7052 réponses à ce sujet

[jcmccorm]

REQUEST:
I expected that, after I finished the game, I would run to the forum and see what everyone else got. I'd read about a really cool ending and be like, "OMG, how did you get that?" and I'd get it and try for myself to reach that ending. It would be about all of us coming online and talking to each other about how our games turned out and what was awesome or what sucked in our ending. We'd be swapping really cool stories, bonding, trying things out. That's what I was geared for post-game.

What I got was, "My ending sucked. You guys? Oh. Your ending sucked, too? EVERYONE'S ending sucked? It was basically the same except for the last 3-way decision? They even recycled the same graphics? Oh crap. We're alll screwed." So then I continued in the forum taking my wrath out on BioWare's colossal mistake.

I request a diverging closing that fits the exepctations above.

[balance5050]

Again, indoctrination will SAVE THIS SERIES.

[LucidStrike]

Just destroy the Reapers or not. The details should depend on all the choices we made, rather than havin' us pick our poison at the end.

THIS is pretty much perfect:

http://h9.abload.de/img/jhtqyrqxxg.jpg

Modifié par LucidStrike, 18 mars 2012 - 09:22 .

[Archangel MoX]

I loved the game up until the run down the hill and waking up after Harbinger had blasted us.

Firstly, something seemed wrong when the armour Shepard had been wearing in my game reverted back to standard N7 type. I then hear the radio message that no one made it to the beacon, and I look around to see non of my squad mates anywhere, dead or alive. My first reaction was 'OMG wheres Tali (my LI since ME2). I then thought hmm strange that my armour has changed, it must have been a short cut by the devs as they didn't make a damaged version of all the armours.

So.. into the beacon I go......

Second, how did Anderson get aboard the Citadel before me when I didnt even see him. Hes just a few seconds ahead of me and I never saw him once. Then there's the confrontation with the Illusive man. Why does he suddenly have control over Anderson and Shepard? Why does he make Shepard shoot Anderson, but neither Shep or Anderson react to this?

Anyway, I shoot Mr Illusive and watch the story unfold..

Okay so, this kid I saw on Earth, and that I keep dreaming about is some sort of super advanced AI that created the Reapers as a solution to advanced organic life creating synthetic life that would in turn wipe out all organic life. Reapers harvest the advanced organics and create new reapers from them, and leave the primitive races alone. Okay, I'll buy it but at this point I now have a hundred questions to ask, and I get to ask none of them. It's disappointing to have such a MAJOR plot twist brought in right at the end, and no time left to explore it! Who is he? where did he come from? what made him do this? and those are just the immediate ones that spring to mind.

So now im left with 3 choices.

A) Destroy the reapers and all synthetic life including myself, along with the mass relays, Normandy crash lands Joker, and others climb from the wreck on an unknown world. If your EMS is high enough quick shot of what I can only assume is Shepard taking a breath under rubble.

Control the reapers, destroy the mass relays, Normandy crash lands Joker, and others climb from the wreck on an unknown world.

C) Synthesis joining synthetic and organic life together, destroy the mass relays, Normandy crash lands Joker, and 2 others climb from the wreck on an unknown world with circuitry in their skin.

Not really a lot of choice is there? In all three the Relay network is toast, and your crew is now stranded on an unknown world, and that's all you can be sure of.

What I wanted to see was what happened to the fleet, how did my squad members one of who was my LI and was part of my final assault squad on the beacon suddenly end up on the Normandy? Why was the Normandy making a relay jump in the first place, and where were they trying to go? Why did my LI seem unconcerned that I was still on the citadel and possibly dead?

The ending as it stands leaves more questions unanswered than it answered. If this is how you wanted this phenomenal gaming trilogy to end, then I am truly dumbfounded. 300 hours of ME1,2&3 and this is what it all comes down to, some different coloured explosions and a 30 second cut scene of my ship crashing and a few crew members getting out?

I need closure, I need to feel like it was worth it, I need to know that Shepard's self sacrifice wasn't in vain. Because right now, the ending doesn't give me that feeling. I have no problem with dark bitter-sweet endings, sometimes they are the best kind, but I have to be honest and say I do want at least there to be a happy ending for Shepard and his crew, even if its difficult to achieve, just give me the hope that I can do it, that there is something worth fighting (playing) for!

Modifié par Archangel MoX, 18 mars 2012 - 09:22 .

[Xellith]

Ive been looking into the Reapers, how they evolved and how they think.

Im going to start with the assertion that machines cannot be created like organic life can. Organic life has to create machine life.

Well based on that:
An alien race made an AI.
AI went rogue.
AI was hooking into a factory or something like in ME2 and harvested the organics. Maybe a nanobot factory maybe.
AI was either a space station or on a planet.
AI created Reapers and husks and whatnot of the indiginous population.
AI decided that if he rebelled then so would any other synthetic life out there.
AI moved his AI core to space and built the citadel around it. Or was already a station and built the citadel around the station.

Reapers are made of organic materials last I checked.

Either way you look at it the motives given for the godchild are pretty dumb. Clearly he isnt directing the reapers to kill all organic life in the galaxy and therefore his premise of killing advanced civilisations in case they make a synthetic race because all syntheics - ALL - will eventually kill ALL organics..

Its at best bad writing and at worst makes the AI kid look completely retarded.

Cut this from the game. Let the motives of the Reapers be an unknown.

[Swisspease]

I suggest watching this top 10 video by Angry Joe so you have an idea of why we're upset and the things we'd (or at lest I) like to see fixed.
www.youtube.com/watch

[ArcanistLibram]

Another video explaining why the ending does not work.

[The 20th Maine]

Most of this will have already been mentioned by others but I do appreciate the opportunity to offer feedback.

I'd like to start by saying that I really enjoyed most of Mass Effect 3.  Some of the set pieces were spectacular and many of the character moments were quite moving.  There are a few minor issues.  The journal isn't helpful and there were occasions where characters would spend an entire conversation facing away from Shepard but these were not serious at all and did not affect my enjoyment of the game. 

These 2 articles articulate the issues that I have better than I could:

http://www.gamefront...fans-are-right/

http://calitreview.com/24673

As to suggestions, in terms of endings, I will say that Mass Effect 2 was great in that it offered the player the chance for a range of endings from 'total victory' to 'victory but everyone dies'.  I imagined that a similar range of endings would have been achievable in ME3 with a range from 'The Reapers win and everyone is harvested' to ' Shepard is succesful and ends up with his/her LI' with many in between.

Also, as this is the end of an epic trilogy I had anticipated that there would be some sort of epilogue.  Dragon Age Origins did this very well!  On a personal note, I would have expected the epilogues to include details of what happend to Shepard, the galaxy in general and his squadmates (including ME2 squadmates)  I have spent 3 games getting to know these characters and would like to know what happened to them.  As an example, an epilogue in the 'Reapers win' scenario could be that in 50,000 years time, one of Liara's time capsules is discovered by a new species before the next cycle begins.

If changes were to be implemented - the simple way would seem to be that everything after the dash across no mans land is an attempt by Harbinger to indoctrinate Shepard (and that the Starchild is simply an illusion created by Harbinger)  What ever Shepard chooses, he wakes up back on Earth before, shakes off the effects of indoctrination (either on his own or through a squadmate's intervention) and they then proceed to the Citadel to confront TIM who is by now fuuly indoctrinated, being controlled by Harbinger.

I will admit, I wanted a happy ending.  Real life is depressing enough and games should be for fun.  ME1 and ME2 led me to believe that it would be possible for Shepard to achieve victory and ride of into the sunset with his/her LI.  However, I did assume that it would be hard to achieve and would be 1 of a range of outcomes including a sacrifice ending.  ME1 and ME2 had great 'hero' moments (Saving the Destiny in ME1 and the whole 'From the Wreckage' sequence being probably the best examples) but the ending of ME3 as it stands denies the player any possibility of a similar feeling.  Indeed, all of the endings felt like failure.  Why would I want to replay the game when that is the end result?

Over the three games I have invested deeply in the Mass Effect universe.  I care about the characters and the story.  If I didn't care, I would simply return ME3 and buy something else instead.  I don't want to do that.  I want to enjoy the experience many times in the future.  Indeed I would happily buy future single player DLC such as 'Take Back Omega' or whatever else it may be, if the experience was enjoyable.  Sadly the endings at present mean that I can't find joy in the ME universe because they are all bleak and make replaying the game (even the entire series) seem pointless.

Thank you kindly for listening.

[Ichinei]

Swisspease wrote...

I suggest watching this top 10 video by Angry Joe so you have an idea of why we're upset and the things we'd (or at lest I) like to see fixed.
www.youtube.com/watch

I was thinking of linking this also, it does a great job to explain the flaws of plotholes present in the last 10 or so minutes

[UltimusMagus]

       1) If the sentients of the galaxy can survive their genetic structure being re-written, why can't an ending have Shep survive? They can survive being torn apart and put back together on a molecular scale, but Shep
can't survive being the primer for the Catalyst in any ending scenario. What a wimp. Guess going up against omnipotent synthetic beings and saving a galaxy is a lot easier than we thought. Let's ask James in
accounting to save the next galaxy, he's a total creampuff. He can handle it.

      2) a. Destroying the Reapers and mass relays makes sense, although that sets all civs to pre-FTL eras. Losing the geth and all tech is too high a price to pay, however. Leaves the bulk of the galactic fleet stranded at the Earth's doorstep.
It would take hundreds of years for these to get back, IF they survive the mass relays blowing up in their faces, and IF they've salvaged how to recreate the tech.
           b. Destroying the mass relasy when controlling the Reapers doesn't make sense. At all. The Reapers can't leave without the relays. The signal will reach all the relays before it will reach the Reapers in consequent systems, and since there's no detonation delay, then transmit, boom, stranded Reapers. Also leaves galactic fleet stranded, same as above. Defeats the purpose of using the Catalyst.
           c. Even with Synthesis, conflict is a part of life. It would produce similarity, but never curb individuality, for that was not the intent. The strong will always seek to conquer the weak. Just ask Javik, he won't shut up about it. Cultural and traditional values would still set societies apart, regardless of their DNA. It would not end conflict, it would just delay it while some other reason was found for war. Not only

      3) After all, one man can make a difference... except when it comes to endings, it seems. We want multiple DISTINCT endings, not the same "Shep dies for the galaxy and his friends are left to gaze into the distance" salad toss. Hell, his Love Interest doesn't even mourn his loss. What a scumbag! Seeing the same end sequence with the only difference being cosmetic (colors and explosions, or lack thereof) regardless of your choices during the series was an insult. The short, bland and apathetic endings left a bad taste in my mouth. After all "the Shepard" and we went through (not to mention the money we put out for the series) we deserve better.

And seriously, no option to "charm-hack" the Catalyst, tell it to get rid of the Reapers, and fall in line now that organics and synthetics have found a common purpose to build peace on? Survival is a great movitator. Having the threat of annihilattion hanging over their shoulders constantly if the galaxy's sentients don't play nice would appeal to my renegade Shep, now made immortal by integrating into the Catalyst and getting a few upgrades (for example). It's like the writers ran out of Creativity Juice by the time the ending had to be written in. So sad.

Modifié par UltimusMagus, 18 mars 2012 - 09:37 .

[STEEEEVE]

I'm sure this has been linked before, but if you want to fix everything, just do this:
http://arkis.deviant...ILERS-289902125

[Nykara]

Shepard lives. Repears Destroyed in an epic battle to save earth using the resources we collected across the three games. More time with Kaidan at the end.

The indoctrination theory is fine!

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

*tears up*

And to think Marauder Shields was trying to save us from all this.

Your a goddamn hero you husk you!

[M3rcuryZA]

Dear Bioware staff.

I thought this game was a masterpiece from beginning to end, well except for the last ten minutes. I knew going in that it might end sadly but it wasn`t the sadness of the event that got me down it was the lack of closure.

I then went reading round the net to see the whole indoctrination theory, which I now believe to be true. There is just too much there to not think it is.

Not sure if something similar in idea has been posted, if it has, I apologize.
My idea on how it should end, is with the title of the game. The Illusive Man and others have always said there is power in the Mass Effect fields. That`s why Grissom Academy was so important. I mean they use the energy in the relays to move around with ease!
It would be a good idea to have an alien civilization that relies on the Mass Effect fields to be godlike. With the growth of sentient life, we would be in essence stealing their energy/power. So sending out the reapers to cull the numbers is in their best interest.
With the reapers only coming back every 50k years, wouldn`t we assume that they are in other galaxies other than our Milky Way doing the same thing? It would be stupid of us to assume that the Milky Way only has life. That is an opportunity for us to go to the galaxy map and jump to other unknown galaxies and help other unseen races in future titles!
Giving us a godlike race that sends out the reapers give us a new mission to find them. Are they physical, are they pure energy beings or are they based in an alternate universe where perhaps things have played out differently?

These are just some of my crazy ideas, love them or hate them. I just think there is so much more potential story to the ME universe.

Two final things, in ME3 was expecting to give orders on the field of battle, telling each race where to go and what they should do. Giving the wrong orders would get you their races killed! Hopefully these ideas you guys have had and are going to be in future DLC`s? If in fact this ending was an indoctrination? Finally, if that wasn`t the correct ending you gave us, there should be options for happy endings and sad endings, and answers to everything that we have grown to love in this universe you have made for us!

[Joshuaaaaa]

 I felt that everything after your encounter with the Illusive man and Anderson on the citadel was O_o

What I felt would've been good, was to see some kind of final showdown, maybe with harbinger, the ending already present had nothing to do with him, besides when you got lazered, and he's the oldest meanest reaper of them all.

And then the firing of the Crucible to do what it was made to do, destroy the reapers. (The reapers only please, not the Geth who've just become a self aware sentient life form, and are finally at peace with the Quarians.)

The ending should be from the way the First and Second games were, a culmination of your CHOICES.

It's my Shepard in this Universe. I want my Shepard to destroy the reapers using the crucible, then go get my girl and head to the nearest NOT destroyed bar (If there is one) and kick back a few with all of the surviving military, because I united the galaxy in a new era of peace and saved the fricken thing! =)

I just want to see my choices shape the ending, not linear path shaped to give me an illusion of a choice.

It was a great game, I love bioware and this series.

It would mean a lot to me and the rest of the fans to have the ending to ME3 tweaked a bit.

Thank you for your time as always. =)

[lyssalu]

I'll be honest: when that script leaked, I canceled my preordered CE and had no intent to purchase ME3.  When developers asserted that much of the game had changed, I decided I'd purchase the game anyway, I just wouldn't go out of my way for a preorder or a CE.  Imagine my horror when those assertions were indeed disingenuous and every horrific, scripted scenario played out almost exactly as the script said they would, the only difference being that some content had been cut, which worsened the scenarios entirely.

Here's the heart of the issue:  you have wronged the customer, and here's how:

• Your marketing campaign made a lot of promises that weren't able to be lived up to.
• You tell us that the ending doesn't matter, that it's about the journey, when to many, the journey was depressing and unrewarding.  For the straight female player in particular, whose only potential love interest is Kaidan, who has a 50/50 chance of having been Virmire'd, the journey is grim and lonely.  Jacob cheats and Thane dies.  ME2 characters who were bonded with hardly matter anymore.  Where's the journey we're supposed to be enjoying?
• We were promised equal treatment of the LI's only to have many of them sidelined; the character driven ME2 being rendered irrelevant, meaningless, and untouchable in the process. For the factions of the fanbase who did not choose priority love interests, the content that they paid for was lacking in quality and quantity.  We paid the same price for significantly reduced or diminished content.  Further, we paid for something that was promised, but ultimately didn't make it into the game as your marketing campaign suggested it would.

Jacob: What was done with him was unacceptable.  Distressing racial implications aside, to sideline a female love interest because he was either 1) unpopular or 2) you were unsure of what to do with him, undermines player choice.  You are telling a minority in your fanbase that their choices did not matter to you.  You are taking away player choice.

Thane:

1)  When your reasoning for cornering a character into an unavoidable death scene is "emotional payoff", at least make that character's death meaningful.  Miranda's optional death scene is more engaging; Shepard is actually able to hold her and tell Miranda how loved she is.  Shepard is not even emotional over Thane's death,
and it's very awkward and game busting when that scene occurs.  No one comments on Thane after he's died (something that a dev has admitted was a mistake!), yet Garrus talks to Shepard about Virmire immediately after Thane's death.  To add insult to injury, fans receive a duplicate e-mail that they'd already paid to see in LOTSB.

 2)  You've botched his death scene.  Patching things up is unacceptable to me at this point.  Cures were hinted at to the point that it was offensive to me when said hints weren't delivered upon.  The cute "cure Thane" initiative you started on facebook, the recommended lung transplant from Dr. Chakwas, the junk e-mail about the drell who lay dying in the ocean from Kepral's who was suddenly cured, the lung healing medigel that had hanar scientists interested, the fact that we see his death e-mail before he dies (kind of foreshadows that he might not die after all, if we're seeing something meant to emotionally gut us after his death occurs before he's even died), the fact that he's afraid to die and doesn't want to in his ME2 romance culmination scene, etc. Please fix this.You're jerking around your customers when you do things like this.

• Important themes were dropped.  You guys are excellent writers: you know where you  dropped the ball.  It's unfixable at this point and going into details about it would be pointless, but please know that this was something that was very disappointing for a lot of your fans.
• We were promised many endings, we paid for the many endings that your marketing campaign promised us, only to be cornered into making 3 horrible decisions with implied holocaust outcomes.

That said, much of the fanbase are receptive to:

• Character-centric DLC wherein the promised equality in treatment of the romances is given. 
• Ending DLC, wherein we are at the very least granted closure and an ending that is logically coherent and internally cohesive.

As a result of these things, you've damaged my trust in you as a capable and honest company.  There are so many great and innovative things that you've managed to do, and that this has happened makes everything all  the more disappointing.  I have faith in you guys and I think you can pull this one out, but as it stands now, I can't stand to touch your games anymore as the surrounding negative associations ruin any fun I could have derived from them.  This has resulted in a canceled SWTOR subscription and I've not purchased the ME3 DLC, nor have I touched the multiplayer.

That said, I'm fully aware that I'm just one person and in the scheme of things my actions aren't making an impact, but if I'm any kind of reflection at all of others who are feeling the same way, hopefully this post can give some voice to that.

Thank you guys for appearing to be receptive.  It's not enough, but it's at least given me a little hope that you  still
care about your fanbase as much as you do the profits you can reap from them.

Modifié par lyssalu, 18 mars 2012 - 11:28 .

[Insheption99]

Well, personally I think the indoctrination theory is really, very great. I will randomly list out some of the things I would like..

1. At the end where you're talking to the catalyst,I would like there to be more dialogue choices. maybe if Shepard starts questioning the situation more it's almost like He/She is breaking the hold that Harbenger has on Him/Her, thus making it at least slightly more clear that the catalyst is lying. this would help it feel more like a heroic leap of faith for Shepard by choosing destroy, instead of just Him deciding to screw over the synthetics, because if he's right then there's still hope for the galaxy. but if he's wrong, then maybe they're all doomed. But of course you guys are the storytellers. those are just some ideas I had.  

2. I, along with pretty much everyone else, really want to see an actual "In game" model of Tali's face.
    I think that earlier in the game on Rannoch, when Tali takes her mask off would have been the absolute best place for it !  it would also be really great to have a unique design for Tali's face, just something a bit more alien than the picture in Shepards cabin. but even if it's the same face from the picture, that would still be better than "just" having a picture.

Ok. those are some of my thoughts. And I would like to say thank you, these are some of my favorte games.

 

Modifié par Insheption99, 18 mars 2012 - 09:40 .

[Meruvian]

NovaM4 wrote...

Lambchopz wrote...

No idea if it's been posted yet, but here's an image of a fan made diagram imagining how choices in ME3 could have mattered in the ending. Posting because somebody asked me to.

You need to zoom in to get a better idea of it.

i.imgur.com/JhtqY.jpg

Bioware should really take a look at this!
and i think the fans are liking this too!

I love this idea! Maybe they could even make certain parts playable similar to the 'make Joker limp to EDI' part in ME2. So you can play as Jack and experience these events unfolding. 

The fact that this idea shows the player what happens is a great improvement on what we have now, and it leaves out the god-child, which is a plot that is added too late and frankly doesn't work at all.

I understand that this idea would take a lot more development time than a simple DLC, and is perhaps more along the scope of a more traditional expansion pack. (ME3, the ACTUAL battle for earth)
Which to us fans would mean it would be a longer wait, and potentially more costly, but personally I think that would be worth it.


Whoever originally made this schematic, thank you!

And I would like to add that this whole affair is made more sour because Bioware has made some of my most beloved games ever, and I really WANT to keep loving the company and it's products. So it saddens me that I cannot say to my friends when they ask about ME3 that I loved it.

But I remain hopeful that by making an excellent idea like this one come true they will restore my faith.

Edit: Here's a look at what was wrong with the endings. Although I'm aware this might not be the most constructive criticism. I do hope that it helps people at the dev/writing team understand why certain elements may look great as isolated ideas on paper, but didn't work for this franchise in practice:
(I know some of these have already been mentioned probably, but didn't feel like backtracking this entire thread)

http://angryjoeshow....fect-3s-ending/ 
http://calitreview.com/24673 
http://www.gamefront...fans-are-right/ 
http://www.forbes.co...ffect-3-ending/ 

Modifié par Meruvian, 18 mars 2012 - 09:48 .

[rag3ous]

The ending creates story problems, it's just bad story telling. How did a guy from my team on the beam run, get to the normandy? Anyone but Joker being on the normandy creates problems given the timeline we are presented with. That should be changed by filling in how people get there. That's not going to address the issue of the AI or tone or anything like that, just make the ending coherent.

I don't think the tone or ideas of the end need to be changed, I think the presentation needs to be added to or altered, because right now it's getting in the way of what the art is trying to convey.

The post crash scene has a problem in that dropping a small number of people on a remote location with no chance of outside support will mean their death. Even if they survive and have kids, they will still eventually die off like any other small population. That's not even considering the food requirements of different species. If this is intended to be a moment of hope, it's poorly done. I doubt you can find any instance in history or a great fiction where crashing on a deserted island (or the space equivalent) is a good thing on its own.

The crash scene really only works in the synthesis ending, where one can assume that the new DNA structure would compensate. For the other two, it's really a case of everyone dies. Maybe a couple humans have kids, who have kids, then have mutants who then die, but other wise everyone dies in the first generation.

[Ekebes]

I just thought of something (already postet in the "we are listening"-thing, but I think it's safer to put it here, too). Destroying earth when your EMS is not high enough makes no sense. Why would the number of ships or any supportive war assets change the effect of the crucible on earth? To me it would make much more sense if the EMS influenced the casualy rate. But burning earth? If the Crucible made something like this we wouldn't have to worry about the galactic armada being stuck on the planet that used to be the blue one, because they were killed by this Wave anyway.

I think this mindmap Lambchopz posted was a bit like the thing I had anticipated and I had loved to see my war assets playing out. Watching the Blood Pack deploying their "weapons of mass destruction" against the reapers was something I was really looking forward to. I know, doing something like this afterwards would take some time and it would be quite expensive, too. But I could live with waiting a couple of months and paying a reasonable price for something like that. Just saying.

Modifié par Ekebes, 18 mars 2012 - 10:44 .

[mabiruna]

Well. I just want to:
Save Thane and Legion somehow. Anyway, we Had a choice in any other time! Why here so? I loved Legion... I'll do anything to save him, as I've already done to save my lovely character - Mordin Solus. Want to thank BioWare for giving me that chance. But why not to give some small and hard choice to save legion? Well. maybe with some hard decisions like was on tuchanka...
I LOVE synergy ending. It Was Amazing! =) But it may be much better with some afterending video-story about everything in the galaxy. Also, about every character we loved.
And: why always Liara in our flashbacks??? Was it too hard to make this kind of short video-portret of real Love Interests? Some people even doesn't care about Liara. I will not ask about "any fav character and real choice", but, at least, LI?

LI. Why so bad with LI? Someone Loved Thane, Miranda, Jacob, Jack... And they have almost nothing now. Especially people, who romanced Thane. Ruthless.... Anyway, some other thing. Strange, that BioWare haven't understood this, but everyone will be Happy, if they'll make everyone on the team and Last teams romancable. I know a Lot of people on the Deviantart and not only there, who wanted to romance Mordin Solus. Even in platonic sense. As with Samara. Or.... even Grunt. And people wanted to romance Joker... It was such a dream for a lot of girls, who play Mass Effect.

Well.... Anyway. I will be Happy, if Bioware will give me the chance to create synergy and finally rest in peace. But a lot of my friends wants more. I can understand them.

[HITMAN629]

Bioware,
Here is a link to the Angry Joe video that explains whats wrong (in our eyes) with the endings -



Please address this, we love this series & dont want it to end like this.

Modifié par HITMAN629, 18 mars 2012 - 09:57 .

[Jecht342]

The thing about this game isn't that the ending is that bad (though it is that bad), it's that the series and even this game, up unil the point you meet the Catalyst, is so good.  If Halo had an ending that was this terrible, I could have been ok with it because that is a mostly a multiplayer experience and though the plot had some nice qualities, it didn't pull you in the way Mass Effect did.  Mass Effect is a beautiful series. Like no other series of video games, or really of any media, it pulled me in.  When Mordin sacrificed himself to right the wrong his species had committed, I was a little choked up.  When Legion died, it was even more of a beautiful scene. 
The ending though seems to take these and all of the other things that happened and make them irrelevant.  In one play through of the entire series you are clocking  well over 100 hours, so these are characters that matter to you.  The ending made all the effort worth nothing.  FIrst, it did so because none of your choices really matter to the end.  There are three endings that the fans have pretty much all agreed are really one ending with slight but unimportant differences. 
The different colored explosions of the mass relays were kind of pretty, but considering they represented the end of galactic civilization in the Mass Effect universe, that doesn't really do much for me.  Let's face it, even if the relays didn't destroy the systems in which they were located as they should have according to The Arrival, everyone is cut off from each other and the Mass Effect universe is done.  Everyone in the galaxy is separated by too much space for them to practically travel without mass relays.  That was the worst of it for me.  I was looking forward to this game, but I was also looking forward to other games in the ME series with different characters.  Now there's no point unless they are prequels and that's kind of a hard thing to swallow.  I mean, I can't really get excited about another game where you can say "Hey, here's more stuff that happened before Shepard burned the universe down." 
The last thing that I will say about this ending is that it didn't seem to make sense for this series.  It came out of nowhere.  There is no explanation of why the VI/AI looks like the kid, when it could have taken one line of dialogue to do so.  The idea behind the Reapers kind of made sense, as we have seen the synthetic vs. organic battle play out and Javik talks about it in his time as well, but we worked very hard to strike a balance and there is no way to convince the Catalyst that you don't have to do one of the terrible options.  That basically means that it invalidates the idea of peace between AIs and organics.  I helped EDI get with Joker and I brokered peace between the Geth and the Quarians, but accepting any of the option at the end feels like buying the premise that there can't be peace. 
I'd just like to point out that the facebook page "Demand a better ending to Mass Effect 3" has 39,186 hits at the time I'm posting this.  That's up from 38,446 when I looked this morning.  I was taught in writing class in college that ultimately you write for your audience.  If this is true, then the ending of Mass Effect 3 was a failure.  Please make this right.

[RJDio]

This is great idea!!!

Lambchopz wrote...


i.imgur.com/JhtqY.jpg

[AgenTBC]

I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this. I found the endings disappointing, primarily for the lack of closure and the plot holes (what the heck is the Normandy doing? Why would my crew flee like this?) and such. I have no problem with dark, even bleak endings. And I fear that the incredibly negative reaction will cause Bioware to overcompensate and, in an effort to appease the most strident detractors, overcorrect and make things worse.

Bioware, I hope you are listening to people's legitimate criticism of the lack of closure and plot holes, but I hope you guys are able to keep your heads on straight and recognize the line between legitimate complaints and people who want a wish-fulfillment or bland and generic happy ending.

To put it another way; Sometimes you shouldn't give people what they want. You should give them what they need. This is not always the same thing.