7052 réponses à ce sujet

[PrimaryCarbon]

 First of all, I loved the game all the way to the end. Then at that what the... moment I had flashbacks of my ten careers from the last two and started adding up all the time to beat them and thought, what a waste. I have every piece of dlc for both games and the collector edition of the third.
 
Positives: The story of this trilogy was amazing, again, until the very end. I liked the combat in this third installment, it felt tighter and more responsive. The improved AI of the enemy made combat a blast because of the increased challenge; and thank you bioware for squadmates that are not worthless and actually help you during combat. I liked actually seeing the homeworlds of the other races or at least the moon of Palaven. Before the final battle, talking to your LI and all the squadmates was great. This area really made me want to win for them. Which the current endings provided for.

Negatives: Even though The area in london where you talk to your squadmates made me want to win the war for everyone I would like to make it back to them also. If a player puts the effort in to have all the galactic readiness you can they should be able to kill the reapers, punt the godchild like a football into dark space, go to the beach with garrus and have the next wave of Alliance soldiers with Ashley. If the extra time and care is not put into the game, then yeah, I can see having to sacrifice yourself to win.

Many people game to escape that reality and that is the greatthing about these games, take your time, think about the choices and make the game come out how you want. I know my ending above is storybook but isn't there enough sacrifice and bad news happening all over the world everyday. I don't want see this in something that is supposed to be my choice. It seems all to often you hear is bad news with  no good to come from it. Yes the reapers killing people in the game is bad news so why can't we make peoples sacrifices worth something. They died so that Sheperd could complete the mission and go on. I just don't like Martyrdom in stories I'm supposed to control. Thanks for a great game Bioware, but yes I would gladly pay for a storybook ending.

[Jadebaby]

camcon2100 wrote...

Go with the indoctrination theory. Make it so we face off with Harbinger for real this time. And make the crucible a realistic construct some sort of blast that weakens the Reapers. This allows us to use our EMS to determine how the rest plays out. This would be perfect

This will probably never be read under all these ideas but... this^ and this......

Also what first reply Pomrink said about having a survive option with Love Interest (very hard. NG+?)

And the crucible could be a Giant 'Overload' Machine that permanetly takes down the reapers shields so the battle can be faught conventionally.

The indoc theory would be very good becoz you could still play the same ending, but have it in a way that makes the indoctrination more obvious, or reminisce on it after you wake up

Also an idea to show more of our war assests fighting in 'the final battle'. However this doesn't matter so much.

Modifié par Jade8aby88, 19 mars 2012 - 01:11 .

[blmlozz]

Timforsgren wrote...

Here's my suggestion for e fulll paragon ending - Here goes;

Halfway through the walkway, after speaking with the Catalyst Shepard stops.

"No."

A raised eyebrow in the only indication that the Catalyst took notice.

"No?"

"You're giving me a choice. My answer is 'no'."

Shepard turns around, to face the Catalyst, his face grim with determination.

"You're giving me a choice, you say. But it's a false choice. All of your
options are based on the same notion: Namely, that synthetics and
organics cannot exist as equals. And I don't believe that.  refuse to
accept that as a truth. Maybe one is born from flesh, and the other
comes from silocon. But where it counts, organics and synthetics are the
same: we are selfaware. We want to be free."

"Free from tyranny. Free to find our own path. And, yes, maybe we will make mistakes. Maybe
we will disagree, and maybe we will wage war against eachother. Organic
against organic, synthetic against synthetic, and organic against
synthetic. But we will grow. We will learn. And, maybe, just maybe, we
will find a better solution. But we can't, not when you take that choice
away from us."

Optonal: "I see EDI and Jeff together, not as master and servant, but as equals.
Optional: "I see the Quarians and the Geth, organic and synthetic, preparing to
create a new homeworld for the both of them, together.
Optional: I can see the Rachni, once feared throughout the galaxy, stand with us, as equals.
Optional: I can see it's possible.

"So, no. I won't make that choice. And neither should you. Instead, allow us
to find our own way. Let us go. Send the Reapers back to the space
between galaxies. Let us make our own mistakes. Let us be free. And
believe in us. Believe that we might find a better way. A better way
than this...."

The Catalyst scans Shepard's face.

"Do you truly belive that is possible?"

"Yes, "says Shepard, without hesitation. "I believe we're owed that chance."

A few moments pass, as the Catalyst keeps looking at Shepard. Then the
avatar of the Catalyst disappears. The ground begins to shake, as the
Citadel begins preperations to fire the Cruciable and depart. Looking for a way off, Shepard
moves as fast as his aching body carries him, to the edge of the
platform... when, suddenly, a shuttle appears, with open doors, with the
two comrades he left on the way to the Conduit, their arms stretched
towards him. Shepard stars limping as fast as he can towards them.


Then it switches to eart where you see your gathered war assets fighting
in space and on the ground side by side with all your squadmembers,
both present and past. They fight a losing battle on earth, each race
covering eachother, helping eachother, tending to the wounded, taking
heavy losses, being pushed back.

Then it switches back to Shepard, making his way to the shuttle,
he falls over, unable to go any further, his 2 crewmembers rush to his aid,
the shuttle takes fire by reaper fighters. Then the screen goes black,
slowly fading into motion again showing the forces on earth, fighting
again in slow mo, dying, while the piano theme of ME3 plays - then,
when all seems lost, the sky lights up, a great wall of energy washes
over earth and the reapers deactivates and fall over, and the forces
of the galaxy cheer in victory. The beam continues through the relays
across the galaxy but without destroying
them.

Then we see the citadel closing up an getting ready to
leave, but just before it's completely shut, the shuttle slips through,
we see one of your squadmates perform CPR on Shepard as the other one
fights to pilot the damaged shuttle shouting over communications trying
to reach Joker on the Normandy, after a few moments they are successfull
and get picked up. Your crewmembers make haste and carry Shepard to the
med-bay of the normandy where dr. chakwas tries to keep you alive.

The Normandy returns directly to London where your surviving squadmates
have made it back to the HQ, the old ones aswell, they all rush into the
ship standing around the bed watching the paramedics trying to keep
Shepard alive. The situation is critical and your LI rushes forward
pleading to Shepard to wake up, crying. He/She reach down, kiss him/her
(Tali takes off her mask and her face is revealed in-game), but then,
Shepards heart stops. It's silent. Some of your squadmates may step
forward and yell/say something to shepard (Garrus may remind him of all
they've been through, that they were suppsoed to meet at the bar when
all of this was over, Wrex might yell at him how he has always been
stronger than any krogan ever will be and that a krogan wouldn't go
without a fight.) Your LI squeezes your hand hard, a few seconds of
silence, then Shepard suddenly takes a breath and his heart starts
pumping again. Shepard opens his/her eyes slowly and reaches out for the
crew. They cheer, come up to him one or two at a time saying a few
words (i.e "I knew you wouldn't go like that" " You can't quit on us in
the hour of victory Commander/Skipper"). Garrus and your LI comes up
last and talks to you.

The camera zooms out from the Normandy,
showing the aftermath of the battle on earth. It continues to zoom out
then shifting to other places in the galaxy, giving quick glimpses of
the galaxy wide battle. It then fully zooms out showing the Milky Road
as a whole and as the ending credits starts to roll and as they do we
are shown events from around the galaxy as all species begin to rebuild,
for example, quarians and geth on rannoch, Wrex and Eve on Tuchanka
uniting the krogans, turians on palaven, asari on thessia, salarians on
Sur'kesh aided by Rachni in some places. After the credits have ended we
see Shepard standing in some city on earth staring at the stars on a
moonlit night, maybe having painful flashbacks and memories from ME1 2
& 3. Then your LI comes up to you and grabs your hand and pulls you out
and looks at you, making shepard feel a little better.

Then it ends.

Bioware. Give this man a job. This is almost perfect. Is it too much to ask for *exactly* this?

That is all.

Modifié par blmlozz, 19 mars 2012 - 01:12 .

[aksoileau]

To BioWare:

The endings have created such controversy because of how flawless the game performed before you were forced into a situation at the end with starchild. You created a beautiful game, but your endings have tarnished it greatly. I like the analogy of someone throwing a bucket of paint on the Mona Lisa. You know its a masterpiece, but the paint has ruined it.

My suggestions would be to expand the dialogue. If you wanted it to be "high level" in the first place, why would you cut investigative content? It's not high level if you can't actually discuss the starchild's logic.

And we all know his logic is terrible about synthetics. In my playthrough the Geth and Quarians are at peace and have created a symbiosis together to help the Quarians out of their suits. EDI despite being a synthetic is fighting against Reapers. Just like the Geth. She's also with a human. Why couldn't we explain this to him? Why railroad us?

I am glad you had an ending with Shepard living, but it didn't have to be so cryptic. You obviously have synthetic parts in your body from the Lazarus project in your system, yet you had to kill EDI and the Geth? How is that logical?

I am not one of the people out there that are pushing for a Happy Ending. While I would like to see Shepard reunite on screen with his/her crew, I understand that ME3 requires sacrifice. The endings just need to make sense. Why should Shepard sacrifice himself if the endings make zero sense? Make the sacrifice matter. I find myself metagaming by destroying the Reapers every time just because the other two endings do not belong in Mass Effect. Regardless of how you spin it, you are allowing the Reapers to win.

That defeats the entire series.

[schulz100]

The Soldier class in single player should have a passive ability that eventually either halves all weapon weights or allows unlimited weight capacity. Why? Because that is the point of the soldier. It's meant to be a class that can wield every weapon in the game simultaneously with no detrimental effects, but that point is invalidated when the recharge time on Adrenaline Rush and Concussive Shot(or any bonus powers that aren't ammo powers) is somewhere around the time of 20 or 30 seconds because you brought along all possible weapons(which, I reiterate, is the purpose of the soldier as opposed to the other classes). This passive skill shouldn't come cheap though(for fairness issues). Initial level requires six points to unlock. The following path can allow you to decrease weight limits on certain weapons or continue to remove the problem presented by weight capacity, with the final upgrade costing around 10 or 12 points(again, this is something you'd need to really save up points and possibly neglect other skills for).

[499L]

PrimaryCarbon wrote...

 First of all, I loved the game all the way to the end. Then at that what the... moment I had flashbacks of my ten careers from the last two and started adding up all the time to beat them and thought, what a waste. I have every piece of dlc for both games and the collector edition of the third.
 
Positives: The story of this trilogy was amazing, again, until the very end. I liked the combat in this third installment, it felt tighter and more responsive. The improved AI of the enemy made combat a blast because of the increased challenge; and thank you bioware for squadmates that are not worthless and actually help you during combat. I liked actually seeing the homeworlds of the other races or at least the moon of Palaven. Before the final battle, talking to your LI and all the squadmates was great. This area really made me want to win for them. Which the current endings provided for.

Negatives: Even though The area in london where you talk to your squadmates made me want to win the war for everyone I would like to make it back to them also. If a player puts the effort in to have all the galactic readiness you can they should be able to kill the reapers, punt the godchild like a football into dark space, go to the beach with garrus and have the next wave of Alliance soldiers with Ashley. If the extra time and care is not put into the game, then yeah, I can see having to sacrifice yourself to win.

Many people game to escape that reality and that is the greatthing about these games, take your time, think about the choices and make the game come out how you want. I know my ending above is storybook but isn't there enough sacrifice and bad news happening all over the world everyday. I don't want see this in something that is supposed to be my choice. It seems all to often you hear is bad news with  no good to come from it. Yes the reapers killing people in the game is bad news so why can't we make peoples sacrifices worth something. They died so that Sheperd could complete the mission and go on. I just don't like Martyrdom in stories I'm supposed to control. Thanks for a great game Bioware, but yes I would gladly pay for a storybook ending.

This right here. I don't play a video game because I'm looking for a real experience. (especially a sci fi)

[Chowaniec]

This video by Angry Joe sums up the endings problem pretty well:

[Neuthung]

My video response to this very thread.

[Jadebaby]

blmlozz wrote...

Timforsgren wrote...

Here's my suggestion for e fulll paragon ending - Here goes;

Halfway through the walkway, after speaking with the Catalyst Shepard stops.

"No."

A raised eyebrow in the only indication that the Catalyst took notice.

"No?"

"You're giving me a choice. My answer is 'no'."

Shepard turns around, to face the Catalyst, his face grim with determination.

"You're giving me a choice, you say. But it's a false choice. All of your
options are based on the same notion: Namely, that synthetics and
organics cannot exist as equals. And I don't believe that.  refuse to
accept that as a truth. Maybe one is born from flesh, and the other
comes from silocon. But where it counts, organics and synthetics are the
same: we are selfaware. We want to be free."

"Free from tyranny. Free to find our own path. And, yes, maybe we will make mistakes. Maybe
we will disagree, and maybe we will wage war against eachother. Organic
against organic, synthetic against synthetic, and organic against
synthetic. But we will grow. We will learn. And, maybe, just maybe, we
will find a better solution. But we can't, not when you take that choice
away from us."

Optonal: "I see EDI and Jeff together, not as master and servant, but as equals.
Optional: "I see the Quarians and the Geth, organic and synthetic, preparing to
create a new homeworld for the both of them, together.
Optional: I can see the Rachni, once feared throughout the galaxy, stand with us, as equals.
Optional: I can see it's possible.

"So, no. I won't make that choice. And neither should you. Instead, allow us
to find our own way. Let us go. Send the Reapers back to the space
between galaxies. Let us make our own mistakes. Let us be free. And
believe in us. Believe that we might find a better way. A better way
than this...."

The Catalyst scans Shepard's face.

"Do you truly belive that is possible?"

"Yes, "says Shepard, without hesitation. "I believe we're owed that chance."

A few moments pass, as the Catalyst keeps looking at Shepard. Then the
avatar of the Catalyst disappears. The ground begins to shake, as the
Citadel begins preperations to fire the Cruciable and depart. Looking for a way off, Shepard
moves as fast as his aching body carries him, to the edge of the
platform... when, suddenly, a shuttle appears, with open doors, with the
two comrades he left on the way to the Conduit, their arms stretched
towards him. Shepard stars limping as fast as he can towards them.


Then it switches to eart where you see your gathered war assets fighting
in space and on the ground side by side with all your squadmembers,
both present and past. They fight a losing battle on earth, each race
covering eachother, helping eachother, tending to the wounded, taking
heavy losses, being pushed back.

Then it switches back to Shepard, making his way to the shuttle,
he falls over, unable to go any further, his 2 crewmembers rush to his aid,
the shuttle takes fire by reaper fighters. Then the screen goes black,
slowly fading into motion again showing the forces on earth, fighting
again in slow mo, dying, while the piano theme of ME3 plays - then,
when all seems lost, the sky lights up, a great wall of energy washes
over earth and the reapers deactivates and fall over, and the forces
of the galaxy cheer in victory. The beam continues through the relays
across the galaxy but without destroying
them.

Then we see the citadel closing up an getting ready to
leave, but just before it's completely shut, the shuttle slips through,
we see one of your squadmates perform CPR on Shepard as the other one
fights to pilot the damaged shuttle shouting over communications trying
to reach Joker on the Normandy, after a few moments they are successfull
and get picked up. Your crewmembers make haste and carry Shepard to the
med-bay of the normandy where dr. chakwas tries to keep you alive.

The Normandy returns directly to London where your surviving squadmates
have made it back to the HQ, the old ones aswell, they all rush into the
ship standing around the bed watching the paramedics trying to keep
Shepard alive. The situation is critical and your LI rushes forward
pleading to Shepard to wake up, crying. He/She reach down, kiss him/her
(Tali takes off her mask and her face is revealed in-game), but then,
Shepards heart stops. It's silent. Some of your squadmates may step
forward and yell/say something to shepard (Garrus may remind him of all
they've been through, that they were suppsoed to meet at the bar when
all of this was over, Wrex might yell at him how he has always been
stronger than any krogan ever will be and that a krogan wouldn't go
without a fight.) Your LI squeezes your hand hard, a few seconds of
silence, then Shepard suddenly takes a breath and his heart starts
pumping again. Shepard opens his/her eyes slowly and reaches out for the
crew. They cheer, come up to him one or two at a time saying a few
words (i.e "I knew you wouldn't go like that" " You can't quit on us in
the hour of victory Commander/Skipper"). Garrus and your LI comes up
last and talks to you.

The camera zooms out from the Normandy,
showing the aftermath of the battle on earth. It continues to zoom out
then shifting to other places in the galaxy, giving quick glimpses of
the galaxy wide battle. It then fully zooms out showing the Milky Road
as a whole and as the ending credits starts to roll and as they do we
are shown events from around the galaxy as all species begin to rebuild,
for example, quarians and geth on rannoch, Wrex and Eve on Tuchanka
uniting the krogans, turians on palaven, asari on thessia, salarians on
Sur'kesh aided by Rachni in some places. After the credits have ended we
see Shepard standing in some city on earth staring at the stars on a
moonlit night, maybe having painful flashbacks and memories from ME1 2
& 3. Then your LI comes up to you and grabs your hand and pulls you out
and looks at you, making shepard feel a little better.

Then it ends.

Bioware. Give this man a job. This is almost perfect. Is it too much to ask for *exactly* this?

That is all.

I second this idea. ESPECIALLY the part about Shepard receiving CPR and all your squad gathered around, that brought a tear to my eye reading it. Also, if you used this, you could very easily change whether shepard lives or dies in that scene depending on how you played the game, ems and such.

[Arisugawa]

I don't know if anyone else has this opinion, but I think the idea that Shepard has to die at the end of this story belittles the fact that Shepard died at the beginning of ME2. It's a terrible, terrible thing to have your protagonist die not once, but twice, because the requirements of the story demanded it. The Lazarus Project and the requirement to work with Cerberus still, to this day, rubs me the wrong way due to the way it was enacted in ME2, and coupling the all but required death of Shepard again in the subsequent game throws the plot into the grinder.

Killing a character once is enough. If you do it a second time, you've leaped into the dark, negative pool of comic book writing.

[Powerpetzi]

First off, I want to thank you, BioWare, for having created this incredible trilogy. They are my favorite games, and you are my favorite developer, even now.  But concerning the ending of ME3 .... *sigh*

I must say I'm "ok" with the ending (singular) we currently have. "Ok" as in, I don't think it detracts from the game, much less devaluates the whole series, as many players sadly feel.
But it also doesn't add anything to the game, in my opinion, and that's the problem. A game series of such unrivalled quality can't just go out with an "oh, alright"-kinda moment.
After completing ME1 and 2 for the first time, I was gung-ho to start over right away in both cases. The ME3 left me with a hollow feeling inside, while the ending is conclusive in itself, I don't feel it really fits the trilogy.


Here's a couple of things that rub me the wrong way about it, in no particular order (which in all likiness have already been stated by others many times over):

 - Out-of-character Shepard. Shep would never take the Catalyst's load and go with it. At the very least, s/he would question why the Catalyst is so damn certain that synthetics will eventually eredicate all organic life, ESPECIALLY if s/he brokered peace between the Geth and the Quarians before. This is what should happen: social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/9828201

 - Any decision we made across all 3 games has no influence AT ALL on the ending. The only thing that matters is EMS score. This is not what I wanted, not what I expected, not what I was promised. I  was promised "wildly different endings" both by verbal statements and by the direction the games' stories took themselves.

 - Distinct lack of Harbinger. This is bordering nitpicking in comparison to the above, but I still mind it. You spent the entire 2nd game building up Harbinger as the face of the enemy, and now, it appears in exactly 1 scene and doesn't have ANY dialogue? Any comeuppance? Come on. Harbinger deserves the same treatment Sovereign got. And I mean that in every way possible.

 - The whole "Normandy crash"-bit in the end. There's only one thing to say about that, namely: www.youtube.com/watch

 - No Epilogue of any kind. I don't think that needs to be elaborated on either.


So there you have it. I'd love to see BioWare address these concerns in a dlc/expansion/patch/whatever. Don't retcon. The original ending is there, you can't make it go away as if it had never occured. But the Indoctrination Theory can make everything better. *hinthint*




(reposting from a different thread)

Powerpetzi wrote...

You all know the company, and what is at stake.
I have come to trust each of their games with my money and commitment -
but I have also heard murmurs of discontent. I share your concerns.
We were expecting magnificence; we would be exultant, but the ending was
incomplete. Shutting up and accepting it is not our way.
Think of our heroes! KotOR, which overthrew our convictions with a single plot
twist. Or DAO, which left us breathless with tough choices and deep characters.
These giants do not seem to give us solace here, but they are not all that BioWare can do!
Before paper pushers, there were artists. Before narrow deadlines, there was intricate narrative!
Our hope brought DAO: Awakening, but before that, we held the line!
Our hope brought LotSB, but before that, we held the line!
Our hope will bring The Truth; in the battle today, we will HOLD THE LINE!

Modifié par Powerpetzi, 19 mars 2012 - 01:32 .

[lastforone]

If this is true..... BioWare you guys are genius. Give us ME3 part 2 or ME4. We will buy it.

If it's not..... well you know what is it going to be happened?

Modifié par lastforone, 19 mars 2012 - 01:31 .

[MisterMonkeyBanana]

The ending I want, looking back:

Everything is the same, right up until the magic lift to the Starchild. Maybe the final area should be redone better with Anderson's whereabouts making some kind of sense.

The Crucible docks, powers up and fires, Shepard and Anderson have their heart to heart, Anderson then dies etc... the energy builds up and fires, the Citadel is destroyed, the reapers power down and are destroyed. LI/ highest relationship squad member looks forlorn, Joker looks out the window and closes his eyes and looks sad. Depending on your war assets you see how well Sword and Hammer did (low Sword shows Earth's orbits filled with rubble, middle shows a few ships standing and high shows that at least 50% survived from the looks of it, Hammer has everyone dead on the ground, a few people searching for survivors, or a limping group of survivors cheering as the reapers are destroyed). Maybe the control ending, but I'd much rather the game had one ending and the choices you made before mattered, rather than a choice at the end of the game changing it all.

I don't want a unique ending, just the one that I have built from when I pitched down on Eden Prime.

[PrimaryCarbon]

Jade8aby88 wrote...

blmlozz wrote...

Timforsgren wrote...

Here's my suggestion for e fulll paragon ending - Here goes;

Halfway through the walkway, after speaking with the Catalyst Shepard stops.

"No."

A raised eyebrow in the only indication that the Catalyst took notice.

"No?"

"You're giving me a choice. My answer is 'no'."

Shepard turns around, to face the Catalyst, his face grim with determination.

"You're giving me a choice, you say. But it's a false choice. All of your
options are based on the same notion: Namely, that synthetics and
organics cannot exist as equals. And I don't believe that.  refuse to
accept that as a truth. Maybe one is born from flesh, and the other
comes from silocon. But where it counts, organics and synthetics are the
same: we are selfaware. We want to be free."

"Free from tyranny. Free to find our own path. And, yes, maybe we will make mistakes. Maybe
we will disagree, and maybe we will wage war against eachother. Organic
against organic, synthetic against synthetic, and organic against
synthetic. But we will grow. We will learn. And, maybe, just maybe, we
will find a better solution. But we can't, not when you take that choice
away from us."

Optonal: "I see EDI and Jeff together, not as master and servant, but as equals.
Optional: "I see the Quarians and the Geth, organic and synthetic, preparing to
create a new homeworld for the both of them, together.
Optional: I can see the Rachni, once feared throughout the galaxy, stand with us, as equals.
Optional: I can see it's possible.

"So, no. I won't make that choice. And neither should you. Instead, allow us
to find our own way. Let us go. Send the Reapers back to the space
between galaxies. Let us make our own mistakes. Let us be free. And
believe in us. Believe that we might find a better way. A better way
than this...."

The Catalyst scans Shepard's face.

"Do you truly belive that is possible?"

"Yes, "says Shepard, without hesitation. "I believe we're owed that chance."

A few moments pass, as the Catalyst keeps looking at Shepard. Then the
avatar of the Catalyst disappears. The ground begins to shake, as the
Citadel begins preperations to fire the Cruciable and depart. Looking for a way off, Shepard
moves as fast as his aching body carries him, to the edge of the
platform... when, suddenly, a shuttle appears, with open doors, with the
two comrades he left on the way to the Conduit, their arms stretched
towards him. Shepard stars limping as fast as he can towards them.


Then it switches to eart where you see your gathered war assets fighting
in space and on the ground side by side with all your squadmembers,
both present and past. They fight a losing battle on earth, each race
covering eachother, helping eachother, tending to the wounded, taking
heavy losses, being pushed back.

Then it switches back to Shepard, making his way to the shuttle,
he falls over, unable to go any further, his 2 crewmembers rush to his aid,
the shuttle takes fire by reaper fighters. Then the screen goes black,
slowly fading into motion again showing the forces on earth, fighting
again in slow mo, dying, while the piano theme of ME3 plays - then,
when all seems lost, the sky lights up, a great wall of energy washes
over earth and the reapers deactivates and fall over, and the forces
of the galaxy cheer in victory. The beam continues through the relays
across the galaxy but without destroying
them.

Then we see the citadel closing up an getting ready to
leave, but just before it's completely shut, the shuttle slips through,
we see one of your squadmates perform CPR on Shepard as the other one
fights to pilot the damaged shuttle shouting over communications trying
to reach Joker on the Normandy, after a few moments they are successfull
and get picked up. Your crewmembers make haste and carry Shepard to the
med-bay of the normandy where dr. chakwas tries to keep you alive.

The Normandy returns directly to London where your surviving squadmates
have made it back to the HQ, the old ones aswell, they all rush into the
ship standing around the bed watching the paramedics trying to keep
Shepard alive. The situation is critical and your LI rushes forward
pleading to Shepard to wake up, crying. He/She reach down, kiss him/her
(Tali takes off her mask and her face is revealed in-game), but then,
Shepards heart stops. It's silent. Some of your squadmates may step
forward and yell/say something to shepard (Garrus may remind him of all
they've been through, that they were suppsoed to meet at the bar when
all of this was over, Wrex might yell at him how he has always been
stronger than any krogan ever will be and that a krogan wouldn't go
without a fight.) Your LI squeezes your hand hard, a few seconds of
silence, then Shepard suddenly takes a breath and his heart starts
pumping again. Shepard opens his/her eyes slowly and reaches out for the
crew. They cheer, come up to him one or two at a time saying a few
words (i.e "I knew you wouldn't go like that" " You can't quit on us in
the hour of victory Commander/Skipper"). Garrus and your LI comes up
last and talks to you.

The camera zooms out from the Normandy,
showing the aftermath of the battle on earth. It continues to zoom out
then shifting to other places in the galaxy, giving quick glimpses of
the galaxy wide battle. It then fully zooms out showing the Milky Road
as a whole and as the ending credits starts to roll and as they do we
are shown events from around the galaxy as all species begin to rebuild,
for example, quarians and geth on rannoch, Wrex and Eve on Tuchanka
uniting the krogans, turians on palaven, asari on thessia, salarians on
Sur'kesh aided by Rachni in some places. After the credits have ended we
see Shepard standing in some city on earth staring at the stars on a
moonlit night, maybe having painful flashbacks and memories from ME1 2
& 3. Then your LI comes up to you and grabs your hand and pulls you out
and looks at you, making shepard feel a little better.

Then it ends.

Bioware. Give this man a job. This is almost perfect. Is it too much to ask for *exactly* this?

That is all.

I second this idea. ESPECIALLY the part about Shepard receiving CPR and all your squad gathered around, that brought a tear to my eye reading it. Also, if you used this, you could very easily change whether shepard lives or dies in that scene depending on how you played the game, ems and such.

Very Good also.

[parasite23]

I just showed a friend of mine, who has no idea what is mass effect about, the endings of ME3.

His comment was:
"Seriously? They must have saved a lot of ressources."

It seems more and more likely to me that someone from EA came in and said "hey guys, you know, the game has to be finished by tomorrow" before a good ending could have been implemented.

You can do better! You have done better! The whole game until the last minutes of the game was a remarkable experience.

The end is just cheap.

A confrontation with Harbinger has to be there. That was implied since the beginning of ME2.

Where is the dark energy theme?

There are so many good plotlines to utilize.

Inventing a new important characters at the end of a story is just bad writing. The god child has to be removed if there isn't coming a more lengthy continuation.

Here are so many fantastic ideas presented in such a short time by fans. I can't imagine that some fans could have come up with a similar good end for mordin as you did. Why that shortage of ideas at the end?

[jb1983]

After criticizing the ending quite a bit, I think it’s time for me to offer a somewhat detailed solution, one that I think would work for both Bioware and the fans. Something that can be done in a reasonable amount of time, at minimal cost, and bring some level of closure to the issue.

Before offering this solution, I should state one fact that some people miss; you can never make everyone happy. Some people are just not going to like how the trilogy ends. Sadly, those are people you’re going to lose. At the same time, you should be able to make the majority happy, which hasn’t happened.

I apologize for the length, but I really wanted to contribute to this and this is what I’ve been thinking through.

That being said, here is what I think would work as a DLC ending. It should be noted that post DLC, the three options of Destroy, Synthesis, and Control would be available regardless of EMS. Likewise, Shepard would make the choice, have the flashback scenes, and it would fade to black without showing anything occurring external to the Citadel (no waves of energy, no Reapers being destroyed, nothing…just Shepard being eviscerated or blowing up the control panel): 

The DLC begins with the Normandy coming down to rescue the crew. You even hear a “where’s Shepard” and one of your crew responds, “He made it to the beam!”

It then cuts to Shepard waking up right after Anderson has died as he sits at the control. The reason he wakes up here and not after being zapped after Harbinger is as follows:

1)  The scene with Anderson is simply too good to throw out. Lost in all this controversy is just how incredible that one scene is.

2)  If we go for an indoctrination theory – a theory I hate, but one that provides a way out – it makes more sense that the Reapers would attempt indoctrination from the moment he’s on the Citadel.

3)   It means less writing and less work for the development team, which in the end is a good thing for both the development team and the fans.

As he looks around, he sees a VI of Harbinger. Harbinger explains that Shepard has faced indoctrination. Now, here is where your decisions really matter:

You Chose “Destroy”

Harbinger is perplexed as to how you were able to reject the indoctrination. You find out that everything StarChild told you was really Harbinger explaining why they do what they do (yes, this is the real reason, and to a machine they’re not going to care that it costs life, that’s not how they see it). However, you chose destroy, meaning you rejected the
indoctrination. This is an action that simply does not compute with Harbinger, which has distracted him.

This leads to Shepard going back and forth with Harbinger or some sort of dialogue. Or no dialogue, that’s up to the development team. Either way, Shepard turns the controls on, a massive wave of energy shoots out and we go into a cut scene where the Reapers are destroyed. The Relays stay together, people rejoice. The cut scene fades to black as they (Normandy) fly toward the Citadel.

Low EMS –
As the Normandy begins to fly towards the Citadel, the Citadel begins to explode. The scene shows the devastation it leaves on earth. Obviously Shepard has died and many, many, many people on earth are dying too. The explosion is
caused by the damage the wave sent out; since the Crucible wasn’t fully developed due to a low EMS rating, it made the Citadel unstable.

After this cut scene, we hear Liara (and only Liara since she’s the one who did the project, likewise it’s much easier on the budget to bring in one voice actor as opposed to multiple voice actors) speak of how earth was left uninhabitable after the destruction of the Citadel, but the galaxy was saved.

Mid EMS –
The Normandy flies towards the Citadel and discovers Shepard laying at the controls, right next to Anderson. Shepard’s love interest (LI) comes running out and collapses next to him. As he/she holds him/her, it’s very obvious that Shepard is dead. Slowly the Normandy crew walks out and you can see the grief on their faces, with Garrus and Joker obviously taking it the hardest.

After this cut scene, we hear Liara (again for the same reasons as listed above) explaining about the sacrifice Shepard made. Essentially, it’s another memorial for Shepard and would be similar to the above entry.

High EMS -
Similar to above, the Normandy flies towards the Citadel and discovers Shepard laying at the controls. Shepard’s LI comes running out and holds an alive, but significantly injured, Shepard. No words are said because words aren’t needed
(and this saves on voice actors having to come into the studio), just a tight embrace.


After this scene, we hear Liara explaining Shepard recovered. We see him fully healthy and standing before a new council, receiving an award with people on the Citadel celebrating. Over all of this, Liara explains how Shepard was received.

The cut scene after all three of these would go into Liara talking about one of two things. Either she would talk about what the crew went on to do and how the Geth/Quarians and Krogan went along, or if Shepard lived she would talk about what Shepard did with his LI in addition to the crew, etc. The final scene would be a grandfather holding the hand of his grandson on the Citadel (or Earth), looking up at a statue of your Shepard (homage to “Star Gazer” or whatever).

You Chose “Control”

Harbinger is confused as to how you were able to refuse the influence of the Reapers. He concludes that you are a unique organic and that interaction with you has challenged his findings. He states that the Crucible can actually control the Reapers, and if you so choose you can enact it. He states that possibly peace can exist between synthetics and organics, though he cannot calculate the possibility at this time.

He states that due to this new development, the Reapers will return to dark space, but will always watch the galaxy to see if the balance is ever disturbed. If so, they will once again invade. However, to delay what the Reapers see as the inevitable, they are going to destroy the Mass Relays (but not all technology) on their way out. By “destroy” I don’t mean explode, but simply “turn them off.”  

You release the energy and the cut scene shows the Reapers leaving earth and leaving the galaxy. It shows the Mass Effect relays flickering and dying of power, and then just falling apart (this avoid the massive plot hole that we saw).

Low EMS – Harbinger explains that the energy blast will be too much for the Citadel to handle. Thus, the Citadel is destroyed and that destruction falls down on earth. This obviously kills Shepard.

In the following cut scene Liara memorializes Shepard.

Mid EMS – The blast goes out and destroys the Mass Relays as the Reapers head back to dark space. The Normandy and LI find a dead Shepard and Shepard is memorialized.



High EMS - Normandy and LI find a live Shepard and we discover what happened to him and his love interest.

The cut scene after all three (the Reapers fleeing) gives us something totally different (the above three are very similar to the Destroy option, but this is where we get something way different).

Here we see all the different aliens celebrating the withdrawal of the Reapers…until over the radio we hear a panicked voice say, “The Mass Effect relays have stopped working!” At that point, everyone’s joy turns to dismay, and the scene fades to black.

If Shepard died, Liara memorializes him and explains what the crew did. We find out that FTL still worked, so many races went to colonize different areas within FTL distance and were working on fuel stations. The best scientists were working on developing Mass Relays and were making progress, finding they could make smaller ones, but that no one discovered the technology within the lifetimes of the aliens who showed up to fight for earth (with
exception to Krogan and Asari).

If Shepard lives, then we learn about him and his LI as well as the above information.

The final scene is the grandfather and grandson looking at a statue of Shepard.

You Chose “Synthesis”

Boy are you going to be upset if you thought that was the best option (though I think this would be one of the most emotional endings to go through)…

Shepard wakes up and has absolutely no injuries. His eyes are bright blue, just like Sarus’ were and just like TIM’s were. Harbinger explains to Shepard that he has finally seen the light. In this there are no dialogue options as Shepard has given up all free will. He is indoctrinated. He states that the Reapers were right all along.

Harbinger explains that Shepard can use the controls to turn the Crucible against the allied fleets. The cut scene has Shepard doing this and the weapon firing on allied ships.

Low EMS –
Harbinger tells Shepard that he has served his purpose. Harbinger then aims a beam at the control panel, which causes it to go berserk. The Citadel is seen losing power as Harbinger and the Reapers book it out of there. The Citadel
explodes and a wave of energy shoots out. The cut scene shows that this destroys the rest of the fleet. It then shows earth becoming engulfed in flames. It is here that we see the Normandy using FTL to escape the burst and get to the Relay. The energy catches up, however, and eviscerates the Normandy, with your crew on board.

Mid EMS –
The Crucible begins to fire on allied ships. The Normandy comes to investigate what is going on, and it hit by the beam. They crash land on the platform (or near it). Garrus [if Garrus died in ME2, then it’s Joker…or it could just be Joker, period…doesn’t really matter) walks out and asks what went wrong. He says that you have to stop the crucible, that it’s not working. You tell Garrus/Joker you can’t let him do that. He then looks more at you and, in horror, realizes you’re indoctrinated. He pulls his gun on you, we get the cliché, “Don’t make me do this” speech. The renegade option pops up where you can shoot him. If you choose that, then you shoot him and he dies slowly, knowing you betrayed him. If you don’t choose it, we get a scene of Shepard, in a moment of clarity, saying, “Garrus…please…do it…” Garrus, with much regret, says, “Goodbye my friend” and pulls the trigger, killing Shepard. (as a side note, this all points heavily back to Garrus’ statement on the Normandy, shortly after the Council shootout, where he asks whether or not you could have killed Ashley/Kaiden…thus to people who play the game in the future, ignorant of the controversy, this ends up looking like brilliant foreshadowing)

We then get a very silent scene, with just a piano in the background, of Garrus (assuming you didn’t kill him) and the Normandy attempting to fight off husks. If Shepard lived, then he’s firing at them too. In the end, Shepard and the husks, or just the husks, overwhelm the crew of the Normandy and it fades to black with Joker, laying against the side of the Normandy, looking onto earth as the husks circle around him.



[i]High EMS[/i] – The Crucible fires on allied ships and the Normandy comes to investigate, resulting in their crash. You have the same face off with Garrus/Joker. The difference here is you have a renegade option and a paragon option. The paragon option you make a struggled speech about how you can’t do this. You then point the gun to your own head with Garrus/Joker yelling for you to stop and you pull the trigger. Garrus/Joker runs over and kneels by you, with husks surrounding him (the high EMS means you don’t have to see them die, or see the crew die).



The various cut scenes show the forces retreating, it shows buildings being destroyed. It shows the species being wiped out. Towards the end we hear Hackett, talking about the pain of Shepard’s betrayal. He talks about the loss that was brought on by the Reapers. He concludes, “And here I stand, one of the last humans, wondering if it was all for nothing.”



Fades to black and we come up on a jungle planet with the noises of life. We come across two alien species, standing around a fire at night. When we zoom out, we see an obviously primitive alien society. It pans in to one alien, looking up at the stars, obviously curious about what he’s seeing. It then fades to black.



So, those are the endings I would propose. All said, you get 3 very distinct endings (with the last one being extremely different), and overall you get 9 different endings. While there is a lot of overlap, that’s for the benefit of the development team. They are finite and have a finite amount of space to fill, so there has to be overlap. At the same time, what I’m
presenting requires minimal involvement from voice actors, so that’s a plus, and could probably be put together by the end of summer (though it could take longer…who knows, I’d be willing to wait).

Likewise, of the 9 endings, only one of them is a “happy ending,” and even then it’s not completely happy due to the losses we’ve seen. Regardless, every other ending has dark elements, with the “Synthesis” endings having an absolutely gut-wrenching feeling to them.

While they have holes, aren’t perfect, and would need improvement, these are just storyboard ideas that I wanted to offer. Likewise, and most importantly, they provide closure. They provide closure to a fantastic story about Shepard without closing off the universe itself (with exception to the synthesis option, which would be non-canon).

Anyway, this is my contribution. Sure some will pick it apart. If everyone picks it apart, I’ll take that as a sign that I obviously don’t know what’s going on. But if a lot of people like it, cool. If you like it and would like to see something like it, then feel free to bring it to the attention of the Bioware reps who are looking for input. If you hate it, then just ignore it, because I somehow doubt that it’d get put into action (though I think it’d be cool if it did – I really want to play through that synthesis option). 

Modifié par jb1983, 19 mars 2012 - 01:48 .

[Trojan_33]

This guy has a lot more in-depth information than I do about the storyline from ME1 and ME2, specifically that the original storyline was about dark energy getting out of control and Reapers trying to contain it.



I think this should become part of the story again for the ending, specifically that when you break Harbinger's attempt to indoctrinate you, you inevitably have another confrontation with Harbinger. This can come after the fleet comes to bear on Harbinger to give Hammer(and you)
another shot at the beam.

Modifié par Trojan_33, 19 mars 2012 - 01:43 .

[maki0129]

I don't need to see Shepard live at the end, to be honest. I don't need to see a happy ending where you have blue babies/a house on Rannoch/adventures with Garrus/normal human babies/whatever.

I don't even need the ending to change all that much.

I was pretty happy with how the ending was turning out.

Until you raised that platform to the creepy God-Child.

Creepy God-Child I can do without, he kinda comes out of nowhere and makes no freaking sense.

It would have been more rounded to have that conversation with Harbinger, and to get to be able to ask him a few questions, not necessarily get all the answers from him. But at least get to have a conversation. And then being able to get at least two or three new endings that don't involve the 3 non-choices given by the Catalyst and that are actually different to each other, not the same thing in different colors. Shepard doesn't even have to get to live in any of them, just you know... not the same thing in different colors, please. And getting rid of the sequence with the Normandy landing on that deserted island world because no one needs to see that, and the Buzz Aldrin part, and instead doing a true epilogue where we find out what happened to your crewmates or at least the Galaxy in general, would be fine.

It would have been a lot less rounded, but still more consistent with the plot of the game if you'd just let Shepard die and raised no platforms, and then had the Crucible activate and destroy all the Reapers. And just made a quick close up to Harbinger's face as the big wave just shuts his whole Reaper army down and kills him. You could even have a nice funeral for Shepard with your LI giving a nice little speech after the credits, and then some quick text epilogues about what happened to each of your crew mates.

My point is, that whole "leave them wondering" thing you did... It only does it not work as intended, but it is also contrary to everything that was promised to us by the developers.

We were promised different endings, we didn't get that, we got one ending in three flavors, cranberry, blue berry and for a limited time only, lime!

We were promised closure, we didn't get it. If you're not gonna end a trilogy with closure, at least make an ending that actually leaves people wondering, and not just leaves them feeling cheated out of that closure.

And dispose of the stupid little message urging us to buy more DLC.

Like really, in your next patch, patch it out of existence. We do not need it, want it, care for it, or like it.

[Qwarky]

Timforsgren wrote...

Here's my suggestion for e fulll paragon ending - Here goes;

Halfway through the walkway, after speaking with the Catalyst Shepard stops.

"No."

A raised eyebrow in the only indication that the Catalyst took notice.

"No?"

"You're giving me a choice. My answer is 'no'."

Shepard turns around, to face the Catalyst, his face grim with determination.

"You're giving me a choice, you say. But it's a false choice. All of your
options are based on the same notion: Namely, that synthetics and
organics cannot exist as equals. And I don't believe that. I refuse to
accept that as a truth. Maybe one is born from flesh, and the other
comes from silocon. But where it counts, organics and synthetics are the
same: we are selfaware. We want to be free."

"Free from tyranny. Free to find our own path. And, yes, maybe we will make mistakes. Maybe
we will disagree, and maybe we will wage war against eachother. Organic
against organic, synthetic against synthetic, and organic against
synthetic. But we will grow. We will learn. And, maybe, just maybe, we
will find a better solution. But we can't, not when you take that choice
away from us."

Optonal: "I see EDI and Jeff together, not as master and servant, but as equals.
Optional: "I see the Quarians and the Geth, organic and synthetic, preparing to
create a new homeworld for the both of them, together.
Optional: I can see the Rachni, once feared throughout the galaxy, stand with us, as equals.
Optional: I can see it's possible.

"So, no. I won't make that choice. And neither should you. Instead, allow us
to find our own way. Let us go. Send the Reapers back to the space
between galaxies. Let us make our own mistakes. Let us be free. And
believe in us. Believe that we might find a better way. A better way
than this...."

The Catalyst scans Shepard's face.

"Do you truly belive that is possible?"

"Yes, "says Shepard, without hesitation. "I believe we're owed that chance."

A few moments pass, as the Catalyst keeps looking at Shepard. Then the
avatar of the Catalyst disappears. The ground begins to shake, as the
Citadel begins preperations to fire the Cruciable and depart. Looking for a way off, Shepard
moves as fast as his aching body carries him, to the edge of the
platform... when, suddenly, a shuttle appears, with open doors, with the
two comrades he left on the way to the Conduit, their arms stretched
towards him. Shepard stars limping as fast as he can towards them.


Then it switches to eart where you see your gathered war assets fighting
in space and on the ground side by side with all your squadmembers,
both present and past. They fight a losing battle on earth, each race
covering eachother, helping eachother, tending to the wounded, taking
heavy losses, being pushed back.

Then it switches back to Shepard, making his way to the shuttle,
he falls over, unable to go any further, his 2 crewmembers rush to his aid,
the shuttle takes fire by reaper fighters. Then the screen goes black,
slowly fading into motion again showing the forces on earth, fighting
again in slow mo, dying, while the piano theme of ME3 plays - then,
when all seems lost, the sky lights up, a great wall of energy washes
over earth and the reapers deactivates and fall over, and the forces
of the galaxy cheer in victory. The beam continues through the relays
across the galaxy but without destroying
them.

Then we see the citadel closing up an getting ready to
leave, but just before it's completely shut, the shuttle slips through,
we see one of your squadmates perform CPR on Shepard as the other one
fights to pilot the damaged shuttle shouting over communications trying
to reach Joker on the Normandy, after a few moments they are successfull
and get picked up. Your crewmembers make haste and carry Shepard to the
med-bay of the normandy where dr. chakwas tries to keep you alive.

The Normandy returns directly to London where your surviving squadmates
have made it back to the HQ, the old ones aswell, they all rush into the
ship standing around the bed watching the paramedics trying to keep
Shepard alive. The situation is critical and your LI rushes forward
pleading to Shepard to wake up, crying. He/She reach down, kiss him/her
(Tali takes off her mask and her face is revealed in-game), but then,
Shepards heart stops. It's silent. Some of your squadmates may step
forward and yell/say something to shepard (Garrus may remind him of all
they've been through, that they were suppsoed to meet at the bar when
all of this was over, Wrex might yell at him how he has always been
stronger than any krogan ever will be and that a krogan wouldn't go
without a fight.) Your LI squeezes your hand hard, a few seconds of
silence, then Shepard suddenly takes a breath and his heart starts
pumping again. Shepard opens his/her eyes slowly and reaches out for the
crew. They cheer, come up to him one or two at a time saying a few
words (i.e "I knew you wouldn't go like that" " You can't quit on us in
the hour of victory Commander/Skipper"). Garrus and your LI comes up
last and talks to you.

The camera zooms out from the Normandy,
showing the aftermath of the battle on earth. It continues to zoom out
then shifting to other places in the galaxy, giving quick glimpses of
the galaxy wide battle. It then fully zooms out showing the Milky Road
as a whole and as the ending credits starts to roll and as they do we
are shown events from around the galaxy as all species begin to rebuild,
for example, quarians and geth on rannoch, Wrex and Eve on Tuchanka
uniting the krogans, turians on palaven, asari on thessia, salarians on
Sur'kesh aided by Rachni in some places. After the credits have ended we
see Shepard standing in some city on earth staring at the stars on a
moonlit night, maybe having painful flashbacks and memories from ME1 2
& 3. Then your LI comes up to you and grabs your hand and pulls you out
and looks at you, making shepard feel a little better.

Then it ends.

This.. this is beautiful. I was listening to



while reading it and it brought tears to me eyes. This is the "best" ending I wanted. This one right here.

Please think about it Bioware.

Modifié par Qwarky, 19 mars 2012 - 01:46 .

[Wiggly]

So since we're all in the constructive corner and all

First don't forget that I liked ME3 very much, among the best game ever, we wouldn't have bothered with all this hoo-ha if we don't love ME, however my gripes with the ending is:

- The plot holes:
- Why was Joker running away?
- Why was my team with Joker?
- Why didn't the Reapers attack the Crucible when it was vulnerable?
- How did the Reapers just move planet sized CItadel just like that?
- What happened to the fleet I spent so much time gathering?
- Who made the Reapers?
- What about Harbinger?
- All the choices I did in ME1, ME2 and ME3 really doesn't matter much if it ends basically the same way

- Logic and Starkid (I don't mind that kind of manifestation, just his logic:
- The reason for reaping makes no sense
- Why did he just hand over control to Shepard?
- Why did the relays have to be destroyed? This is mostly due to the ME universe ending from that point from our point of view
- The synthesis ending is way too much space magic, doesn't fit in ME

That's the things that annoy me the most.

Modifié par Wiggly, 19 mars 2012 - 01:53 .

[RunAway ItzJack]

Timforsgren wrote...

Here's my suggestion for e fulll paragon ending - Here goes;

Halfway through the walkway, after speaking with the Catalyst Shepard stops.

"No."

A raised eyebrow in the only indication that the Catalyst took notice.

"No?"

"You're giving me a choice. My answer is 'no'."

Shepard turns around, to face the Catalyst, his face grim with determination.

"You're giving me a choice, you say. But it's a false choice. All of your
options are based on the same notion: Namely, that synthetics and
organics cannot exist as equals. And I don't believe that. I refuse to
accept that as a truth. Maybe one is born from flesh, and the other
comes from silocon. But where it counts, organics and synthetics are the
same: we are selfaware. We want to be free."

"Free from tyranny. Free to find our own path. And, yes, maybe we will make mistakes. Maybe
we will disagree, and maybe we will wage war against eachother. Organic
against organic, synthetic against synthetic, and organic against
synthetic. But we will grow. We will learn. And, maybe, just maybe, we
will find a better solution. But we can't, not when you take that choice
away from us."

Optonal: "I see EDI and Jeff together, not as master and servant, but as equals.
Optional: "I see the Quarians and the Geth, organic and synthetic, preparing to
create a new homeworld for the both of them, together.
Optional: I can see the Rachni, once feared throughout the galaxy, stand with us, as equals.
Optional: I can see it's possible.

"So, no. I won't make that choice. And neither should you. Instead, allow us
to find our own way. Let us go. Send the Reapers back to the space
between galaxies. Let us make our own mistakes. Let us be free. And
believe in us. Believe that we might find a better way. A better way
than this...."

The Catalyst scans Shepard's face.

"Do you truly belive that is possible?"

"Yes, "says Shepard, without hesitation. "I believe we're owed that chance."

A few moments pass, as the Catalyst keeps looking at Shepard. Then the
avatar of the Catalyst disappears. The ground begins to shake, as the
Citadel begins preperations to fire the Cruciable and depart. Looking for a way off, Shepard
moves as fast as his aching body carries him, to the edge of the
platform... when, suddenly, a shuttle appears, with open doors, with the
two comrades he left on the way to the Conduit, their arms stretched
towards him. Shepard stars limping as fast as he can towards them.


Then it switches to eart where you see your gathered war assets fighting
in space and on the ground side by side with all your squadmembers,
both present and past. They fight a losing battle on earth, each race
covering eachother, helping eachother, tending to the wounded, taking
heavy losses, being pushed back.

Then it switches back to Shepard, making his way to the shuttle,
he falls over, unable to go any further, his 2 crewmembers rush to his aid,
the shuttle takes fire by reaper fighters. Then the screen goes black,
slowly fading into motion again showing the forces on earth, fighting
again in slow mo, dying, while the piano theme of ME3 plays - then,
when all seems lost, the sky lights up, a great wall of energy washes
over earth and the reapers deactivates and fall over, and the forces
of the galaxy cheer in victory. The beam continues through the relays
across the galaxy but without destroying
them.

Then we see the citadel closing up an getting ready to
leave, but just before it's completely shut, the shuttle slips through,
we see one of your squadmates perform CPR on Shepard as the other one
fights to pilot the damaged shuttle shouting over communications trying
to reach Joker on the Normandy, after a few moments they are successfull
and get picked up. Your crewmembers make haste and carry Shepard to the
med-bay of the normandy where dr. chakwas tries to keep you alive.

The Normandy returns directly to London where your surviving squadmates
have made it back to the HQ, the old ones aswell, they all rush into the
ship standing around the bed watching the paramedics trying to keep
Shepard alive. The situation is critical and your LI rushes forward
pleading to Shepard to wake up, crying. He/She reach down, kiss him/her
(Tali takes off her mask and her face is revealed in-game), but then,
Shepards heart stops. It's silent. Some of your squadmates may step
forward and yell/say something to shepard (Garrus may remind him of all
they've been through, that they were suppsoed to meet at the bar when
all of this was over, Wrex might yell at him how he has always been
stronger than any krogan ever will be and that a krogan wouldn't go
without a fight.) Your LI squeezes your hand hard, a few seconds of
silence, then Shepard suddenly takes a breath and his heart starts
pumping again. Shepard opens his/her eyes slowly and reaches out for the
crew. They cheer, come up to him one or two at a time saying a few
words (i.e "I knew you wouldn't go like that" " You can't quit on us in
the hour of victory Commander/Skipper"). Garrus and your LI comes up
last and talks to you.

The camera zooms out from the Normandy,
showing the aftermath of the battle on earth. It continues to zoom out
then shifting to other places in the galaxy, giving quick glimpses of
the galaxy wide battle. It then fully zooms out showing the Milky Road
as a whole and as the ending credits starts to roll and as they do we
are shown events from around the galaxy as all species begin to rebuild,
for example, quarians and geth on rannoch, Wrex and Eve on Tuchanka
uniting the krogans, turians on palaven, asari on thessia, salarians on
Sur'kesh aided by Rachni in some places. After the credits have ended we
see Shepard standing in some city on earth staring at the stars on a
moonlit night, maybe having painful flashbacks and memories from ME1 2
& 3. Then your LI comes up to you and grabs your hand and pulls you out
and looks at you, making shepard feel a little better.

Then it ends.

this, this, a thousand times this

[Kaari G]

 Dragon Age Origins had "this happened to so and so" stories right at the end.  Something like that would be nice.  I loved the ending, but I would have liked to know a little more about the survivors.

[Warp92]

 All I have to say is to watch this explanation..

[CrimsonDragon86]

I'm normally a lurker, content to watch things unfold from the shadows. In the case of ME3, however, I can no longer maintain silence. What has happened to the care and attention to epic storytelling that made me idolize and follow Bioware for nearly fifteen years (I was 13 when I bought the Baldur's Gate games and I'm almost 26 now)? Don't misunderstand, I loved most of ME3. I was as emotionally invested in the characters as ever (I mourned alongside my male vanguard Auron for the ones lost...), the conflict between the Quarians and the Geth was handled masterfully (I'm glad I had the option to broker peace), the inclusion of novel characters was a fun little nod the other parts of the franchise outside the games, the final goodbyes before the last push toward the beam were wonderful (Auron hooked up with Kaidan, so that one was tragically romantic), the whole assault toward the beam was pulse-pounding, and the final confrontation with the Illusive Man had my clenching my teeth (I may not have liked him, but nobody deserves to be indoctrinated. I'm glad Auron made him see sense in the end like he did with Saren).

Now we come the the part I didn't like: the endings. Yes, I know, most of it has been said before and I won't bore you with repeating it. This wraps back around to my being a long-time Bioware fan. I loved Bioware games because they have always let me go through the story my way, my characters became an extention of me, but they were still there own people. The choices I would pick in each game were usually the ones I felt THEY would choose, even if I personally wouldn't do it. For example, Auron had the patience of a saint with Jack in ME2 while I, personally, would have just left her on the prison ship (sorry, Jack fans). Sometimes our choices coincided (brokering peace between the quarians and the geth), but ultimately, the characters are their own people. So, Auron is the clam, kind, and patient type who would probably forgive you if you stabbed him in the back. He's brave, loyal, and strives to always keep his promises. I'm not upset about the choices of endings we were given: Destroy, Control, or Synthesis are fine. What I DO have a problem with is how they were handled. The chimatics were essentially the same things happening (the Normandy crashing on Giligan's planet [wtf?], and the Relays getting destroyed [makes sense with the 'Destroy' ending, but the others...eh] with a few little changes with each choice (Reapers are destroyed or leave, different colored explosion [seriously?], EDI surviving, Shepard survivng). There should have been more variation between the endings, an option to destroy the reapers while preserving EDI and the geth would have been nice, and little more closure for Shepard and the Normandy crew is sorely needed.

Auron heavy-heartedly  took the 'Destroy' option because it offered him the best chance of surviving to see Kaidan again (the one selfish decision I can recall him making) because he promised to come back. Well, it worked (sort of), but Kaiden's stuck on Giligan's planet now. Now, I can pretty easily imagine Shepard being found in the rubble of the Citadel on Earth and his injuries tended to, but it's a hell of a stretch for me to imagine the Normandy crew getting back to Earth and the alien fleets getting back to their home systems, FTL speed or not.

The point I'm trying to make is that any Bioware game I've played has left me satisfied with events and wanting to replay the series. This was true with ME1 and 2. ME3 ruined that with a substandard ending that I can only consider as bad writing (It's not Twilight bad, but still...). I might go back and play through my favorite scenes, but I have no desire to play through the final act. I'll keep my Galactic Readiness up with save before the final act in case this gets addressed, but you've left this old-time follower pretty disillusioned.