would buy it, and I wouldn't feel betrayed that you're offering me more choices (long as they're meaningful. Subjective, I know, sorry) to a game that I play to see how my actions affect a brilliantly put together universe.
I personally don't mind Shepard dying or a few crew members dying as long as it makes sense based on how your character shapes the universe (which it undeniably does). Give me the variety in storytelling you've gotten me hooked to.
As for the endings, keep what you have, they have neat ideas, but I'm definitely for creating additional content that could EXPAND on the ending to Shepard's story. Namely more choices/paths that could be based on EMS or your Shepard's decisions. I would buy it, and I wouldn't feel betrayed that you're offering me more choices (long as they're meaningful. Subjective, I know, sorry) to a game that I play to see how my actions affect a brilliantly put together universe.
I personally don't mind Shepard dying or a few crew members dying as long as it makes sense based on how your character shapes the universe (which it undeniably does). Give me the variety in storytelling you've gotten me hooked to.
