23455 réponses à ce sujet

[AlienShagger]

3DandBeyond wrote...

AlienShagger wrote...

karmattack wrote...

Ralph The Wonder Llama wrote...

In the end...

The game failed to satisify its customers. Sales will drop. Can BioWare and EA repair this damage... We shall see.

Already happening. The game's now priced at under $40 at many major retailers including Amazon and Best Buy. They know they f'd up. We'll see how DLC turns this around. It's their only shot.

Yea... I loved the ending, but it certainly jacked the replayability for me. I mean, It's not like I'm going to try the other two options.

I may go ME1-2-3 just to do a Renagade and **** Ashley. Dirty little ****

That's the real point here.  One marketing exec said that the reason they could change things was because no one could remember what happened 8 years ago (it's been 5 and people replayed the games when they first came out and then replayed them again preparing for ME3).  When you have people like that that are trying to sell things, then you get what you get and it isn't going to be good.

The other thing is most people really just wanted to love the game and love it until, well you know what....

I had many Shepard's in the works that would have changed somewhat how I did things-one is horribly ugly that I had no problem seeing as a completely despotic character who surely would choose control.  But, for what?  The ending isn't vastly different from the others and it makes replaying the games rather less than fun.

Right now, I've said I am replaying the series because I want to be informed as much as I can be if I say something here and I couldn't play them as a series before because they were on 2 different platforms.

I actually appreciate how much fun they are to play and finding new things, but I can't shake the ending.  If I weren't trying to get everything I possibly can (messed up on Conrad Verner and didn't find him in ME2) in order to see all that happens, I'd just think it was a chore working for a demoralizing goal. 

This is a main problem since they also have always clearly said when you finish a game or all games you will want to go back and play again as a different Shepard.  Well, no, not so much.  I'd gladly do so for a great ending but not for this.

You are right to a degree. Look, I ****ing hate the movie Requiem for a Dream because it is so ****ing brilliant and I am completely unable to see it again. I feel somewhat like that with ME3. But a good ending isn't supposed to be a sandbox for my jerking off. Get my point?

I think I can replay the whole thing if I convince myself that they will do the EC properly. And bone Ash, have to do that this time.

[AlienShagger]

Btw, just curious, how many Shepards in here slept with 4 different chicks?

[Redbelle]

3DandBeyond wrote...

Archonsg wrote...


They (Bioware) forgot to ask themselves, what would make a fanbase wet themselves and buy more DLCs (throw in a DLC expansion at $29.90 - $49.90 to "update" ME1 to ME3 combat / graphics even), depressing nihilistic irrational ending (singular) that gives no reason whatsoever to the player to replay ME1, 2 and 3, or ....multiple endings as advertised (yes, happy, blue babies, house on Rannoch, wrestle with krogan babies named after Shepard endings too) running the full gamut of "oh crap we REALLY fracked up, to "They came, they wrecked but we conquered! Boooyaahhh!" Endings. 

Seriously, Bioware, you really had to choose the depressing option?
I mean, really? 
Just by giving ME3 a "win" option would have opened up a whole avenue of revenue, that I can't believe you really thought going "goth artsy" would wow your customers.

Too busy doing higher math where 5=8.

Either that or they got to wrapped up in expanding the amount of money they take in with every game sold. Their buisiness strategy had the game retailing at $60 while the Ashes DLC retailed at $20. However with the ending fubaring their plans and having to hand out a free DLC to keep gamers happy.........er, I think what they gained on the one hand has been lost with the other. Hopefully it'll be a lesson that won't get lost in the board room cause game companies need remember that consumer confidence = we want to give them our money for their products. Without confidence customers will hold back and when launching a title, it limits profit margins.

[Holger1405]

3DandBeyond wrote...

I think then that you agree that as such EMS is almost a meaningless thing to work for.  Without MP, it's far worse.  Alternatively, they will allow you to use points from playing the paid for Infiltrator app in which they expect you to pay real money for bullets.

What a lot of us are saying is that the game kind of disregarded all those war assets, which could have been great in the game.  It boiled down to playing reaper tag to get a lot of them.  But, we did it.  And some people that didn't like MP played that too because they wanted to get the best ending possible.  And your EMS was artificially crippled by half if you did not or could not play MP.  This was one major insult to fans and a big lie.

And then, if I work hard playing the game and playing MP, which is very hard for a lot of people-crap internet or they just are not good at it, and it takes 20 minutes to finish a game, netting a 1% gain in galactic readiness.  Some people don't care to invest that time into MP, on top of hundreds of hours maybe of SP play (some people go back and fix things they figure they did wrong).

But, you get to the end and it doesn't even matter.  You didn't have to try that hard to get almost all the endings possible.  The only big difference occurs with really low EMS and the higher EMS-gasp ending.  Otherwise, they are the exact same choices.  This does not take into account the actual things you do in the game, choices made since often just completing missions (and not how well you completed them) nets you some assets and together it's often enough.

Yes I agree, EMS is bad balanced and worthless in the current state.  (there is another, free, I phone app, that does the trick too, and when you are playing on a PC it is easy to fix with Gibbed, but you shouldn't have to do that in the first place.) 

Modifié par Holger1405, 23 mai 2012 - 10:41 .

[AlienShagger]

Holger1405 wrote...

3DandBeyond wrote...

I think then that you agree that as such EMS is almost a meaningless thing to work for.  Without MP, it's far worse.  Alternatively, they will allow you to use points from playing the paid for Infiltrator app in which they expect you to pay real money for bullets.

What a lot of us are saying is that the game kind of disregarded all those war assets, which could have been great in the game.  It boiled down to playing reaper tag to get a lot of them.  But, we did it.  And some people that didn't like MP played that too because they wanted to get the best ending possible.  And your EMS was artificially crippled by half if you did not or could not play MP.  This was one major insult to fans and a big lie.

And then, if I work hard playing the game and playing MP, which is very hard for a lot of people-crap internet or they just are not good at it, and it takes 20 minutes to finish a game, netting a 1% gain in galactic readiness.  Some people don't care to invest that time into MP, on top of hundreds of hours maybe of SP play (some people go back and fix things they figure they did wrong).

But, you get to the end and it doesn't even matter.  You didn't have to try that hard to get almost all the endings possible.  The only big difference occurs with really low EMS and the higher EMS-gasp ending.  Otherwise, they are the exact same choices.  This does not take into account the actual things you do in the game, choices made since often just completing missions (and not how well you completed them) nets you some assets and together it's often enough.

Yes I agree, EMS is bad balanced and worthless in the current state.  (there is another, free, I phone app, that dose the trick too, and when you are playing on a PC it is easy to fix with Gibbed, but you shouldn't have to do that in the first place.) 

Give me a break - they tried really hard to make people work together, at least we can give BioWare that. The multiplayer AND the outrage machine... It's almost like they wanted us to talk to each other. In some strange way I appreciate both. It has made ME universe far more awesome for me personally.

[Redbelle]

AlienShagger wrote...

Holger1405 wrote...

3DandBeyond wrote...

I think then that you agree that as such EMS is almost a meaningless thing to work for.  Without MP, it's far worse.  Alternatively, they will allow you to use points from playing the paid for Infiltrator app in which they expect you to pay real money for bullets.

What a lot of us are saying is that the game kind of disregarded all those war assets, which could have been great in the game.  It boiled down to playing reaper tag to get a lot of them.  But, we did it.  And some people that didn't like MP played that too because they wanted to get the best ending possible.  And your EMS was artificially crippled by half if you did not or could not play MP.  This was one major insult to fans and a big lie.

And then, if I work hard playing the game and playing MP, which is very hard for a lot of people-crap internet or they just are not good at it, and it takes 20 minutes to finish a game, netting a 1% gain in galactic readiness.  Some people don't care to invest that time into MP, on top of hundreds of hours maybe of SP play (some people go back and fix things they figure they did wrong).

But, you get to the end and it doesn't even matter.  You didn't have to try that hard to get almost all the endings possible.  The only big difference occurs with really low EMS and the higher EMS-gasp ending.  Otherwise, they are the exact same choices.  This does not take into account the actual things you do in the game, choices made since often just completing missions (and not how well you completed them) nets you some assets and together it's often enough.

Yes I agree, EMS is bad balanced and worthless in the current state.  (there is another, free, I phone app, that dose the trick too, and when you are playing on a PC it is easy to fix with Gibbed, but you shouldn't have to do that in the first place.) 

Give me a break - they tried really hard to make people work together, at least we can give BioWare that. The multiplayer AND the outrage machine... It's almost like they wanted us to talk to each other. In some strange way I appreciate both. It has made ME universe far more awesome for me personally.

I have to admit, I didn't buy ME for the MP, but with a MP score of over 800 I can't avoid the fact that it's a decent little MP. The in game mechanics work really well, (when I haven't fallen through the floor that is).

[Voodoo-j]

Holger1405 wrote...

Voodoo-j wrote...

Holger1405 wrote...

Voodoo-j wrote...

I could back up the current ending and make it work, with additional info to fill in the blanks, but again that's not really the issue.

It's not the ending Bioware said it would be.
I know I sound like a broken record, but at the end of the day, THIS is what the issue really is.

For you it is, but I bet that a lot of Players wouldn't care about it if they get a full-blown Happy End. Other Players would be fine if the catalyst are gone. Yet others would be OK if "destruction" didn't included the Geth.
See I personally don't think that Bioware made a lot of false promises.
The endings are very different if you think about all the possible outcomes. (depending on your EMS score and the choice you made after the Catalyst scene)

However, I agree that Bioware did a bad job in making this differences clear. 

They have always backed the idea of playing the game and having a different experience, different ending.  I can play different ways have a different experience, but yet I have the same ending, the choice of 3 colors.

True, but the outcomes of this choices is vastly different.
I already said that Bioware did made a bad job in making this differences clear, but think about it.

Destruction = Reapers gone, Shepard dead/alive (if your EMS score is high enough) Squad + LI alive/dead (depending on your EMS score.) Earth Saved/devastated/destroyed (EMS again)

Control = Reapers still alive, but under Shepard's control. (So basically you can decide what to do with them.) Shepard's Body is dead but his consciousness survived.  Squad + LI alive. Earth Saved/devastated.

Synthesis =  Reapers still alive. Shepard is dead. Squad + LI alive but synthesized (whatever that means) Earth Saved.

That's are imho big differences and that's are only absolute differences, now we could start to debate the philosophical differences or differences with regards to content between Destruction, Control and Synthesis.

It is true that some Bioware employs shouldn't stated what they did. (how do you create a ending that is unique for everyone if you have approximately 5 million Players? That is imho impossible in the first place.) But I don't think that their statements are downright lies.

Think of this from a work perspective.

Your boss asks you to come up with 3 different ideas,
You create 1 idea copy the presentation and change 2-3 sentences between all 3.
Same powerpoint for each one with different colors.

How secure do you feel in your job?

Are you starting to see it yet?  
It's not really anything but 1 ending with a few lines of text and color that changes.
They are not seperate endings.

[No_MSG]

So, I've been mulling over this comparison, because I'm pathetic, and the horrible endings to Mass Effect have more or less broken me as a person. Also, with The Dark Knight Rises coming out soon, it's a Batman Begins analogy.

Imagine Bruce Wayne is going to confront Liam Neeson on he monorail at the end. He gets on the monorail, gets to the microwave emitter, and then a ghost bat appears before him. It's a ghost from a bat he fell on when he was a kid. It's also controlling the League of Shadows. It's also the monorail system. Because Batman has made it that far, the League of Shadows no longer works. Therefor, Batman has a choice. He can destroy the League of Shadows, but also every convict, and Morgan Freeman. And maybe himself. He can enslave every member of the League of Shadows to his will, and then die. Or he can make every person in Gotham City physically incapable of doing evil.

Would that be considered artistic? Would people be praising it as the only ending possible for Batman Begins?

[Voodoo-j]

Any adult with even the slightest creativity could have come up with it. How easy it is to entertain some people. And OMG wait for it....



It's an artistic vision!!!

The ending should be completely different from each other.

Let's see what I can come up with in a few minutes.

[Redbelle]

No_MSG wrote...

So, I've been mulling over this comparison, because I'm pathetic, and the horrible endings to Mass Effect have more or less broken me as a person. Also, with The Dark Knight Rises coming out soon, it's a Batman Begins analogy.

Imagine Bruce Wayne is going to confront Liam Neeson on he monorail at the end. He gets on the monorail, gets to the microwave emitter, and then a ghost bat appears before him. It's a ghost from a bat he fell on when he was a kid. It's also controlling the League of Shadows. It's also the monorail system. Because Batman has made it that far, the League of Shadows no longer works. Therefor, Batman has a choice. He can destroy the League of Shadows, but also every convict, and Morgan Freeman. And maybe himself. He can enslave every member of the League of Shadows to his will, and then die. Or he can make every person in Gotham City physically incapable of doing evil.

Would that be considered artistic? Would people be praising it as the only ending possible for Batman Begins?

But....but.... but Batman alway's win's! He doesn't give up and he doesn't comprimise! He's like Bruce Lee, Stephen Hawking's and Sherlock Holmes if they got together and made a baby.............. Eugh!

The point is that Bat's has a mission and he won't stop till he see's it through. And he is intelligent enough to see through his adversaries plans and counter them in a way that thwarts them. And he has the martial prowess to back up his mental capacity so he can handle beating up the badguys................ Ok there was Bane, but Bane stressed Batman beyond his limits and took him down when he was weak.............. And there's AzBats who was really so much better than Batman because of his Saint Dumas order conditioning.........

Ok, I'm geeking out. Stopping now.

But if I had to add my 2 cents to how the ending should have finished, I'd suggest Shepard picks a wall and throws either Blue Red or Green paint at it. You see.........it's all part........... OF MY VISION!!!!! Mwahahaha............... (whatdaya mean you don't get it? It's genius)!!!

Modifié par Redbelle, 23 mai 2012 - 11:16 .

[Voodoo-j]

Shepard reaches the beam to get to the citadel, depending on how many squad members, and assests you've gained depend on how easy it is, Further more the more you have the better they can keep reaper forces from following up behind you, you fight your way through to the secret citadel, fight TIM, and omg, this might seem to original, (I was so expecting this to happen) you defeat TIM and Harby takes over his body (gasp) Beat his bad self down. Fire up the crucible, the barriers on all reapers go down, ensue. a very hard fought fleet battle

(would be sweet if you got to fly the Normandy and take out some of the bastards, but obviously there wasn't time to finish the ending let alone add that)

Some BIG variances, depending on EMS how much is left after the fleet battle, did you survive the battle with Harby or did you have to sacrifice your life, were any choices made to protect specific actions in the fleet fight, Did you have to divert forces planet side?

Fight to the beam, to get to the beam its more difficult depending on assets, the more you have the more dug in positions you reach along the way. you get to the beam and TIM is there Now your fighting your way through cerbrus forces, TIM escapes to the beam, He has taken control of the reapers and wants to wipe out all non human races. You fight your way through the Citadel looking for the hidden area, different groups of your squad mates along the way, getting past a few key obsticles untill you reach the hidden area. Depending on EMS you may loose certain races fleets. Some sacrifices could be detailed outcomes vary by EMS collected from each race. You wipe the floor with TIM take out Harby.

And just from these 2 different endings so many possibilites.
Does Shepard die
Do any squad mates die
Do any of the fleet leaders die (ground assets die)
Do the reapers last long enough to eradicate any of the races.
on and on and on choces vary depending on Paragon/Renegade EMS Genophage Geth/Quarian ect ect

[Voodoo-j]

Ok so that was 22 minutes, still so much material in 22 minutes for 2 endings with multiple outcomes.

Give me 5 hours and wow.. Completely different multiple endings. With many variances..

So I just won the game... OMG I want to play again I want to sculpt a different story.

This is what Bioware had set in our minds, this is what they said was going to happen,
My Shepard had to fight decide which races where exterminated,, My Shepard wiped out the Geth and the Salarians were wiped out by the reapers and the Genophage was not cured.

My Shepard made the ultimate Sacrifice to bring down the Reapers.

ECT

[Voodoo-j]

So.. you still like the bland ending that was left in the wake of 3 amazingly produced games?
Or do you think it was unfinished, do you think it was missing what Bioware has put forth the whole time?

[Voodoo-j]

Bland <> OMG so many endings so many choices!
2% 6% 91%

(1% is lost in the .00 %)

[Voodoo-j]

Yes!!

And that's why I nearly go into shock when someone says they like the ending.. They obviously do not want to replay, they obviously are not in touch with what Bioware has been telling us all along.

So I instantly have to think they are trolling, it's the only thing that makes sense, lest they have some sort of psychotic issues and they like it when everyone just dies.

Modifié par Voodoo-j, 23 mai 2012 - 11:57 .

[AlienShagger]

I'm going to take another crack at the ending after having talked to all of you people, tell me if I'm being too generous to BioWare. It's probably a little far fetched for all of you ppl, but bear with me for fun anyway

I think there are two things they went for - the philosophical choice and the indoctrination awakening, both relating strongly to reality. The philosophical choice is the good old set of possibilities we are given for how to change the (real) world:

1) Attain power in order to change things (Control)
2) Work within the system (Synthesis)
3) Violent rebellion (Destruction)

Here the player gets to agonize over the implications, feel fear for himself and his loved ones, be weakened in his resolve and pick the option that seems to be the least of the three evils.

The indoctrination awakening is the consequence of the choice. The player feels these choices are inadequate, somehow empty and deeply unsatisfying. He/She (yea, we all know there are no Shes, but anyway...) feels that it doesn't work, because the player is alone in the choice. We miss our crew, quite literally. We're no longer a part of a team, no longer can we draw on opinions of others, their humor and their support. All this, all the pretty colors become meaningless without the (imaginary) people we do it for.

Then the writers take hard stances on the choices and give you a straight answer: the first two you do not awake from; they are basically spiritual death, no matter what pretty pictures you dream for yourself afterwards. There is no control of the system or working within the system, both are just excuses for accepting submission. The violent rebellion is NOT a solution, but a beginning of a social awakening. You breathe, but you still desperately miss your crew.

Ultimately, all three options are thrown away, although the last is seen favourably as at least good intent and a start, if ignorant. The only option for changing the world that is substantial starts after you draw breath, free from indoctrination for the first time. It is not shown to you, but you feel it viscerally: bottom-up mass dissent and struggle, shoulder to shoulder with others. And then you go online and talk to thousands of people world wide about how angry you are. Good practice

This gives us the feeling for the untaught history of how almost all civil rights, minority, labor and environmental protection legislation was obtained throughout the past century and more. BioWare demonstrated, intentionally or not, that things do not have to get bad for people to rally in the real world; all we have to do is lift our aspirations and hopes sufficiently high by working together.

Modifié par AlienShagger, 24 mai 2012 - 12:01 .

[Voodoo-j]

I certainly respect your view, I understand what opposing thoughts are. Again if ME 3 was the only one I played, I was never under the guise that Bioware had set forth, that we would be choosing our experience. Then I would have purchased the game without those expectations that Bioware has given us. But as you can see by my sig, I buy games for entertainment, when I want to philosophise I watch documentaries on netflix/on demand.

Modifié par Voodoo-j, 24 mai 2012 - 12:11 .

[3DandBeyond]

AlienShagger wrote...

Holger1405 wrote...

3DandBeyond wrote...

I think then that you agree that as such EMS is almost a meaningless thing to work for.  Without MP, it's far worse.  Alternatively, they will allow you to use points from playing the paid for Infiltrator app in which they expect you to pay real money for bullets.

What a lot of us are saying is that the game kind of disregarded all those war assets, which could have been great in the game.  It boiled down to playing reaper tag to get a lot of them.  But, we did it.  And some people that didn't like MP played that too because they wanted to get the best ending possible.  And your EMS was artificially crippled by half if you did not or could not play MP.  This was one major insult to fans and a big lie.

And then, if I work hard playing the game and playing MP, which is very hard for a lot of people-crap internet or they just are not good at it, and it takes 20 minutes to finish a game, netting a 1% gain in galactic readiness.  Some people don't care to invest that time into MP, on top of hundreds of hours maybe of SP play (some people go back and fix things they figure they did wrong).

But, you get to the end and it doesn't even matter.  You didn't have to try that hard to get almost all the endings possible.  The only big difference occurs with really low EMS and the higher EMS-gasp ending.  Otherwise, they are the exact same choices.  This does not take into account the actual things you do in the game, choices made since often just completing missions (and not how well you completed them) nets you some assets and together it's often enough.

Yes I agree, EMS is bad balanced and worthless in the current state.  (there is another, free, I phone app, that dose the trick too, and when you are playing on a PC it is easy to fix with Gibbed, but you shouldn't have to do that in the first place.) 

Give me a break - they tried really hard to make people work together, at least we can give BioWare that. The multiplayer AND the outrage machine... It's almost like they wanted us to talk to each other. In some strange way I appreciate both. It has made ME universe far more awesome for me personally.

Ok, you do understand that not everyone can afford or has great internet right.  Mine's pretty good, but I have the only high speed solution available where I live (and I like to play MP games sometimes).  But other people can't afford what we pay for our high speed service and ours isn't as fast as I'd like.  Still others have no access to it.  And many others just don't like to play MP and that should be their prerogative in a game where Bioware said you didn't have to play MP for the "best" ending.  It is all but required and just because you like it personally, many don't.  I liked it at first, but it gets tedious really quickly. 

Many players can't or won't complete the game, so you lose whatever stuff you used credits to "buy" if you lose that mission-and most of them now start with 3 people only.

A lot of players will just not ready up-some I've tried waiting out and waited 10 minutes or more.  I generally have messaged them saying the rest of us are ready and some people will kick you if say you promoted a class and now are using a lower ranked character, even if you have 200 plays in.  Others get mad if you won't switch to your higher leveled character "I know you have one, use it".

And some, get into the game and leave their character there as a placeholder-one guy said he had class in the morning, started the game, and then said he had to go, but was leaving his character there "hope you guys don't lose" and went off to sleep.

Other players play it like it's team deathmatch and don't do the missions so they can get higher totals for kills and then often cost you the whole mission because they won't back you up-they also don't revive anyone or even try to because it's more kills for them.  They then won't get to the landing site and so on.  This all happens time and time again.  And it's not new players.  It really gets annoying to be the only one hacking something for 5 minutes that could be done quickly if everyone would get their butts there.

And then there's the scintillating conversation-one guy was having a hacking cough attack, complete with spitting up.  Others are talking about less than interesting things or having phone conversations in the background or conversations with their family.  I know all about what Ismelda got at the store today.

And if you don't think someone not having a good internet connection or not even having one or not wanting to play isn't good enough reason why it shouldn't be a requirement for single player EMS, then maybe the fact that some people (not me) don't have time for it.  For the bronze missions, you get 1% added to galactic readiness generally.  You may get bonuses for certain areas of 5 to 7%, if the leader actually will change the area (oh and during Banshee weekend most of the leaders I found for games were stuck on Cerberuse-no Banshees at all), so you try starting your own game, but as I said my internet is ok, but not the best so as a host I'm not great and matchmaking is iffy.

It flat out should not be a requirement and there should be no MP 50% penalty to EMS.

If you think that Bioware really did this so people could talk to one another (I don't think you think that), then I guess you don't get the whole idea behind the packs for credits thing.  They work to get you to buy them.

Modifié par 3DandBeyond, 24 mai 2012 - 12:37 .

[BlueStorm83]

AlienShagger wrote...

I'm going to take another crack at the ending after having talked to all of you people, tell me if I'm being too generous to BioWare. It's probably a little far fetched for all of you ppl, but bear with me for fun anyway

I think there are two things they went for - the philosophical choice and the indoctrination awakening, both relating strongly to reality. The philosophical choice is the good old set of possibilities we are given for how to change the (real) world:

1) Attain power in order to change things (Control)
2) Work within the system (Synthesis)
3) Violent rebellion (Destruction)

Here the player gets to agonize over the implications, feel fear for himself and his loved ones, be weakened in his resolve and pick the option that seems to be the least of the three evils.

The indoctrination awakening is the consequence of the choice. The player feels these choices are inadequate, somehow empty and deeply unsatisfying. He/She (yea, we all know there are no Shes, but anyway...) feels that it doesn't work, because the player is alone in the choice. We miss our crew, quite literally. We're no longer a part of a team, no longer can we draw on opinions of others, their humor and their support. All this, all the pretty colors become meaningless without the (imaginary) people we do it for.

Then the writers take hard stances on the choices and give you a straight answer: the first two you do not awake from; they are basically spiritual death, no matter what pretty pictures you dream for yourself afterwards. There is no control of the system or working within the system, both are just excuses for accepting submission. The violent rebellion is NOT a solution, but a beginning of a social awakening. You breathe, but you still desperately miss your crew.

Ultimately, all three options are thrown away, although the last is seen favourably as at least good intent and a start, if ignorant. The only option for changing the world that is substantial starts after you draw breath, free from indoctrination for the first time. It is not shown to you, but you feel it viscerally: bottom-up mass dissent and struggle, shoulder to shoulder with others. And then you go online and talk to thousands of people world wide about how angry you are. Good practice

This gives us the feeling for the untaught history of how almost all civil rights, minority, labor and environmental protection legislation was obtained throughout the past century and more. BioWare demonstrated, intentionally or not, that things do not have to get bad for people to rally in the real world; all we have to do is lift our aspirations and hopes sufficiently high by working together.

---  This would all be valid and if it's true then it's well thought out.  But:

1) Its not explained in the game, and therefore it's coming from outside, and I paid 70 dollars (From Ashes was NOT "optional" or "extra" it was the best part of the game,) for a complete game, not one where the ending has to be built in my head.

2) Not in keeping with the tone, mode, goals of the game itself, and-

3) Not what BioWare said we would get in the press releases.

---  Having said that, if they indeed did go for what you say you think they did, then they had high goals and absolutely positively fell on their faces in the timing, delivery, and company to begin such a discussion.  Gamers are gamers for a reason: they like games.  We're not Philosophers.  Okay, from reading this thread I can say that at least SOME of us clearly ARE Philosophers, but we were acting in our Gaming Capacity at the time.  If the game were a philosophical experiment from the beginning to the end, and this were the ending, I'd applaud it.  But it wasn't.  It was a rip roaring, take no prisoners (unless you want to!) make war, not love (unless you want to!) Be a badass (or a saint!) get what you want (or work for others!) war story where you determined what happened, made your own way, and in the end felt like you were shaping a universe by your own determination.  Until, in the end, you felt like you were being shaped by something totally new and troubling, that just didn't jibe with what you had become accustomed to.  To quote Riley Freeman from The Boondocks, "Man, it's like goin' to heaven and findin' God smokin' crack!"

[sdinc009]

karmattack wrote...

Ralph The Wonder Llama wrote...

In the end...

The game failed to satisify its customers. Sales will drop. Can BioWare and EA repair this damage... We shall see.

Already happening. The game's now priced at under $40 at many major retailers including Amazon and Best Buy. They know they f'd up. We'll see how DLC turns this around. It's their only shot.

For the next week Game stop is selling Mass Effect 3 for $29.99