7052 réponses à ce sujet

[Xannerz]

I apologize if this one has been mentioned several times before, but there's a well thought out, ~40 minute video on Youtube which covers the flaws of the ending. I'm roughly 20 minutes in and I love it. It's a good, insightful video and I hope Bioware catches this one.

Thanks.

[Damisis]

There is much to say, but I want to focus on holes in the plot.

1) Reapers:
The Reapers were the monsters of the universe. Their presence was always intimidating, what they had to say was always super cool, they were always so melevolent and spoke down to you as a lesser being. That is my biggest problem with the Catalyst. Sovereign tells you in ME that each Reaper is an independent nation, free of weakness. Harbinger speaks to you with his own personality, and his own motives, makes his own threats-yet the Reapers are just being controlled??? Why would they have personality and motives of their own if they were just tools being controlled by the Catalyst? It just doesn't compute to me. In ME3, each Reaper is NOT independent, and Harbinger doesn't speak a single word to you. Last about the Reaps, is the 'Solution to Chaos.' My problem with this is the obvious redundancy of synthetics killing organics. Think of how much more sense it would make if they stuck with what was hinted at in ME2. This would be the reason for the cycle, if it were up to me; the cycle would exist so that the reapers could harvest organics as a form of reproduction. Why not? It's something all races do, something we all can relate too, and it would make sense why they don't harvest ALL life, because organic life is a renewable resource. Another variable we can all understand and relate to. This would make perfect sense, and wouldn't over complicate things. There would be no need for a Catalyst. Harbinger, the already established antagonist, would still be a viable and bad ass foe.

2) The Citedel
I'll make this quick, in ME you find that the Protheans from Illos altered the keepers to not receive the signal from the reaps to activate the citidel relay, thus delaying the invasion. A huge point in the game was Sovereign gaining control of the citidel to try activating it. Why would any of this be necessary if the Catalyst is in the citidel? He could just activate it himself. Idk, if just seems really unlikely that the Catalyst wouldn't do this.

3) Dark Energy
This last part is just my opinion of what would have been epic for the Crucible, and what would have made a better catalyst. Nay sayers, this is just some fan canon. Remember the star the Hastrom orbited in ME2? It was being drained of dark energy or something? Anyways, what if the reason that was happening is that the Protheans had built the catalyst, which is a power source which utilizes dark energy as a weapon, and once they realized they'd failed to build the crucible, set it to start charging up in 50,000 years so it would be ready for the Reaper invasion. It would make perfect sense, it would be why Hastroms star was dying and it would also play in to that mission on ME2, and could continue on the Rannoch mission. Say, once you either kill the Geth, or the Quarians, or unite them, they give you the info from that mission which leads you to the catalyst. Now, going out on a limb and maybe thinking of Independence Day too much, say that the crucible, now equiped with the catalyst can now fire a sort of dark energy EMP that overloads systems that function on dark energy, like the Reapers!!! Ha, this would allow Alliance forces to knock out their shields, and with the combined fire of the fleets, finally they could get some damage in with out the reapers havin their epic kenetic barriers. Idk, I just thought that would make a lot more sense, stay within the established story, and everyone would be happy. Tell me what you think.

And Bioware, ME3 was an awesome game, I really hope when this whole ending rage blows over, that credit is given where it is due. 99% of ME3 was incredible, but the ending was just like someone pissing on my hush puppies XP

[ShinkirouSenshi]

Adding my voice to the masses:  I too believe that the following article summarizes the issues nicely; http://www.gamefront...fans-are-right/

My experience playing Mass Effect 3 was great.  I felt that the combat improvements added to the game, but I also felt that the story pulled on all the right strings.  I felt sorrow and regret as Grunt charged into the Reaper horde, but immediately rejoiced as I watched him stagger out of the cave bloodied, yet unbeaten.  I was deeply moved by Mordin’s sacrifice.  It seemed appropriate though, this leader helped create a disease that brought a species to the brink of extinction – then sacrificed himself to ensure their health was restored.  I was emotionally distraught when the temple, then planet of Thessia fell.  Even though I’m the forgiving paragon, I wanted nothing more than to hunt down Kai Leng and the Illusive Man and end them.

I fell in love with the universe that allowed me to travel to the stars.  I fell in love with the ability to interact with numerous alien species and –even though we were very different – find common ground among them. 
In Mass Effect 2 the Geth changed from unknown evil constructs to misunderstood creations of a fearful master.  In Mass Effect 3 I was able to bring together the Geth and the Quarians and create what I hope will be a long, fulfilling, and mutually beneficial relationship.  I was able to nurture the relationship between EDI and Joker and help EDI find her humanity.

I went all the way to the end of the game only to make it though a pitched battle and then …

 

What was done to this world was nothing short of monstrous.

 

I was presented with an ending that destroyed the entire world.  No hope for continued exploration of the stars.  No hope for continued exploration of friendships.  No hope for any form of life whether organic or synthetic. No hope for my character.  No hope for my friends.  No hope.

The catalyst (whatever it is) needs to be removed from the equation.  Using the citadel as a power source, sure—that makes sense.  However, to have the citadel serve as the home of some god figure synthetic that gives you three choices that aren’t choices at all is absolutely infuriating and disheartening.  I restarted the mission over and over playing through each scenario.  All were horrible.  None of them were decisions that I would have made. 
None of them were decisions that mapped in any way with how I played the Mass Effect trilogy to date.

I was looking forward to playing through all of the games again and again. 

I was looking forward to playing multi-player. 

I was looking forward to new DLC.

That desire is now gone. 




Let me present you with another scenario.  The Harry Potter series was a phenomenon that captured our hearts and minds.  The world of Harry Potter was a magical place and the characters and places became almost family.  You became attached to these characters.  You rejoiced with their successes and you mourned their losses.  Theirs was a world that you wanted to immerse yourself in.  Theirs was a world that you believed in.

Now imagine that J.K Rowling had ended the series by merging Harry Potter and Voldemort and that doing so created peace, but destroyed the magical world we had come to love. Imagine that magic and the journey’s it took you on were no more, because the joining of Harry Potter and Voldemort not only created peace, but destroyed all magic – forever. 

Why would I want to go back?  The magic is gone.

This is what you did to Mass Effect for me.  The magic is gone.

 

I now have zero interest in replaying any of the games, because I know you killed it. 

I now have zero interest in multiplayer, because I know the world I fell in love with is doomed.

 

Mass Effect wasn’t a world that you had any right to kill.  As soon as you open yourself to readers, as soon as you open yourself to fans, as soon as you open yourself to a following as strong as the one for Mass Effect you become caretakers.   It is a sacred trust.

Mass Effect was a world where magic happened.  Mass Effect was a world where we the players could become what we wanted and the world would respond.  Mass Effect was a world where people lived or died based on the actions and decisions of Command Shepard. 

“Many decisions lie ahead … none of them easy.”

 

As far as I’m concerned, the trip to the citadel and meeting the catalyst didn’t happen. 

As far as I’m concerned, I wasn’t nimble enough to dodge the reaper beam and what I saw was a red, green, or blue light at the end of a tunnel. 

 

It did not happen. 

 

Please release a DLC that restores the world I love.  The world of hopes and dreams for a better tomorrow that incorporates everything we have worked together to achieve:  where organics of all kinds work together, or not; where synthetics and organics work together, or not; where everyone learns from each other, or not. 

Will there be highs and lows in the future that is to come, absolutely.  Will we be able to guarantee peace? No.  Will it be a world of our own making?  Yes. 

Is it a world that I want to remain in?

Unequivocally, Yes.

I see this unfortunate turn in the story as the alternate ending of a movie that tested horribly with audiences.  Please release a DLC that is worthy of the world I fell in love with.  Allow me to save everyone (this includes the Geth and EDI) and continue to have the possibility of travel through the stars with them.  Allow me to continue to live in the world of magic and wonder that I fell in love with.

Thank you.

Modifié par ShinkirouSenshi, 04 avril 2012 - 07:30 .

[D1ck1e]

What if each upcomming DLC opens up new paths for the ending? When you finish it as is, you get ported back before TIM base asault, so any DLC can take place before that part. So lets say you go and help Aria, because it so happens the research beyond the Omega Relay conducted by Cerberus uncovered valuable intel of some sort about the crucible/reaper or whatever?

There could be a bunch of these, and I would totally, in that context, be willing to pay for these.

Each DLC could include missions with old squad members or new ones, and not only would you get some objectives to accomplish, but you'd get to truly change the ending as well. I think that would increase the replay value in the long run, and well, I don't really want it to end once in for all anyway. Hopefully those added journeys would also give guys opportunities to try and fill in the holes?

So basically, the game could just keep on evolving. I'd get behind that project.

Just a thought.

Sorry if my idea isn't well phrased, my french gets in the way of my english sometimes

[Wowky]

One of the things I'd really like to see done differently is the war asset missions. I have no problem with side quests, hell, I love them, but some of them just felt like planet scanning mini games, which was kind of disappointing. I loved in ME1 and ME2 there were hidden items to find during main missions that activated side quests, or side quests that in and of themselves actually required you to fight some enemies, do some exploring etc, rather than just "go here, scan this planet". I think fleshing those sorts of side quests out could be fairly easy given how many there were in ME1 and ME2, hell I don't care if 90% of them take place in the same warehouse building like they did in ME1

[Jassu1979]

There are always some smaller nitpicks that could have been improved upon, but honestly, I don't expect you to fix them retroactively, and they do not really detract from the fact that ME3 as a whole is a fantastic game (except for the ending):
Some minor tweaks and bug fixes (such as an updating quest log and keeping Shepard from staring into a corner during some conversations) would be neat, but they aren't deal breakers.

Oh, and I'd LOVE more multiplayer maps and missions. In contrast to many others, I really like the idea of integrating the mode into the main campaign and making it relevant to the same. That way, multiplayer isn't an irrelevant endeavour that achieves nothing and has little to no context or meaning.

[ZombieDrummer]

The game up to the ending is phenomenal.  Bioware has some very talented people and is capable of crafting
complex intertwined stories with a lot of lovable memorable characters. But that is why the ending is gut-wrenchingly disappointing...

I and a lot of fans do not want the sudden introduction of themes that ruined so many good sci-fi series (there was a lot of disappointment with the Matrix trilogy or the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica, the ending of 2001, etc., etc.). Some of them have dues-ex machina devices, god babies/children, a return to primitivism, the fusing of all consciousness (or dna), strange metaphors about existing religious texts and other metaphysical nonsense. And ME3’s ending has them all.
[P.S. I actually liked Battlestar Galactica, because it wrestled with both religion and technology, but that was from the very start and one of the main themes of the story! I only disliked the return to primitivism at the end.]

Mass Effect had integrity – people in the future have their religious beliefs (and I’m totally fine with it, I have mine too : ), but Sir Isaac Newton was the deadliest SOB in space! Not an absurd god-reaper-child.

The one major mysterious element in the story - the reapers - were cheapened and subverted... Sovereign was one of the main reasons the story of ME1 is so memorable; the starchild encounter is the major reason the ending of ME3 is so dissapointing.

The starchild does not answer any questions; it simply destroys the feel of the reapers and poses a thousand different new questions (who created it, why does it interfere, why not directly, what are the limits of its power, why, etc, etc?). Even if you try to address the numerous plot holes that were created with it – the presence of the starchild turns ME3 in an exercise of religion and space-magic and is contrary to anything established in the series so far.  That is why I plead with the developers to scrap the godchild entirely.


I do not regret buying the collector’s edition of ME3, 99% of it is awesome, but the final 1% dissuaded me from playing any future game in the Mass Effect universe if the starchild is present. I have no problem with Shepard dying or with a bittersweet ending - I just want one that makes sense. 

I know that wanting changes can be seen as entitled, but ME3 is somewhat different to a movie, a book, or a series – it is interactive, not only because players have choice and are much more invested in the story, but because fans have helped Bioware create it with their feedback. And it can be done - the ending can be fixed. 

The only other thing I would change is the portrait of Tali's face... a photoshop stock model does not cut it when the rest of the game is so lovingly crafted. 

Mass Effect 3 has some other small problems here or there, but it's nothing major and every game has them. More importantly, the overall experience up to the end was unlike anything I've played... but the ending just changes everything I loved about the story. 

Modifié par ZombieDrummer, 04 avril 2012 - 12:12 .

[Aladhea]

Great game.. until the last 15 minutes. I have been waiting for too long... for that? The most disappointing ending in a game..

[WhiteRaven40]

The ending I want to achieve.
Now maybe I’m just a sniper rifle carrying romantic at heart, but I want the happy ever after here. Overall I want the Reapers dead. The Geth alive or mixed with organics.
I want the Normandy landing near me on Earth. I want Samantha (Traynor) running out to help to my feet asking is it over? Can we go some place nice now?
I would like to see more cut scenes from other planets. I want to see perhaps randomly which of my friends have made it.

While I understand that that Shepard is a hero, and hero’s will sacrifice themselves for others. However this is a game that we have all played in a mater that reflects ourselves to some extent, and to that end I want more than just my Shepard sacrificing herself at the end.

[oOmpie]

Allow me to buy Bioware points/ME DLC through Origin. It annoys me to no end that I can not buy points and/or order DLC in a couple of clicks like I can the game itself. Instead I have to fall back to methods of payment I hardly ever use anymore and require more time and effort. Result: did not buy the DLC yet.

[Thrombin]

I'd like the crew on the Normandy to salute me more (like in ME1). In particular the guards outside the war room.

[spacehamsterZH]

Here's one that bothers me to no end, especially on Insanity - sometimes when you trigger medi-gel behind cover, it causes Shepard to go into the standing omni-tool animation, which means he pops out of cover. Leading to insta-death or at least the health gained immediately lost again. I'm not entirely sure what causes this. It seems to depend on the type of cover you're standing behind.

[keegan_hoover]

 I am not a big gammer by any means.  I play 1 to 2 times a week for only a couple hours and play select games.  The ME series is one of the few games I actually play.  I really dislike that I was expected to spend more than the 32 hours it took me to play through the single player game playing a game.  Multiplayer or the other ways that you can increase galactic readiness should not be neccessary in order to have a chance at the "best ending" which I did not think was that bad.  Heroes die for causes, i.e. Master Chief.  I just wish my options were not limited because I am a casual gamer.  I enjoy the games, I like exploring worlds and finding things and trying not to miss anything, but in ME3 I did not feel I was rewarded for extra exploring in all 3 ME games.  I did play some Multiplayer in order to see if I could get my Galactic Readiness up but I was not interested to the extent I needed to be.  That and not playing for a few days lowered my Galactic Readiness.  Bottom line is the current game system is set up to appeal to people that have excessive time not fans that take a month to play through a game.

[Diesel McBadass]

I think the galaxy at war system should have an offline component so people who dont have good internet/cant afford it (I didnt get xbox live till I was 17 high school studnts are broke.)

I know people who get games for xmas or a birthday and then focus on good single player games. Making it so you ned to do galaxy at war is stupid I know EA's business model is for online games. But, wouldnt it make more sense to have good multiplayer worth playing than forcing people to play over repetitive online mode. Seems no matter what i fight cerberus at the fighter base half the time even when i pick whole different paprameters

[TemplePhoenix]

Thinking about things that BW could do to improve the endings; obviously a lot of people will not be happy unless they get rid of the current ones and start all over again, but for the moment I'm brainstorming things they could ADD to the existing material to make it better.

I will address the plot holes/inconsistencies/SPECULATION problems in another post, but it seems to me that an easy thing BW could do is to work on a whole bunch of cutscenes, in such a way as to produce a larger range of differing endings as well as to promote the players' choices during the game.

To kinda explain what I mean, I'm gonna take a look at the Destroy ending, as it was the one my 'main' Shepard chose. As it stands, we appear to have three variations:
1. Everything blows up. (Low EMS)
2. Reapers die, EDI dies, geth die, relays destroyed, Normandy crashes, Shepard dies. (average EMS)
3. Reapers die, EDI dies, geth die, relays destroyed, Normandy crashes, Shepard lives. (high EMS)

...hardly a vast choice, is it? But let's see what would happen if BW split the segments of the current ending up, and produced a pair of cutscenes for each. Importantly, which scene you got would depend on a pass condition.

EXAMPLE: GETH
PASS CONDITION: Reunite Geth and Quarians
IF PASS: scene showing Geth shielded from Crucible wave by Quarian-designed shields.
IF FAIL: scene showing Geth in fleet and on Rannoch ceasing to function.

EXAMPLE: EDI
PASS CONDITION: Have Tali, Adams, Donnelly and Daniels alive and present on Normandy
IF PASS: scene showing EDI shielded from Crucible wave by new upgrades.
IF FAIL: scene showing EDI ceasing to function, with 'cradled by Joker' variant if romance active.

EXAMPLE: RELAYS
PASS CONDITION: 90% or more of Crucible assets recruited
IF PASS: scene showing wave passing through relays, and then fading
IF FAIL: scene showing wave passing through relays, which then explode.

...you get the idea. You can apply these paired cutscenes to pretty much any aspect of the ending. Your two squadmates on Earth? Maybe their survival is dependant on having the Krogan to rescue them while unconscious. Maybe if you have enough fleet assets, the Normandy stays put right in the thick of it...

These scenes don't even need to be long, because once you add them all together, you get a decent-sized ending. More importantly, you now have a lot more possible endings, like:
4. Reapers die, EDI lives, geth die, relays remain, Normandy fine, Shepard lives
5. Reapers die, EDI dies, geth live, relays remain, Normandy crashes, Shepard dies

...and on and on. Apply this thinking to the other two Crucible endings, and you've suddenly got a whole range of endings, and without having to tinker with the gameplay or levels or anything. More importantly, the ending each individual player gets more closely results from their choices earlier on. Can you say... replay value?

And while you're producing these scenes, BW, you may as well add a unique one to each option (Destroy, Control, Synthesis) to make them more distinct. If I choose Destroy, I wanna see Harbinger's smug Reaper face explode. If I choose Synthesis, I want to see races across the galaxy properly altered into biotechnological forms. Get the gist? Not one cutscene with different colour filters, but a unique conclusion for each ending.

This to me is an easy fix, although it will take time, care and money. This is fine. I would not mind paying to see this done properly. I whooped when Grunt survived. My lip trembled when Legion passed away. I snarled when Kai Leng took the VI. You people were capable of doing this to me. I believe you same people can expand these lacklustre endings into ones that make me punch the air with the pure awesome of it all.

Sorry for the huge post, guys; I'll give it a while before part 2: How BW can remove the plot holes of the ending with only a minimum of new dialogue options.

[farhansdisplayname]

I am totally an escapist (not sure if I'm using the right word). I play video games to get away from the boring everyday life. Sometimes to escape the harsh, sad reality of life. I want to feel happy with the ending of the games I play. If they say that we are going to take Earth back, yes, I expect a happier ending.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy sad endings as well (when they're done right). But if they wanted to give us this sad ending, they should have SAID from the start that Mass Effect is a tragic story.

[LiarasShield]

All I know is that for this to be a heroic sacrifice they had to take out the mass relays being destroyed cause a heroic sacrifice isn't destroying the galaxy U_u

[FrozenDreamfall]

One question actually.Since I've heard so far you're not making a new ending and just want to give us an explanation,why make this thread to ask us what we want? It's obvious you're not listening.Doubt we'll see much improvement to the game's bugs/stuff that's missing in the future.

[LiarasShield]

Will rumor is that they are suppose to reveal something at pax but I won't hold my breath.

[ezln]

Here are my suggestions; I hope Bioware really is listening!

I want my Shepard to wake up, being either indoctrinated, synthesized, or not-indoctrinated depending on the choice, and then finish the game accordingly. And by "finish" I want there to be a significant amount of endings with actual variety. Sad endings where the reapers win and the universe is doomed. Happy endings where the reapers lose and Miranda has your babies. And a bunch of in-between or just different endings depending on the choices you made.

I think it would be awesome to have an epic last battle, where you fight the Reapers and are aided by all of the fleets you recruited to help you. Or, if you're indoctrinated, you fight WITH the Reapers and fight against those fleets.

I want there to be an epilogue, that re-tells the story of my Shepard from the first game, goes over the choices I made, and shows what happened because of them.

I don't want the question to be "how did Mass Effect 3 end?" I want it to be "how did YOUR Mass Effect 3 end?"

[Nephilim-6]

Some changed I'd like to see:

-Quest progress tracking.
-More RPG like inventory
-More exploration instead of go from point A to B levels. (which I know won't be possible unless in DLC)
-Multiplayer effecting war assets in single player.. That's just stupid. Single(and co-up) and real multiplayer should NOT affect eachother.

As for the ending..
While I actually dig the Shepard sacrifices himself thing (ultimately being sort of a Jesus figure), they could have made the 3 choices far more distinct from each other.
The Synthesis ending (which storywise IS the most Paragon of the choices) for example could be expanded on so much. (pull a Project 2501 for example *hint hint* so I could at least end up together with my sweet Tali in some way. Heck Shep could even rebuild himself with the vast power he gained from the Catalist).
Also the Destruction ending instead of just doing the little breath thing, showing far more of the aftermath of the choice.
Same with the Control Ending. Even if Shep is still dead, show more of the aftermath.

Now all 3 choices are too similar.

Modifié par Nephilim-6, 04 avril 2012 - 06:27 .

[Linkenski]

I don't really care what people say about what happens when a mass relay is destroyed. Yeah i saw it in Arrival, but i think they are more likely disabled/shut down correctly (though there are explosions :S) but i think the main issue i have with the ending is, that there's no way to prevent the relays from being destroyed. Yeah i know it's a plot device for the Adam and Eve ending to happen, but that (and the "synthetic kill all organics" assumption) were the main two things that completely ruined the ending for me.

[carlhollywood]

Let me begin by congratulating the Bioware team (you) on the tremendous artistic success of the Mass Effect trilogy and Mass Effect 3. From art direction, to script, to gameplay, it’s a truly great series. I’d also like to acknowledge the incredible difficulty involved in crafting a branching narrative as complex as the one you undertook. And, though I already understood, for the most part, the challenges and logistical considerations inherent in such an undertaking, reading The Final Hours brought home just how intelligent, clever, passionate, dedicated, and detail-oriented you were.

I am, however, a member of the camp who found the end of Mass Effect 3 subpar in many respects, which, while interconnected, I’ll try to separate out as distinctly as possible. I should say, in another of several more prefaces and caveats, that a lot of my thoughts and feelings have been put forth (and well) by others already, but I’ll go ahead and repeat them as if they haven’t been for the sake of actually getting through this – and to help reach critical mass in all the right cells of your spreadsheets.

Another preface: this is a strange opportunity! I take issue with works of art all the time, but there’s rarely any utility in writing the artists. Nor do I usually feel motivated, nor am I invited! It’s a unique confluence of circumstances – an interactive medium, a feedback-oriented developer, and an audience/consumer who is (for a few reasons) somewhat justified in his/her sense of ownership of the text, or at least (for the same few reasons) entitled and empowered to offer his/her constructive criticism.

Should you do anything with this criticism? Not necessarily. Interactivity and RPG decision-making aside, you wrote Mass Effect, ands it’s your call how it should end. Catering to fans isn’t always a great policy (maybe you were right that Tali could have had a smaller role in ME3 – she’s not THAT compelling a character despite how many fans want to “romance“ her). But, inviting feedback is a mature creative decision, and getting this feedback from consumers is a potentially smart business decision, assuming that the artist incorporates only the feedback that makes sense to him/her, the feedback that is intrinsically persuasive. I suppose it’s the difference between pandering and listening, and I assume it’s a distinction you’ve considered before.

Ok, so I think the ME3 ending falls short in a few categories that I’ll denominate Story/Themes, Structure/Plot, Tone/Genre, Gameplay Mechanics, and Emotional Experience – and as I said before, many of these things wind up being interconnected. So, apologies if this post gets even more discursive than it already is.

 
STORY/THEMES

                                                                                  
This is probably the least problematic category. To summarize: Facing an existential threat to all life, Shepard unites the galaxy behind her (with varying degrees of success), either succeeds or fails to save her home planet, and finally sacrifices herself to activate the ultimate weapon, designed and built over eons but only perfected in the cooperative environment of Shepard’s own cycle, to save the galaxy at large from the Reapers.

All right, so far so good, depending on execution. The themes are consistent and admirable: the importance of cultural harmony despite differences and histories of conflict, especially in the face of existential threats; the right of cultures, even immature ones, to a degree of self-determination; the value of fighting on against overwhelming odds; the psychological toll of massive loss. I might argue that an ending where Shepard fails completely and the Reapers wipe out all advanced life until the next cycle (not offered as far as I know) would be the thematically appropriate conclusion to a playthrough in which Shepard totally blows all her diplomatic opportunities and the forces of xenophobia and myopia triumph, but otherwise it all adds up.

Where things get confused is when The Catalyst (an ancient AI?) reframes the story as a conflict between organic life and the technology it creates, as well as a conflict between order and chaos, and offers the periodic culling of advanced organic life by machines as a sort of solution. But then, because of the way The Crucible has tweaked The Catalyst’s machine brain (An unintended side-effect? The real purpose of The Crucible? Both are iffy propositions), and NOT the simple fact of The Crucible’s unprecedented completion (indicating a heretofore unreached level of interspecies unity), or the fact that Shepard (potentially) brokered piece between a machine race and its organic creators AND has a friendly AI as part of her crew, The Catalyst can now offer Shepard options it has never before considered. And these options all have something to do with synthetic/organic conflict, or rather two of them do – Control doesn’t really tie in to this new set of themes. Shepard can destroy all synthetic life, or merge all synthetic and organic life in a nonspecific (and therefore philosophically uninteresting) way and stop the Reapers, destroy all synthetic life including the Reapers, or make the Reapers go away at the risk of not solving the (to me) non-issue of the organic/synthetic thing. And though this control option doesn’t relate to the organic/synthetic concept very well, it does relate fairly well to the original set of themes (“we choose self-determination despite our relative immaturity, because we’ve earned it through cooperation, thank you”), except for the part where this choice is deliberately morally clouded by its comparison to The Illusive Man’s goals. But, it’s sort of a false comparison anyway, because controlling the Reapers to bring about New World Order and controlling them to make them go away forever are two very different things. Also, The Crucible is definitely still a weapon of (several) sorts after all, and oh yeah, it’s also going to destroy the infrastructure around which the whole galaxy is based – but more on that later. Is this an accurate description of what’s going on at the end of your story? If so, does it seem messy to you too? Not damningly, nerd-rage-inspiringly messy, but less than cohesive? Especially when viewed in the context of that first story summary?

And how seriously are we meant to take The Catalyst’s worldview anyway? We don’t have the option to agree with it and let the cycle continue, so we have to assume that the authorial perspective is that said worldview is bogus on some level (that and our own instincts, and the fact that its solution is, at least superficially, horrific, and the fact that ending the cycle is our primary objective). But if we’re not meant to find its arguments compelling, then why are we subjected to them at this crucial juncture? The Catalyst is answering questions we don’t have, and answering them inadequately even if we did, but it doesn’t matter because it capitulates anyway.  “That’s how I used to think,” it says, “but not anymore. Well, no, I do still feel that way, but you’ve built the thing, and now I am obligated to let you undermine my life’s work in one of three morally, thematically, and philosophically ambiguous ways.” Yay?

To be fair, the organic/synthetic, order/chaos stuff doesn’t come out of nowhere (geth v. quarian, EDI, the genophage, Javik’s discussions of the Prothean Empire – assuming one paid for it), but they had read like secondary themes. And though this is really a problem of structure and not story, pre se, I’ll say here that the reason these themes didn’t come across as primary, is because they are pegged to specific episodes or characters within the overall story, as opposed to recurring frequently throughout the story entire. Yes, they seem like important themes – they are pegged to important characters and arcs – but because they are reinforced less than others, and because their applicability is limited, their relative import is diminished. Also, the singularity theme is a complex one. Whole works, much drier and/or denser than yours are devoted to it. Your handling of it comes off as trite, in that referencing a concept is a far cry from really exploring it -- and the gravitas you seem to be striving for is attached to the specific perspective on the subject, not to the subject itself. A strictly literal reading of your text answers the question of what it means to be a man/machine hybrid with a texture, i.e., it means having glowing green lines on your skin. Not much to ponder there.

The destruction of the mass relays, on the other hand, does tie in well with the primary themes. The relays were, among other things, a symbol of the cultivation of life along a set path, and their destruction symbolizes, among other things, a brave new world of self-determination. But for structural and generic (referring to genre) reasons it doesn’t quite resonate, for me at least, in the way I think it’s meant to. Which segues us nicely into another section. Let’s do…

 
GENRE/TONE

 
Though closely linked to structure, I think it’s better to cover this category first in that genre has a strong bearing on structure. Am I writing a rom-com? Better end with someone chasing down his beloved at an airport. Am I working in the genre of realism? Better obscure my chains of cause and effect.

And then there’s tone. Is it funny realism or depressing realism, or both? If it's funny, is it absurdist, madcap, farcical, satirical, ribald, etc.? Having a consistent tone not only provides the audience with a sense of unity of vision and a set of expectations, but it can guide the author’s hand in plotting and framing the story.

So what genre or genres does Mass Effect fall into? It’s certainly sci-fi, but that’s rather broad. For me, it’s a character-based epic, action-adventure with some hard sci-fi overtones and philosophical undertones. It occasionally nods its head toward realism with moments of moral ambiguity and unintended consequences, and the tone feels gritty and mature, but wholesome, light-hearted, and juvenile at the same time (not a criticism). It’s like a more action-oriented, slightly meaner Star Trek. Or a blend of Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, but with some of the fun and optimism of Star Wars. Anyway, that’s where I’m at with it. So, what’s the issue?

Well, the issue is that the end seems generically and tonally inappropriate – a mismatch. I was reminded of several other works when experiencing the ending, none of which I thought too much about during the rest of the game. At the finish I was reminded of Arthur C. Clarke – 2001, yes, but also Childhood’s End. I was reminded of Alistair Reynolds’s House of Suns and Iain M. Banks’s Excession, of Ghost in the Shell, and Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age. And while I can see influences and shades of all these works in the Mass Effect story and universe, they are all tonally quite different from your work overall.

It was the dour but transcendent quality of your ending the reminded me of Clarke, Reynolds, and Banks. Childhood’s End is about the end of humanity as we know it, and it’s ascension to a new phase of existence. It’s apocalyptic and depressing, but beautiful at the same time. It’s not super character driven, occurring in episodes spanning hundreds of years, each one featuring a new protagonist. You can relate to these people, so the story becomes humanized, but there’s a detachment all along that lends the story a philosophical bent, and the choice of episodes to depict (and the episodic structure in general) lets the reader know that concepts are paramount, and characters secondary. 2001 is similarly detached and philosophical. The first act is a story about monkeys, the last a phantasmagoric visual interpretation of one man’s elevation to a new plane of existence.

House of Suns and Excession, are heavier on the action and characterization than Childhood’s End or 2001, and their far-future, space ships and aliens milieux certainly share more with Mass Effect’s. But there’s still this sense of detachment and conceptual primacy. There’s a heavy focus in both on the mechanics of space travel and combat, of all kinds of technology really, on the psychological and philosophical ramifications of “human” existence in a future with so few limitations. The characters in the former are not quite human and the story takes place over very large time and distance scales. Some of the major characters in the latter are super-intelligent AIs with massive spaceships for bodies. Again, identification with characters is limited – present, but limited. The ideas are as exciting as the story, and the subordination of characters to these ideas is a key to understanding how to read these books.

Ghost in The Shell (and I’m thinking of the show more than the films) and The Diamond Age (from whence I get my handle) are more character-centric than the previous examples, and their structures, while complex and concept heavy, are more in keeping with traditional adventure or crime or action stories (as repeated ad infinitum by Hollywood and the pulp book industry). But while they are more similar to these stories, they are still not these stories. Both focus so heavily on detailing the institutions and technologies that undergird their dystopic fictional futures, that those institutions and technologies, and the questions that surround them, become the true subject of the story. The action-adventure, our bildungsroman, or film-noir elements that these works employ become the frame to hang the larger themes on, so when they wax philosophical or high-level, generic unity feels uncompromised. You get what you expected, even if you didn’t know you expected it.

But Mass Effect is more character-focused, drama/melodrama-focused, and action-focused than any of these stories. It deals with many of the same themes, yes, but mostly to add depth to a fundamentally shallow (not a criticism, despite the connotation) story. There is tremendous depth in the world-building you guys have done, but you’re the ones who treat most of that as background, relegating so much of it to the codices and codices only. All of which is well and good – action-adventures are awesome – but the natural inclination is to want them to end like action-adventures. And lest you take issue with the genre/s I’ve placed you in, please bear in mind that one of the two primary methods of interacting with the ME world is killing things, that we’re asked to invest more interest in the outcome of a given romantic relationship than in the outcome of a given philosophical debate, and that we’re encouraged to ponder the relative merits of a variety of projectile weapons as least as much as we’re encouraged to ponder what it means to be human.  And then there’s all the action movie tropes (largely well executed, by the way) – last-minute rescues, heroic sacrifices, badass one-liners, and whatnot. Not good or bad, but genre signifiers nonetheless.

So when the end of the tale hops genres, and hops to, for lack of a better term, heavier genres, it’s jarring. It feels a bit like breach of trust (the audience trusts in the genre conventions and tonal cues) and a little unearned, like you (the writers) are out of your depth. Of course, there are ways to subvert genre expectations in service of artistic or political messages, but subverting is not ignoring. The tone of Mass Effect calls for an ending with some degree of uplift or triumph, even if it’s intermingled with sadness. The genre calls for a certain degree of finality, even if a few things remain enticingly ambiguous. Instead we get gloom with a hint of triumph, and endless speculation with a touch of resolution. We get an ending about ideas and internal conflict when the story’s been about people and external conflict.

 
STRUCTURE/PLOT

 
Most of the structural issues in Mass Effect 3 concern a roughly plotted falling action and a too-brief denouement. Most. I actually have some issues with the beginning as well, effectively bleak though it was. Vancouver was not a great choice of cities to set the stage for the fall of Earth (I know you guys considered a few). No extremely recognizable landmarks, for one. Very little universal resonance. The way the city was depicted didn’t help – sparsely populated, only one civilian. And that one little boy with an interest in avionics as synecdochic representation of all human loss – eh. That one might hit home for recent dads with pilot’s licenses more than it did for me and my peers.

If you’d used, say, London, you’d have the recognizable and beloved landmarks - you’d have Big Ben, a literal ticking clock, as a symbol of impending doom. And then you’d have the possibility of a before and after once Shepard returned to Earth. You could have depicted the deaths of a bunch of civilians and destruction of architectural marvels, had one image stick out for Shepard (even a little boy if you must), to haunt her later. Anyway, the Hammer missions could only have benefitted from the structural mirroring, or bookending, or whatever you want to call it. But I digress.

The end of the story has Shepard confronting and defeating the The Illusive Man, the story’s secondary antagonist and then bypassing the story’s primary antagonist, The Reapers/Harbinger, to be talked at by a new character, The Reapers’ boss. And this conversation with the catalyst is not exactly a conflict, it’s sort of expositional, so now we’re way off the beaten path of dramatic arcs. It’s like if Luke faced off with Vader, then instead of Vader turning on the Emperor, the Emperor stopped the fight and revealed himself to be the avatar of an evil space god, who then explained the origins of the force and let everybody go home as long as Luke committed ritual suicide (what are the three available colors of lightsaber again?). Or it’s like if the Matrix trilogy ended how it did. Could not have Harbinger been the spokesperson for the Reapers? Could he not have monologued his side of the story during some sort of conflict with Shepard? Structurally tidier, no? And not inherently clichéd for conforming to some established genre beats. The clichés are in the execution, not the content.

But even if the events of your ending went unchanged (I did say I thought the story itself was the smallest problem), there is still a lot to be desired in the way they’re presented. The main problem here is choosing to stick with Shepard’s POV. If you had crosscut her journey with the larger conflict (potentially galaxy wide), it not only would have created tension, excitement, and meaning, it would have made it clear what was going on. People, myself included, keep harping about what the hell Joker was doing at the end and how the crew got back on the Normandy. If you were crosscutting between the Normandy and Shep, we might have learned that Joker was in the middle of a pitched space battle that the organics were not winning, that he made a heroic rescue of the crew at which point everybody learned that Shepard was on the Citadel, that he attempted a rescue of Shepard but was too late and had to flee a giant explosion. Informative and exciting (and what may have happened in your outlines for all I know). We like the supporting characters and want to know what they’re doing and thinking. You could even do a bit about Hackett and the Destiny Ascension or WHOEVER facing off against Harbinger, if you’re committed to the space kid. That’s the Return of the Jedi/Lord of the Rings/ME1 route – rebels v. death star, while Luke does his spiritual thing; Aragorn v. Mordor, while Frodo does his spiritual death thing. That way you’re not dropping antagonists and supporting characters from the plot, and you get to eat your epic battle cake and have your philosophical cake too.

Furthermore, the bit with the Citadel jumping to Earth and everyone on board presumably (and this is not something we should have to presume about) dying plays like there are scenes missing. This event should be a big blow to Shepard and everyone else– it’s the annihilation of the galactic capital (and quest hub)! Not only does it happen off-screen, it goes almost totally unremarked upon. And how did The Illusive Man get there and survive? If you’re not going to show us, at least tell us.

Also disappointing was the absence of the ME2 crew members from the climax. You brought back all of them (assuming they survived), and gave many of them wonderful moments or rounder more believable personalities. What you did with Jack was particularly cool, taking a sometimes cringe-inducing character (“I’m a b****, but I’m like this little girl”) and by making her a teacher, turned her implausibly, annoyingly tough exterior into a plausibly implausible and endearingly annoying tough exterior. The teenagers think she’s cool and scary, and she kind of is, but more like Edward James Olmos in Stand and Deliver than like, I don’t know, The Crow. Or maybe exactly like The Crow, but if he lived in a world where everybody but kids thought his emo bull**** was funny. Anyway, by weaving them back into the plot, and in such satisfying and exciting ways, you create an expectation that these characters might stick around and do satisfying and exciting things at the conclusion – or that we might at least find out what happened to them during/after the war. That’s how it would work in an action-adventure story (or a war or alien invasion story). Man, remember when Grunt went ape**** on those Ravagers? Can’t wait to see what he’s gonna do when it counts. Oh, nothing. One gets the sense that you probably wanted to go there too – your inclusion of the Terminal of Farewells seems like a concession to a tight production schedule. Understandable, but when they don’t show up for real, it’s a letdown.

And then there’s the denouement, or lack thereof, and the last second game changer that is the destruction of the mass relays. So, briefly, denouements are for the resolving of lingering plot complications, and to give audiences a chance to decompress and say goodbye to the story they’ve been experiencing. Skipping a denouement is certainly a valid choice, especially if you want to leave an audience in a state of suspense or emotional upset, or make a point about how real life has no endings, etc., but is that what you wanted to do? Do you think closure is for sissies, or something? Sometimes I feel like it is – that’s why I like films by Michael Haneke, Claire Denis, and Catherine Breillat to name a few. But those are filmmakers who don’t go near melodrama or classic narrative structure, who make films about real life, and about film, and about how film is not real life. Point is, for them it works, for Mass Effect – which relies heavily on classic Hollywood grammar and story beats, and handles them, for the most part, very well – maybe not so much.

But what, you may ask (if you’ve read it) about The Diamond Age, previously mentioned? It ends with a game changer – the invention of a technology that will fundamentally alter the socio-political structure of the planet – and it, like many Stephenson novels, has about a page worth of denouement. First of all, people (not me) complain about Stephenson’s brusque endings, so it’s a risky proposition even when it works. Second, despite the fact that we learn very little about what our beloved characters are up to after the events of the climax, and we are expected to speculate and derive pleasure from speculating about what might happen to them and the world next, we still know enough to hazard some guesses. Yes, the tale ends before one expects it to, but in retrospect one realizes that one really does know all the important stuff. It also helps that, with a couple of exceptions, our protagonists win, like big time, so we don’t need to hear all about their happy endings to have our nerves calmed. Finally, the world-changing event of the conclusion works much better in The Diamond Age, because, though we really are left with very little idea about the shape of things to come, the whole story that preceded it was about the flaws inherent in the old system. The book is about a decadent dystopia, rife with social and economic iniquities, and though we are meant to find the world fascinating and enthralling, the end of the status quo is definitely an objectively good thing.

Not so in Mass Effect. True, the relays and the Citadel are part of the Reaper created system, but the script doesn’t remind us of this as much as or when it needs to in order to sell the idea. None of the characters speculate as to what a world without the relays would be like, the pros and the cons. And perhaps most importantly, the Mass Effect world doesn’t seem fatally flawed (though I guess it might in a renegade playthrough). It doesn’t feel like it needs to die in order to be reborn. Warfare sure, complacency sure, prejudice sure, but also a society where creatures of different species coexist, where innovation and exploration are valued, where social mobility seems quite achievable – a world of possibilities despite its flaws. It’s not that the destruction of the relays couldn’t have been made to feel like a necessary, even  welcome, outcome, but the story as is isn’t structured quite right if that’s the idea. And, in The Diamond Age, the world-changing event doesn’t immediately imperil all the good guys, so we don’t feel like we need to know all the ramifications. Or rather, we’re free to speculate about the big picture, because we don’t have to concern ourselves with the narrative minutiae – like how or if any of the characters will survive or get home. All we know about the cast of characters at the end of Mass Effect is that some of them definitely survived a crash landing somewhere.

 
GAMEPLAY MECHANICS

 
I’ll try to keep this one short. War Assets and Effective/Total Military Strength – good idea. Galactic Readiness – elegant method for allowing multiplayer to influence the campaign. EMS as the only number that matters – disappointing.

As I collected war assets through out the campaign, I read about all of them and scrutinized the updates at the War Terminal. I had a hope (bordering on expectation) that the finale of Mass Effect 3 would be a bigger, better, more complex version of the end of Mass Effect 2, i.e., a series of tactical deployment choices that would affect the outcome of the game. I assumed that I would have to decide which ground forces to use where (Clan Urdnot or the 103rd?), which parts of the fleet would defend The Crucible and which would go on the offensive or provide air support (quarians or Alliance?), and that the strength of my Crucible team and Citadel Defense Forces, would be individually relevant. But, as we know, only the EMS is relevant, so in addition to being denied a gaming experience I was really looking forward to, my suspension of disbelief is shot because my acquisition of Rachni scientists has a bearing on whether or not Cortez survives a shuttle crash.

And of course, this also robs the climax of those little moments that could make it sing – Wrex and Grunt fighting back to back, about to be overwhelmed, and then the salarian ops team decloaks and wipes out the opposition (or doesn’t because you didn’t recruit them, and our favorite krogans go down fighting).

Now, I realize that an ending like this would require a lot of extra development time and critically complicate the galactic readiness system. There would be a ton of extra possibility states and assets, I’m not suggesting that you could have done any better with the time and resources you had. But, while the realities and vagaries of production logistics both explain and excuse certain flaws, they don’t erase them. The final product is still the final product, and still has to be analyzed/criticized on its own merits.

One minor, but totally fixable issue – it would be great to be able to reset or turn off galactic readiness. Ideally, one should be able to play multiplayer as much as one wants (it’s really fun!) and still have a lousy campaign ending IF one wants.


EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE


So, the last hours of the game are pretty darn joyless, harrowing even. London a shambles, at night, saying goodbye to all your friends, a constant onslaught by horrific monsters, the death of most of the Hammer squad, a desperate final push during which you’re forced to kill your mentor – kind of brutal. And then a morally and philosophically ambiguous convo with stranger, and one of three decisions you don’t really want to make, and the game’s over. Ugh. As an emotional journey, this sucks. There’s no catharsis.

You got part one of the cathartic experience right, where we feel an overwhelming emotion for an extended period of time (and this is no mean feat, so congrats), but then part two, the purging, the cleansing, does not happen, for all the reasons put forth so far in this crit. So we’re stuck with all those negative emotions, and it doesn’t feel good. And not, like, wistfully bummed out doesn’t feel good, but like, unpleasant physical sensations doesn’t feel good. I mean, hell, my girlfriend was pissed, and she’s maybe only watched a quarter of the game’s content. But, she couldn’t tear herself away from the climax because the tension was building up, and then it never dissipated, so she became angry. Was this the emotional arc you were trying to chart for your audience and your audience’s put-upon, heroically accommodating girlfriends? I doubt it. But if so, why?

Most of this could have been solved with a proper denouement, a send-off, some reflection if not reassurance. One gets the sense that the crash-landing sequence was your attempt at this, but it feels like way too little. Yeah, it’s sunny and verdant, but not only do we not know if these guys are going to be all right, we don’t know how they feel about anything that just went down – their current predicament, the loss of Shepard. If they are given the time to sit with what just happened, then so are we. But they weren’t, so we weren’t. And when you compound the emotional unease that comes with this lack of catharsis with the other disappointments and structural weaknesses of the ending, is it really a surprise that fans got so upset?

Now, I for one am not demanding a new ending. I felt strongly about it, yes, however, I deeply respect the right of an artist to create the work he or she wants to create. But, you asked for constructive criticism, and I somehow doubt that the ending really had the effect you were hoping for (statements about polarization aside). Writing’s a tough process, especially under deadline and with so many other factors to deal with. What you may have convinced yourselves was a great conclusion during the crucible that is a development schedule might not seem so perfect with a little more distance and perspective. Might have been the best you could do, might be nothing to be ashamed of. You were almost certainly dealing with factors (or parent companies) beyond your control. The game on the whole is certainly something to be very proud of, a landmark in gaming – the furor over the ending only proves how passionate people are about the property. But I think that the furor and the criticism suggest something else too: an attempt at catharsis that the text doesn’t provide. I know this has been cathartic for me.

Apologies for the length, tardiness and pedantry of this post. Hope you got through it. Thanks.

Adam G.

Filmmaker

http://www.youtube.c...n&feature=mv_sr

Modifié par carlhollywood, 05 avril 2012 - 05:55 .

[Robert-42]

I don't know whether this has been already posted. It's a 38min video great compendium, what we love about MassEffect and what of it we missed in the Ending:

Modifié par Robert-42, 04 avril 2012 - 07:32 .

[GeneralBacon339]

 Tali's Face!
This is serious and no i'm not a troll! i would REALLY like to see this DLC either before the ending or After the ending when i'm able to play my FAVOURITE game series again ( )
for many was as big a let down as the ending itself!

tho i never romanced tali (Femshep) i can agree with them.

You photo shopped a picture?  serious?!

WELL i have an idea!  Include a DLC that takes place after the Rannoch conflict, (Tali or the Quarians must Survive to play it)  Where Tali (or her equivalent for the DLC) are on a mission.  Things go wrong and shepard gets a call for help!  You arrive on the world to find whats left of Tali's (or her equivalent's for the DLC) Team in smoldering ruins.

Shepard Colms through the battle field calling tali's name (your either her LI or a Dear friend at this point)

You find her on the ground, her face plate cracked, so she removes her mask and puts her hood down, 

LETS SEE bioware make that photo shopped face work on a character model without screwing it up too badly
THEY COULD just replace the photo shopped Picture in shepards cabin with something else that comes with the DLC
This DLC would ALSO provide a new outfit for tali (once you beat the mission) that shows her full face and keeps her hood down.  We'll say she participated in the Geth Suite program (If you made peace with the Geth) which has strengthened her immune system or after you get back to the Normandy (if you destroyed the Geth) She needs an artificial Immune enhancement.