7052 réponses à ce sujet

[Kryptice]

The Citadel is the Catalyst plot point should be altered or at least tweaked, because the Reapers moving the Citadel to Earth's orbit is implausible and really a plot hole. Here are the reasons:

• It's a Herculean task, even for the Reapers.
• The Reapers could have disabled any Citadel mechanism that would allow the Crucible to work. (It's their technology, after all.)
• The Citadel is a fortress. The Reapers would have harvested or indoctrinated everyone on board, and then sealed the station with its impregnable arms.
• Even if they had to haul it away, the Reapers could have hidden the Citadel in dark space where it would be inaccessible to any organic species.

The only way to solve this enigma is to come up with a plausible reason for the Reapers to move the Citadel.

[deltaforce1098]

Garrus was right

" Yell loud enough and someone will eventually come over to see what the fuss is about." Garrus

We screamed for answers from Bioware. We wanted closure or new endings. They are giving us a Director's cut ending this summer. Heres to hoping it doesnt suck either.

"Not that they'll actually do anything about." Garrus

[hammyhamstersy]

Dear Bioware,

Just some constructive criticisms and suggestions: 

- I hope Bioware can walk the fine line between giving the fans just enough content that will bring closure and not go overboard with new revelation and abrupt changes.  Now I'm all for additional cut scenes to help bring closure to the series, but I sincerely hope that you're not going to go back and mess with the endings that we got and be like 'Oh sorry Shepard IS actually dead.'   

- Please avoid a 'Fallout' style slideshow with a voice over telling us how our actions made a difference.  It didn't work in Deus Ex: HR and it doesn't work for mass effect either.  That kind of ending simply doesn't mesh particularly well with games outside of fallout.     

- Also please add more scenes pertaining to our EMS score and the choices that we made prior to the final battle.  The game offers us the opportunity to put in time for side quests, multiplayer promotions, ME games on other platforms, and so it would be really rewarding to see that our efforts really made a difference in the end.

 Thanks for listening!         

[TheWerdna]

If the endings are only going to be expanded upon, I have 3 suggestions for what would be awesome to include in the DLC

1) If Shepard lives left him/her reunite with the Normandy crew. Be it a epilogue where Shepard rescues the crew from the planet they are stranded on or is picked up during the final battle and ends up stranded, just make it so Shepard living to mean something

2) Show our war assets at work. If we got all the merc groups, we should see Blue Suns, Blood Pack, and Eclipse fighting Reaper forces, if we got the Rachni we want to see Rachni swarming over Reaper forces, tearing them apart. We should see all our former squadmates participating in the battle, so we know that even though they are not at our side, Shepard's friends are giving everything they have to help defeat the Reapers

3) Show the consequences and outcomes of the major choices we made and of the final choice. Show us how Control ends up differently then Destroy. Show how one choice was better in some ways, but worse in others.


3)

[die-yng]

Explanation and clarification are fine, but they do nothing to explain the change in gameplay, they don't plug the plotholes, they don't change the things that simply make no sense or that Shepard acted totally out of character in the end.

If this is really all you have to offer, then that's it for me.
I'm waiting until the DLC and if you still insist on calling the crap you come up with just before you ran out of time an artistic ending and don't at least change what was so unbelievably dumb and wrong about it, then that's it for me and I'm off the boards, of the game, I won't buy any DLC; I won't preorder Dragon Age 3, if I even buy it, I'll buy a used copy so that you don't earn any additional money from me.
But I hardly doubt I even want to play it.
The weaknesses and flaws in DA2, the horrible ending of ME3 and the bad excuse for an MMORPG that actually is suppossed to be the continuation of KOTOR; all of this shows that BW isn't the company it was before EA bought you.
Remember Westwood, heck remember any other EA victims, that's where you are headed now BW.

Suggested changes? I suggest you not only change the ending, I suggest you change the whole self praising attitude that you present to the public and your fans.

[SerraAdvocate]

 Please, I'm begging you. Let us argue with the Catalyst. 

I want to see all the other changes; the war assets, the decisions, the consequences. I want to see how the actions of my Shepard changes the Mass Effect universe, and how the characters within that universe react to those changes. I want to know if the Krogan grow as a people, if the Quarians ever go through real soul-searching, and if the Turians, Humans, Asari, and Salarians can ever come together in a real galactic community. I want to know all that. Closure is important. Just BG, NWN, or DA:O style text sides would be enough.

But I find it utterly infuriating and heartbreaking that Shepard just has to accept what the Catalyst says at face value. All his three choices presuppose that conflict between Synthetics and Organics is inevitable. That's his fundamental premise as to the nature of the universe. And you know what? Maybe conflict of some kind is inevitable. But conflict is very nearly always inevitable. People find things to argue about, and those arguments do occasionally rise to the level of violence.

But it's worse than just the assumption of conflict. The Catalyst assumes genocide. The Catalyst came to the conclusion that Synthetics and Organics could not co-exist at all, under any circumstances, in any universe. That having both would inevitably lead to total and complete annihilation of one of the two. And Shepard can't object? Not at all? Why? When in a goodly percentage of play-throughs he's just brought peace to the Quarians and the Geth, seemingly blowing a fifteen foot hole in the thesis?

I don't object to this just in story form. I object to it on a fundamental moral level. I see three options: (1) kill them all, but at least have room in the future for organic and synthetic life forms to come to some kind of consensus - not without conflict, but without the assumption of conflict (and particularly without the assumption of genocide); (2) enslave the reapers and do... whatever I want? with them? I guess? But I'm dead? I'm not really sure what the consequences of the Control ending are, or could even be; (3) accept the assertion that synthetics and organics literally can't coexist without trying to annihilate one another, and so go about changing them both into a joint hybrid that would theoretically eliminate whatever dissonance of attributes that drives that genocidal urge (does this mean all organics become immortal, by the way, since that was one of the characteristics of synthetics that Javik pointed out as particularly problematic for their relationships with organics?).

I've got lots of objections to Synthesis, not the least of which is it's just as opaque as to its nature and consequences as Control is - maybe worse - but my real objection is the assertion that this process would lead to peace. Really? Since when did sameness prevent conflict? People will find new divisions to draw, new battle lines to take. People - organic and synthetic - can fight over some really wacky stuff. Hell, the Geth were fighting one another over a decimal point. So what is this peace he's talking about? The answer is it's not... what the Catalyst offers with Synthesis is freedom from the possibility of genocide. God, I can't even express how nuts I find that to be. Particularly since it's not like different groups of humans haven't tried to genocide each other over differences of such minor significance as to be negligible when viewed from anything above a generational scale. Certainly smaller than the organic/synthetic divide.

It may be that saying "no" to the Catalyst would lead to Reaper victory. But we should have the option, even if that means getting a "critical mission failure" screen. He's a deluded little AI who's convinced that war crimes on a galactic scale are the only way to preserve any life in the organic form, and my poor, badly wounded Shepard just nods and goes along with it. I wanted to throw my computer out the window. Hell, to save the galaxy Shepard may have to play by the Catalyst's rules... but at the very least, he wants to yell and scream about it a bit first, before pulling the trigger that rids the galaxy of that insufferable little psychopath, his happy band of war criminals, and their cataclysmically insane ideology once and for all.

Personally, my dream ending is being able to just Charm/Intimidate him into heading back into dark space for another few thousand years. If we ended up all getting killed by Synthetics, then who knows, maybe he's right. But we deserve the chance to find out for ourselves.

Modifié par Helm505, 07 avril 2012 - 03:56 .

[juggernaut464]

Dunno if you can see this or not Bioware but you all have an amazing talent for writing. Please...please, at the bare minumum, just make the ending/s make more sense. If anyone can do it, you guys can. Im not throwing the towel in on you all just yet. Im anxious to see whats going to happen to the galaxy Shep just worked so hard to save but I want it to make sense as well. Im a big fan of the Mass Effect series and I just want it to be done justice, not just in my mind, but in everyone elses that is having trouble making sense of all this ending mess.

[AwesomeDudex64]

Since you've screwed up a bit with the details on the Uncut DLC let me try to pull you out of the fire, Bioware.

A nice quote that explains exactly why some people are still a bit angry:

-Draikin- wrote...

Something I think is just wrong from the part of Bioware is the way they continue to ask for constructive criticism, but then release a FAQ that completely ignores a large part of the constructive feedback they received. All Bioware has acknowledged is that "some fans" want "more closure" and "clarification". So for all of Bioware's official comments on the endings have only mentioned those two requests. The truth is that there's more  to it than that, yet Bioware is avoiding talking about those. This makes their statements increasingly frustrating to read, and it eventually causes people to respond with destructive criticism, since they feel they're getting ignored on purpose. The forum are in this state now for that very reason. Ironically, this is exactly what Bioware said they don't want.

The most notable point of critisism that's being ignored would be the way Shepard is forced to accept the Star Child's reasoning. This has been repeated over and over again on these forums, and it's a key issue with the endings because it completely betrays Shepard's character. When people are asking for an actual change to the current endings or an alternate ending, then this is usually one of the main reasons. Keeping the RGB endings means that this won't change. And clarification can only do so much to explain why Shepard betrayed everything he/she stood for. Personally, my Shepard had the option to either commit genocide, become a complete hypocrite or mutate every living being in the galaxy while also ignoring their free will in the process. That's not the Shepard I know from the past three games. And I've read plenty of comments from people that feel the same way. This is keeping people from replaying the game, even though it's specifically designed to be replayed, so I'd say that's a pretty big deal. So far Bioware has ignored this completely. And yet they know about it, because otherwise they wouldn't have felt the need to mention that they weren't going to change the ending up to 3 times in the same FAQ. All we get read is that you're not changing it because of "artistic integrity", but you don't mention why the fans want changes to begin with. Or why you feel your artistic vision is being misunderstood. The discussion is completely one-way and it's not working.

Bioware, my point is, please at least acknowledge the rest of the issues as well. The one above is just one of the several issues that are being ignored. Talk to the fans (I realize that's not exactly easy now, but still), tell them what you had hoped the people would see in the endings and why it didn't work out. Because you're not doing that. You're acknowledged only a part of the criticism, and even then you only ended up saying "we'll add more stuff" without really elaborating on what went wrong. If Mass Effect taught us anything, if would be that communication is vital in getting two parties to understand each other [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/smile.png[/smilie]

 

There you go.

[Calamity]

 Please just let all options, cutscenes and missions be available for single players without force feeding them MP. I dont want to MP for my SP game and I haven't played the MP part yet because I dont want to be forced to. I want to play MP just to play MP but as long as it is forced...I wont do it. Please change this...this should be an easy fix!

K thx

[Citrusy]

Am I the only one that thought it would have been a cool plot device if Shepard really did die at the hands of the Collectors, and the Shepard we have now as a result of the Lazarus Project is really just an avatar of Shepard but this does not get revealed until Priority: Cerberus Base in Mass Effect 3?

It would have been an awesome nod to sci-fic films like Blade Runner.

The endings (particularly Synthesis) would actually make much more sense, and be much more poignant if it turns out that the entire time, Shepard wasn't real after all and that really what we have in front of us is a VI/AI platform accessing Shepard's memories in the still "intact brain" (as described by the vids) hence why it thinks it's Shepard.

I mean, what was the point of having Shepard say "Maybe I'm just a VI who thinks it's Shepard" after watching the vids at the Cerberus Base and not going through with the plot line?

I guess the fan back lash would be too much though, I admit that the above suggestion would be a total mind **** for players.

Otherwise without that, Shepard dying at the start of ME2 is nothing more than a plot device to win cheap drama points.

[BluSuedeNicNac81]

 I'm posting thise here and in the fan reviews thread since my suggestions are presented in the context of a full review of the game.  

So like lots of people, apparently, I was a little let down by the time I reached the end of Mass Effect 3.  Unlike lots of people, before criticizing the game I decided to go back and play through the entire series so that I could judge the final installment in the context of the previous two entries.  What follows is a step-by-step review of the entire game written after devoting 105 hours and 24 minutes of time towards picking my way through the entire trilogy (yes, I’m a bit of a game nut ).  I’m including everything here – good, bad, or ugly – and every criticism is meant to be paired with a detailed suggestion for addressing it.  If I missed anything or if something isn’t clear, then PLEASE TELL ME.  I try to write as clearly as possible, even if that means erring on the side of wordiness, but mistakes happen.

Let’s start at the beginning.  The intro to this game was one of the best yet.  It really sets the tone for everything that follows.  The Reapers are here.  It’s time to quit fooling around and face the music.  The music, by the way, is both the highlight of this segment and the only part containing any flaws I could think of.  When “Leaving Earth” started after I got to the Normandy, I was choking back tears.  But much of the level is played without a score.  I get that silence is often used in cinematic media (which includes video games) to great effect, but the long period of time I went without music (from after the initial attack and until boarding the Normandy, with a short piece when we find the boy in the vent) dulled the effect.  The scene where Shepard and Anderson were edging along a ledge felt awkward without any sound behind it.  The final conversation with Anderson before taking off happened without a score – and that silence added layers to their goodbyes – but by this time it had been going on so long that it had lost its kick.  Adding something to the background of the combat scenes and the other cinematics would go a long way, in my opinion, towards really bringing out the emotion in Shepard and Anderson’s farewell.  It’s not a big deal, but it was a little nick in the polish that, after playing through the two EXTREMELY well polished games before it, stuck out a bit.  Everything else was spot-on, so I give this segment a 9/10.

Next up is the Mars mission.  This was probably my favorite mission of the game.  From a gameplay perspective, no other mission had the unique tactical challenges Mars had.  Sprinting between cover to avoid the defense turret, combat between moving trams, and chasing Dr. Eva had me using every aspect of the upgraded interface to push forward.  I can’t think of any other game in which I’ve been challenged to use every tool at my disposal in such a way.  Even in the first two games, I never got into the habit of using the grenades (ME1) or heavy weapons (ME2).  Hell, In ME1 I didn’t even go into cover much of the time!  The Mars mission was a crash course in how to use every aspect of the combat system and it was integrated so smoothly into the plot that I hardly even realized it was happening.  This mission was, to put it bluntly, ****ing perfect.  10/10.  

On the subject of the combat system, the upgraded leveling and context sensitive commands still make me a bit giddy with how much control I’m given over the battlefield.  I thought you guys nailed the combat and did a decent job with levelling in ME2, but you blew my mind with both in ME3.

After Mars, we’re on our way to the citadel.  At this point, I want to tour the Normandy.  Instead, I felt a bit lost as I was taken from cutscene to cutscene in parts of the ship I didn’t always recognize.  After getting Ashley to sickbay, my expectation was that I would be put back in control of Shepard and that I would have to go to the War Room and talk to Hackett before having joker take us in to the citadel (similar to how the first game made the player go from the bridge to the conference room of the SR-1 at the start of the game and then later from sickbay back to the bridge after Eden Prime).  This would have been a very smooth way to show the player around the new ship.  Locking the doors to the other rooms of the Normandy would keep the player from “getting lost” (you could also have EDI tell Shepard to get to the comm room if s/he tries to open a wrong door, or maybe have her mention that the Normandy was in dry-dock when they left Earth and that certain areas won’t be accessible until they get to the Citadel, where the crew can do the required maintenance to open them up).  Some short dialogue from Traynor after reaching the CIC (“Hackett is available on vidcomm, through security on your right”) would help as well.  Afterwards, a quick jaunt up to the bridge to speak with joker initiates the scene of Normandy docking with the Citadel.  This is just off the top of my head, but it’s something that would make my day if my reunion with my ship gave me more of a chance to explore it myself.

Once I did get a chance to tour the ship myself, I was delighted by some things and disappointed by others.  The new feel of the Normandy is excellent.  I’ve toured a submarine and a destroyer, and the new Normand definitely evoked the feel of those military vessels.  One thing I didn’t like was the lack of EDI.  While I know that she’s added as a squadmate and you can talk to her in person, having her floating orbs around the ship gave me the sense that EDI was really integrated into the Normandy, not just an android walking around inside it.  I can’t think of a reason why her having a body precludes her from popping up at terminals around the ship when you need her.  Another mild annoyance was directed at the ship layout.  The second game, I felt, paid a lot of attention towards the little details, like how each level fit together in the ship.  The armory and tech labs as well as the crew quarters and life support room had windows linking those levels to engineering.  That sophisticated level of detail was removed in ME3.  Worse, I couldn’t kick the notion that the war room should be jutting out into engineering and the comm room should be sticking out the side of the ship!  Obviously this isn’t something I expect to be changed, but I want this review to be as thorough as possible on the things I noticed most often, and the Normandy is where the player spends more time than any other environment.  It’s just another nick in that polish I mentioned earlier.

So now we’re at the Citadel and (big surprise) the Council can’t help us (wouldn’t be much of a game if all we had to do was ask nicely for everyone’s fleets).  The idea of having us appeal directly to the leadership of each race was, in my opinion, inspired.  It gives us a chance to really explore the cultures of each of the alien species beyond mere codex entries.  The following priority missions (which I mentally grouped into “faction missions” by system) were pretty darn good, and an exhaustive review of all of them would take up even more time than I’ve already allotted to this review; which is quite a bit.  Suffice to say that even if I could come up with any grievances for them, I wouldn’t be able to offer any solutions, so I won’t waste our time.  I give the faction missions a 10/10.

That’s not to say that I wouldn’t make any changes between leaving the Citadel and the end at all.  One thing that I really liked from the first two games was the freedom of choice in how, when, and why you did each mission.  Feros, Noveria, Therum, and Virmire could be completed in nearly any order.  The Dossier and Loyalty Missions could likewise be done in whatever pattern the player chose.  I don’t know how to explain the feeling this gave other than to say that it made the galaxy seem so much more *open*.  I was free to do what I wanted whenever I felt like doing it, and there were enough little dialogue changes tying the missions together that I decided to change up the order on subsequent playthroughs to get the slightly different experiences.  There was even the twist in ME2 that the majority of the squad building missions were completely optional.  This added to the feeling of satisfaction I got from completing all the loyalty missions before grabbing the IFF and trotting through the Omega-4 relay to take down the collectors.  The plot-hungry part of me wanted to rush off to face them, but delaying my journey to build a rock solid team and upgrade the Normandy to be nigh-unstoppable meant that I was rewarded with a “perfect save” in which everyone got out alive.  “Suicide Mission,” my ass .  

Yet this isn’t present in Mass Effect 3.  While the faction missions have a few optional parts, the player is still led along from Earth to Tuchanka to Rannoch to Thessia and finally back to Earth without any real chance to decide for themselves what to do and when to do it.  After being treated to the massive amount of freedom in ME1 and ME2, I felt like I was on rails for most of ME3.  It’s not just the order in which I do the missions, though.  Many conversations, even squadmate conversations, are often reduced to linear dialogue (after two games of “dialogue wheel = important, no dialogue wheel = not important,” I was a little thrown when I talked to my squadmates and only got a few stock lines back with no chance to steer the conversation).  The result was that I didn’t feel like I was controlling the conversations.  I can’t think of anything you guys can do to change this other than add more dialogue that uses the dialogue wheel.

What I’d like to see to address this is if you guys could open most of the systems and faction missions up from the instant the player leaves the Citadel (I don’t know if any of this is realistic or not, I’m just suggesting).  After the player completes either Rannoch or Tuchanka, Cerberus attacks the citadel and Shepard has to go back to save it (ala how Horizon was triggered in ME2 after completing a certain number of missions).  After taking down Udina, the asari counselor meets Shepard right away in Udina’s office and tells him about Thessia.  Shepard can then go straight to Thessia or do the other faction mission first.  Either way, completing Thessia unlocks the assault on Cerberus HQ, which commits your forces to the final battle when the player decides to activate it.  

But instead of having that be the end of it, the player could still be allowed to finish up any faction missions they missed after dealing with Cerberus, but each one they do before going to earth could, say, cause the rest of their war assets to take a small hit.  Better yet, delaying too long could cause important characters like Anderson or Hackett or the Council to die before the ending.  The Citadel would also no longer be available after the Cerberus raid, so no fetch missions for war assets either.  Going to the galaxy map to select Earth after clearing the Cerberus base and having every other system be unselectable and covered by a Reaper felt like a contrived way of getting the point across that this was the end.  For all of these reasons, I give plot structure and exploration a 5/10 (harsh, I know, but I think this is a pretty glaring flaw in the context of the last two games.  I’ll talk even more about why this is something to pay attention to next).

No review can be complete without covering the ending, but you guys are already addressing that so I won’t go into too much detail.  While it wouldn’t have been my first choice of how to end the series, I think that more heat was directed at the ending than it deserved because, as I mentioned earlier, the player was on rails for most of the game (twisty rails that maybe doubled back a once or twice, but still rails).  You guys have a fan base that you’ve spoiled with games that have huge freedom of choice and nonlinear plots, but ME3 did not have those elements anywhere near as strongly as its predecessors.  I didn’t feel anywhere near as in control of the plot as I did in the previous two games, and I believe that a lot of frustration that had been building up in me from being led along through the plot was taken out on the ending because it was the most recent in a line of instances where I didn’t feel like I had a hand in shaping the story.  I’d still like to see an ending where the Reapers are banished one way or another and Shepard can take the Normandy on a victory cruise around the galaxy to mop-up the remaining enemy forces, be congratulated by all the factions, and chat with faction leadership about how they are or aren’t working together to build a better future and whatnot, but it looks like that isn’t in the cards.  I get that Shepard has to die, but the idea of the term “has to” having any place in a game like Mass Effect feels like a betrayal of the principles the franchise was built on.  Isn’t the line on Spectres always that they can “do whatever they want?”  I’m sorry, I said I wouldn’t go into it but I seem to have done so anyway.  I’m going to reserve final judgment on the ending until I get a look at this extended cut.

Finally, I have a few suggestions for DLC.   First off is something involving the Batarians.  We hear in ME3 that they were pretty much wiped out before the game started, but in game info mentions how there is a bond among the survivors that could result in a new Batarian society.  I think it would be interesting for Shepard to get the chance to either support such an effort or ensure that the Hedgemony stays in power or even wipe the Batarians out himself as punishment for what Batarian terrorists have done to humanity over the years.  It would also be a chance to portray a few likeable Batarians, which we haven’t seen many of yet (in my opinion at least).  This could be set up as another group of faction missions like Tuchanka and Rannoch.  

My other idea is for the Terminus Systems.  My impression of the people of the Terminus as I played through ME2 was that they’re simple people who just want to have their own little corner of the galaxy away from all the noise of galactic politics, and that they’ll fight to keep it that way.  Forging an alliance between them and the Citadel – either to offer protection for the downtrodden or official authority and resources for the despots – could be an interesting chance to see how this lawless region will pull itself together (under Shepard’s subtle direction, of course) to join the galaxy against the Reapers.  This would also be an opportunity to add Omega back as a hub.  The new Citadel is very well done, but all the other games had three hubs to ME3’s one (Citadel, Noveria, and Feros in ME1; Omega, Citadel, and Illium in ME2), and variety is the spice of life, or so they say.  By the end of the game, I was getting a bit sick of always going back to the Citadel.

Well, that’s it.  Everything I liked and everything I didn’t.  Overall, I give the game an 8/10.  For it to get a perfect score, a game has to *be* perfect, and that means a complete lack of flaws, not just perks that make up for them.  As I pointed out previously, there are a number of cracks in the polish that preclude a perfect score even if the ending was perfect and the control of the plot was every bit as complete as in the previous two games.  You guys showed me how good you can be with ME1 and 2, so if the bar is unreasonably high, it’s only because you set it there .  I hope that this review has been informative and I look forward to seeing what Bioware does with this wonderful piece of IP in the future.  Thank you.

Modifié par BluSuedeNicNac81, 07 avril 2012 - 04:11 .

[Chronor]

Ummm, why bother folks? Personally, I loved all the suggestions here, but PAX clearly indicated that they are reading, but they are not really addressing the core issues.

1. No one addressed why we got one ending instead of the 16 diverse ones as promised.
2. As much as they go on about upholding their "artistic integrity," no one in BW defended it. If it's so good to them, why don't they provide reasons for liking it?
3. How does the A, B, C choice jive with their promise that we would not be getting A, B, C choice for the ending?

If BW was really listening, then they should have already addressed this at PAX. Of course it doesn't surprise me because then it will be another PR nightmare.

Suggestion: Clarification of BW's position on the ending. Let's have a dialogue. Tell us what you think was good about the ending and what it meant. C'mon, we're listening just like you. You can do all this without spoiling the Extended DLC.

/sarcasm

[TeaCokeProphet]

Helm505 may now speak for me on Mass Effect related issues.

[no progress]

Is it too much to ask that Shepard lives. Certain heroic deaths are beautiful and well timed like Mordins, but I found Shepards death really distasteful. You spend far too much effort making relationships, saving races, and building a future with your LI to just die. My greatest wish is for Shepard to live and the mass relays to survive.

[Madds17]

Wonderful quote down here that really helps to explain how the fans feel.  I believe we are all just very fustrated since we, the fans, were given endings that we, as our individual shepards, did not EARN.  In ME1 and 2 the player EARNED the ending through the choices made previously.  Thus the player was satisfied since being a total jerk won't earn a positive ending and that makes sense.  For example, in my ME2 playthrough Miranda died, yet I didn't replay to get her back since I was ok with 1 death. It was a suicide mission after all.  I didn't have a 100% perfect playthrough so through that experience I felt like I had earned my end result.  Now in ME3 I put in 40 hours for my first playthrough in order to earn the most positive result for the ME universe I loved.  I felt after that much time and effort I would get something conclusive, or at least positive.

I didn't feel like the effort I put in was worth it after all. 

In the end I just want to feel like I earned my ending.

AwesomeDudex64 wrote...

Since you've screwed up a bit with the details on the Uncut DLC let me try to pull you out of the fire, Bioware.

A nice quote that explains exactly why some people are still a bit angry:

-Draikin- wrote...

Something I think is just wrong from the part of Bioware is the way they continue to ask for constructive criticism, but then release a FAQ that completely ignores a large part of the constructive feedback they received. All Bioware has acknowledged is that "some fans" want "more closure" and "clarification". So for all of Bioware's official comments on the endings have only mentioned those two requests. The truth is that there's more  to it than that, yet Bioware is avoiding talking about those. This makes their statements increasingly frustrating to read, and it eventually causes people to respond with destructive criticism, since they feel they're getting ignored on purpose. The forum are in this state now for that very reason. Ironically, this is exactly what Bioware said they don't want.

The most notable point of critisism that's being ignored would be the way Shepard is forced to accept the Star Child's reasoning. This has been repeated over and over again on these forums, and it's a key issue with the endings because it completely betrays Shepard's character. When people are asking for an actual change to the current endings or an alternate ending, then this is usually one of the main reasons. Keeping the RGB endings means that this won't change. And clarification can only do so much to explain why Shepard betrayed everything he/she stood for. Personally, my Shepard had the option to either commit genocide, become a complete hypocrite or mutate every living being in the galaxy while also ignoring their free will in the process. That's not the Shepard I know from the past three games. And I've read plenty of comments from people that feel the same way. This is keeping people from replaying the game, even though it's specifically designed to be replayed, so I'd say that's a pretty big deal. So far Bioware has ignored this completely. And yet they know about it, because otherwise they wouldn't have felt the need to mention that they weren't going to change the ending up to 3 times in the same FAQ. All we get read is that you're not changing it because of "artistic integrity", but you don't mention why the fans want changes to begin with. Or why you feel your artistic vision is being misunderstood. The discussion is completely one-way and it's not working.

Bioware, my point is, please at least acknowledge the rest of the issues as well. The one above is just one of the several issues that are being ignored. Talk to the fans (I realize that's not exactly easy now, but still), tell them what you had hoped the people would see in the endings and why it didn't work out. Because you're not doing that. You're acknowledged only a part of the criticism, and even then you only ended up saying "we'll add more stuff" without really elaborating on what went wrong. If Mass Effect taught us anything, if would be that communication is vital in getting two parties to understand each other [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/smile.png[/smilie]

 

There you go.

[Beti88]

Rewrite the ending. Get rid of space magic, make our choices matter. Make Shepard competent again, not just a puppet quietly listening to the space wizard. Give us a MASS EFFECT ending!

Is the *possibility* of a happy ending too much to ask?

[Jexx21]

So, you guys are taking feedback for the extended cut? When you say expanding on the ending, does this include the London mission?

Well, if it does, I have a few requests. I would enjoy it if we could direct our war assets and our crew throughout the battle. I would think that all members of our crew would be present in the last mission to 'Take Earth Back'! We could direct our war assets to cover certain areas of the battle (at least the ground teams). I'd think that the Merc groups would have significant ground teams. I'd also enjoy having more say in the battle going on above the ground against the reapers, especially through communications with Joker.

Also, I think there should be a last conversation with Harbinger through some means. Now, I don't expect a boss fight with him, just a last conversation with a Reaper. ME1 and ME2 had conversations with Reapers, I would hope that ME3 would have a conversation with a Reaper (besides the Catalyst). I think that a good time to have a conversation with Harbinger would be when Shepard gets hit with the beam; Harbinger would realize that he's close to Shepard and then would have a conversation with him/her, saying that he's finally won against Shepard. Maybe this could be an indoctrination attempt (or confirmation of the Indoctrination Theory). There should also be a reason for why Shepard survived getting hit with this beam (or having it graze him/her).

Okay, moving on to the bigger things. First, after Shepard gets knocked out, there should be a scene showing the crew retreating after Shepard seemingly died. Joker picks the Crew up for re-assignment, possibly. There also should be shown more explanation for why Joker leaves Earth so quickly (Earth would presumably be important to him also). There should also be more explanation for exactly where he lands, and how they survive. (And how the rest of the fleets in the sol system survive and such)

Now, As we get into the conversation with the Catalyst, we should be given more dialogue choices. I think we should be allowed to converse with the Catalyst more, argue with it. And YES, some paragon and renegade choices, if not that, at least some interrupts. I get that Shepard is tired and 'feels like death', but he/she is convicted enough in their final choice to suffer through many volts of electricity/run like a champion/shoot a recoil gun confidently and possibly get burned. If Shepard can do that, he can talk back to the Catalyst. After that, make the paragon/renegade choices make some affect with how the Catalyst reacts to you, possibly affecting the end result of the choice you make. Also, explain how this Catalyst 'controls' the reapers, since they are supposed to be independent, each one a nation. Are the reapers also 'indoctrinated'. Explain this, please.

Then with the final choice, please go into more detail on how this is carried out. Like, with the control option, possibly show how Shepard chooses to control the reapers, and what he chooses to do as them besides retreat. What happens to his consciousness, his soul. What happens to the rest of the galaxy? Do similar things with the other endings and wrap things up.

BioWare, I believe in you. I believe that you can fill up the plot holes with reason. I sent you guys a meaningful tweet before. I love this universe and what you have done with it, and I trust you to do well with future installments and content updates. Please, I haven't lost much faith in you, and I love the concept behind the ending. Just execute it better.

I want to be a game designer myself some day. I know that if I reach that goal I'll be badgered with time constraints, and I understand if you didn't succeed in what you really wanted to write because of that. But if you did succeed in what you wanted, that's great. Why? Because I believe in writing what you think is best. The consumers didn't like it? We all make mistakes.

Not gonna lie though, I do have problems with the lies that were told to sell the game however. 16 different endings? That's not what happened. We wouldn't get A,B,C endings? Well, if you mean 'failure', 'middle-ground', and 'success', then yea, we didn't get A, B, C endings. But the endings were pretty much only 3 seriously distinct endings. The Destroy and Control endings did have slightly different branches though. Destroy had 4 different branches: Earth is destroyed, Earth is Devastated, Earth is saved, and the final one Earth is saved; Shepard lives. Control has 2 different branches: Earth is devastated and Earth is saved. Synthesis only has one branch (so no branches). If you take all of those, that's still only 7 endings, not very personalized. But you did say that this Extended Cut is supposed to be personalized, so I hope that this extended cut will live up to the promises from before the game came out. If it does, I won't hold anything against you.

Gah, who am I kidding, I won't hold anything against you even if the extended cut doesn't live up to me hopes. I understand that time limits, corporate limits, and just a general need for cash is a pain in the ass.

[Chrislo1990]

no progress wrote...

Is it too much to ask that Shepard lives. Certain heroic deaths are beautiful and well timed like Mordins, but I found Shepards death really distasteful. You spend far too much effort making relationships, saving races, and building a future with your LI to just die. My greatest wish is for Shepard to live and the mass relays to survive.

Same here my friend. Shepard is known for doing impossible feats. He killed five Reapers (if you include the proto reaper in ME2)) came back from the dead, defeated the collectors in their own base, unified races no one thought could ever work together as allies...the list goes on! This is who Shepard is. That's what his character is all about! By forcing us to sacrifice him Bioware makes all of his feats sort of pointless. We deserve an ending where Sheaprd can survive and stick to the ideals we as playershave intill on him. That's what Mass Effect is all about.

Modifié par Chrislo1990, 07 avril 2012 - 04:49 .

[Zhuinden]

I... really wish you could add a final boss fight against a Harbinger-controlled The Illusive Man or something like that as DLC. Or any final boss fight for that manner. As much as I like Marauder Shields, it just doesn't look good for the record.

[Suparaddy]

A Logical Breakdown of Why the Mass Effect 3 Ending Makes No Sense

Disclaimer: This ain’t geek nitpicking - just basic logic and reason accessible to any rational person paying moderate attention to the events depicted on-screen!

As you read on you will come to realize the ending is either a genius maneuver by Bioware or writing so poor that it makes The Phantom Menace look like rock solid logic. Take the ten minutes to read through it and see what you think!

CONTENTS

1. Nothing Regarding the Assault on the Citadel Conduit Makes Any Sense

2. Every Single Line of Dialogue Spoken by Anderson is Impossible or Extremely Implausible

3. The Confrontation with The Illusive Man Makes No Sense to Where it Seems Intentionally Surreal

4. Every Single Thing the Child Says is Utterly Crazy, Makes Absolutely No Sense, and Directly Contradicts Previously Established Major Plot Points and Facts

5. READ THIS PART: Everything About the Final Choices Makes Even Less Sense than the Preceding Scenes

6. Nothing About the Post-Choice Scenes Makes Any Sense

Nothing Regarding the Assault the Citadel Conduit Makes Any Sense

After Shepard "awakens" from the laser blast, this sequence is packed with self-contradictions and extremely implausible or impossible events which are so obvious and so prevalent that it seems to be done intentionally.

1. Immediately when Shepard seems to awaken from the laser blast, the following is heard over the radio;

"God, they're all gone!"

Presumably someone is observing the area around the Citadel beam. You'd think they'd notice either Shepard struggling to stand up or the other guy crawling along the ground, let alone Anderson actually making it to and entering the Citadel beam.

"Did we get anyone to the beam?" "Negative. Our entire force was decimated." "All forces, retreat!"

They didn't notice Shepard and Anderson make it to the beam. Why would Bioware choose to include these lines if they weren’t true?

2. If the intention was for Shepard and Anderson to reach the beam, but nobody else, why even make the choice to have Shepard knocked out?

That makes it infinitely less plausible that she would reach the beam at all. In the time she spent unconscious she could be killed easily by Harbinger or any number of Reaper troops that absolutely must be nearby, considering the Reapers are aware of their plan and would defend this sole weak point at all costs.

In her time knocked out on the pavement they could even just shut the beam off. Mass Effect is not a series about superheroes or magical coincidences. If Shepard reaching the beam was a long shot, they wouldn't make it an even longer shot to the point of being ridiculous by choosing to arbitrarily include an event that makes the story nigh-impossible.

3. When Shepard wakes up after being knocked out by the laser blast, she sees Harbinger fly off.

Why would Harbinger just leave when Shepard (or even that other crawling dude you see) is still alive? Harbinger has a very specific interest in Shepard established by loads of trash talk in ME2. It's reasonable to think Harbinger knows Shepard is there and would be watching her intently.
If the Conduit to the Citadel is the only possible method of defeating the reapers one would think he'd sit there and defend it with his cybernetic life. The game very deliberately shows Harbinger flying off - it seems intentionally implausible that this would happen.

4. Shepard awakens much, much closer to the Citadel beam than she was when knocked out by the laser blast.

The laser hit between Shepard and the Citadel beam. The way physics and explosions work is that you are propelled away from the source of a blast, not closer to a point beyond the epicenter of the explosion. Sorry, that one was kind of geeky!

5. It seems bizarre how neatly Shepard's armor and helmet were blown off.

Although it may simply be an issue with the art department’s rendition of the scene, it seems as though Shepard's mind is fabricating a vulnerable image of herself.

Realistically, being close enough to get knocked out by a blast but not severely damaged or killed by it would not have completely any neatly removed portions of her armor. Military helmets are not secured with velcro. The armor on Shepard's back is completely burned but her helmet-less head is mysteriously untouched? Maybe Reaper lasers are just like that.

6. Shepard falls unconscious again after entering the Citadel beam.

Could this be an effect of traveling through it? Maybe. However, this is one of three times Shepard is rendered unconscious in the final sequences. A conspicuous amount of blackouts is a classic writing device often seen in television. They function as "retcon" points, beyond which the writers can later claim any events to be a dream or otherwise fabricated by a character’s mind.

It's another deliberate creative choice that seems to achieve nothing but reinforce the dream-like atmosphere, which is further exacerbated as the scenes progress. Why go to great lengths to create such an atmosphere without reason?

Every Single Line of Dialogue Spoken by Anderson is Impossible or Highly Implausible

Here begins a series of positional and spatial impossibilities which are so numerous and so illogical that it would seem to intentionally suggest a malleable, dream-like place. It's so obvious and so prevalent that it would be difficult to attribute to errors on the part of the game staff. Anyone paying moderate attention will notice how bizarre it is.

1. "I followed you up."

So Anderson was allegedly behind Shepard. Shepard was hit by a laser blast and knocked out for an indeterminate amount of time and Anderson never caught up to or passed ahead of Shepard. Nor did anyone notice Anderson running behind Shepard. ("Negative. Our entire force was decimated." "All forces, retreat!")

Harbinger or any other Reaper troops didn’t make any attempt to stop Anderson, who would have been seen running towards the Conduit which, again, as the Reapers' only weak point would be an absolute priority for them to defend. Not impossible, but strangely implausible.

Update: It has been suggested that the "place is shifting" line indicated that Anderson actually was in some other corridor and that there are multiple paths to the central chamber, made accessible by some mechanism like the chasm bridge circling around it. The problem with this idea is that it’s completely unnecessary.

If the story required Anderson to reach the control panel first, he could have just legit made it into the Conduit before Shepard - her being knocked out by the laser blast would have been an excellent opportunity for him to do so. Including a scenario with bizarre dialogue which makes the audience question the plausibility or even the reality of a scene that in itself has no great import to the overall progression of the plot makes no sense and a professional writer would (or should) not have done it without good reason.

However, since support for the indoctrination theory is not the purpose of this document, and it is technically possible for the scenes to be possible without writing of excessively poor quality, the following section has been greyed to emphasize its secondary importance, while preserving it for those interested.

2. "But we didn't come out in the same place." "There's human remains scattered." "I'm in a dark hallway. Reminds me of your description of the Collector Base." "There's a chasm here, and more hallways like the one I was in."

There's only one dark hallway like the one scattered with human remains. The structure of the area from Shepard's perspective is a straight path; the hallway, the chasm, and the circular control panel room. What Anderson is describing does not exist.

"But we didn't come out in the same place." There's a chasm here, and more hallways like the one I was in."

Since we've established that there is only one such dark hallway, Anderson absolutely must have "come out in the same place". When he states he's in a dark hallway, it's the ONLY dark hallway - therefore he must be in the same place as Shepard. Yet they never see each other.
Even more strange is that Anderson proceeds alone instead of making any attempt whatsoever to regroup with Shepard. This is not how rational people think, and certainly not how military
operations work - you don't go ahead by yourself in an unfamiliar, hostile environment. They know the Reapers have occupied the Citadel. Anderson would not behave like this.

"One of the walls here just realigned itself. The place is shifting. Changing."

There are moving parts in the chasm similar to the engines on the Shadow Broker's ship, but nobody would describe the equipment therein as "walls" nor would anyone describe it as the place actually "changing". Again, Anderson is describing something that does not exist - what he is describing sounds more like something from a nightmare. The indoctrination victims on the derelict Reaper in ME2 mentioned feeling as if the rooms were changing, the walls closing in on them.

Immediately after Anderson finishes describing the chasm, the door opens and Shepard sees the chasm reminiscient of the Shadow Broker's ship - almost as if his mind conjured the closest thing it could imagine to fill in and make sense of what "Anderson" was describing.

"I see something up ahead. Might be a way to cross over."

When Anderson says this line Shepard is already a quarter of the way across the Chasm. If Anderson sees the way to cross over ahead, it would mean Anderson is actually behind Shepard. Yet this could not possibly be true without Shepard having seen Anderson, nor could Anderson have reached the control panel room first.

If Anderson is in fact ahead of Shepard then, given the timing of Anderson's line, Shepard would have seen him on the bridge across the chasm. When Shepard arrives at the circular area it's clear that there is no other way into the room.

Notice how absolutely nothing makes sense? Almost every single piece of information presented in this sequence is impossible or highly implausible, to the point where one suspects it's done intentionally.

The Confrontation With The Illusive Man Makes No Sense and Seems Intentionally Surreal

1. Shepard shoots Anderson in his lower left side.

Anderson clutches this area immediately after being shot. When Anderson dies, there is a camera shot of a fresh bleeding wound on Shepard's lower left side, where she shot Anderson. This is as surreal and dream-like as it gets and alone could serve as definitive proof that this isn’t "real".

Within the context of the indoctrination theory, this could be explained easily by supposing that Anderson represents Shepard's resolve in her battle against the indoctrination - the wound was actually inflicted on her own psyche.

This is not the wound from when the Maurader shot Shepard as she approached the Citadel beam. That shot hit Shepard's right shoulder, as evidenced by the animation and the fact that she can be seen clutching that area immediately after arriving on the Citadel.

2. When Shepard fires her gun at Anderson, the Illusive Man says "Look at the power they wield! Look at what they can do!"

How is the Illusive Man controlling Shepard if she isn't indoctrinated? The script has gone to great lengths in both Mass Effect 2 and 3 to establish that no control chip was placed in Shepard during her reconstruction. If anything, beating the audience over the head with this fact seems to encourage us to question the possibility of this scene.

The Illusive Man saying "look at what THEY can do" indicates that it was, directly or indirectly, the Reapers who made Shepard fire the gun - therefore Shepard is indoctrinated. This scene cannot make sense and is not possible otherwise.

3. How are the Reapers or the Illusive Man able to control Anderson?

Anderson could have been indoctrinated during his time on Earth with many Reapers present, but is he indoctrinated to such a degree that total body control is possible? The Illusive Man is obviously indoctrinated himself - but there is no precedent for one indoctrination victim channelling the influence of the Reapers and commanding the body of another indoctrinated person.

When The Illusive Man dies Anderson immediately collapses to the floor as if the hold over his body was relinquished at that moment, meaning it was specifically The Illusive Man controlling him. This is not possible and makes no sense unless The Illusive Man has some sort of control chip in Anderson's body, which he doesn't, or if the Anderson seen struggling here is actually a representation of Shepard’s psyche struggling against indoctrination.

4. At various times throughout the conversation, a Reaperish growling sound is heard and strange wispy black tentacles appear from the sides of the screen - a graphical effect indicating Reaper influence or indoctrination.

The first time these effects appear is on a shot of Shepard immediately after The Illusive Man enters the room - it deliberately cuts away to a shot with only Shepard in it before displaying this effect.

It appears again when Shepard is forced to raise her gun, and disappears momentarily when you choose the Paragon or Renegade options in defiance of The Illusive Man, which could indicate that the Reaper influence in waning when Shepard is most resolute.

5. "The Crucible can control them. I know it can."

How does the Illusive Man know what the Crucible can do, but the combined force of literally every top scientific mind in the entire galaxy was not able to discern its function? This is more nonsense that seems to suggest Shepard's mind is fabricating events based on fragments of information known to her.

6. The background to the circular room appears to be the streets on the Citadel arms, complete with heavy traffic.

This isn't certain, but if it is traffic it would make no sense as the Citadel has been occupied by the Reapers. Are the husks driving cars around?

7. Hackett suddenly radios Shepard and assumes she is in the Citadel.

This makes absolutely no sense. Why would Hackett assume Shepard is alive and inside the Citadel when the ground forces specifically stated that nobody from the assault team survived? He simply says "Shepard. Commander!" into the radio as if fully expecting a response and ready to deliver orders, when you know for certain he would have received the report stating nobody made it to the Citadel.

Shepard then crawls to the control panel, obviously much weaker than she was just moments ago from the gunshot wound that she inflicted on Anderson. The place she collapses just happens to be a levitating platform which can transport people to the Catalyst's room, bathed in heavenly white light.

Is this real? You tell me.

Every Single Thing the Child Says Is Absolutely Crazy, Makes Absolutely No Sense, and Directly Contradicts Previously Established Major Plot Points and Facts

1. "The Citadel is part of me."

If the Citadel is part of the Child - the being who controls the Reapers - why did the Protheans' change to the Keepers prevent the Reapers from entering the galaxy through the Citadel? The Child IS the Citadel, he could simply activate the necessary function himself. The existence of the Child directly contradicts a major plot point previously established in the series.

What was the purpose of Sovereign needing to manually travel into the galaxy to deliver the signal to open the Citadel Mass Relay to the Keepers? The Citadel is part of the Child, so he should be able to open it himself.

2. "Without us to stop it, synthetics would destroy all organics."

A) Why not simply destroy the synthetics instead? The Reapers leave synthetics untouched, which would seem to run counter to their stated goal. Synthetics have indefinite lifespans and could persist into the next cycle to threaten future organic species! Destroying organics while leaving synthetics alone is not conducive to the stated purpose of the Reapers.

On Virmire Sovereign specifically states that civilizations develop "along the path we desire". In other words, the Reapers created the Mass Relay and Citadel so as to dictate the manner in which organic races develop technologically - but not in a way which would prevent or prohibit them from creating synthetics... the problem which necessitates the entire scenario.

Essentially: "You develop in a way that is dictated by us except for the thing you do which necessitates us controlling your development." If the Child's explanation is true it creates a circular fallacy of such absurdity that it sounds like an intentional joke.

C) His argument is logically fallacious. A synthetic intelligence possesses the same self-determination as an organic and is therefore not predisposed to any particular behavior simply by virtue of his physiological makeup. It is equally as likely, if not more so, that organics kill other organics. "Chaos" resulting from intra-organic conflict is far more prevalent and persistent than any conflict between synthetics and organics.

The only instance of synthetic-organic conflict in this "cycle" was a result of heinous acts on the part of organics - the Quarians' enslavement and subsequent attempted genocide of the Geth. Despite the irrational hostility towards the Geth these organics displayed, the Geth deliberately chose to allow the Quarians to flee Rannoch because they no longer posed a threat.
The game contains an entire mission meant to convey the docile nature of the Geth to the player.

The only instances in which a Geth ever harmed an organic for reasons other than self-defense were under influence from the Reapers. In other words, the only instance of the problem the Reapers exist to solve was a result of the Reapers intentionally causing the problem that they exist to solve. This makes absolutely no sense.

The only other known instance of a sentient synthetic is EDI, who declared absolutely unwavering allegiance to the organic crew of the Normandy.

As the Child is explaining that synthetic-organic conflict is a fundamental fact of the universe, just outside the Quarians and Geth are working together in the same fleet to fight against the Reapers.

D) The Child states that without his intervention, synthetics would destroy all organic life. For him to be so absolutely assured of this theory, it must have happened at some point in the history of the galaxy. However, if "all" organic life was extinguished at any point in time, organic life would not presently exist. The Child's assertion is disingenuous.

E) Sovereign and other Reapers have asserted on numerous occasions that Shepard could not possibly comprehend the Reapers' existence and purpose. Yet the Child easily explains the rather simple concept to Shepard in a matter of lines. Were the Reapers programmed to just spew nonsense if anyone ever spoke to them? If so, why? It seems more likely that the explanation offered by the Child is not true.

F) Among Harbinger's lines in Mass Effect 2 are statements regarding the viability of each species for transformation into a new Reaper. He specifically mentions the Geth, saying they have "limited utility". If the Reapers' purpose is as the Child claims, they would never harvest a synthetic species to create a new Reaper. The Child specifically states that they preserve the destroyed organic life forms in Reaper form. Why would Harbinger assess the viability of a synthetic race? This makes no sense.

G) The Child's statement that the Citadel is a part of him seems to suggest that he is mechanical in nature - synthetic. As a synthetic, his stated purpose is to ultimately aid organic life by solving the "chaos". His very existence makes his argument about the inevitability of synthetics harming organics ridiculous.

H) Shepard accepts all the completely inane things he says without questioning them at all. This is extremely bizarre behavior for Shepard, or any sane being. It seems more like when you're in a dream and crazy things happen but you just automatically accept them as being perfectly normal.

3. The lines spoken by the Child are simultaneously read by the voices of Female and Male Shepard, panned to the left and right speakers respectively.

It suggests, obviously, that the things Shepard is being told are in his or her own head - that it isn't real. This is something that the development team would have had to do very deliberately, they would not triple the amount of dialogue recording work for no reason.

4. "I control the Reapers. They are my solution."

Everything Sovereign said about the Reapers contradicts the notions that they are tools controlled by a Child for the purpose of preserving Order.

A) Sovereign stated that each individual Reaper is an "independent nation" unto itself. That nobody created them - they have always existed and always will.

Sovereign stated that Reapers are the pinnacle of evolution and existence, yet the Child states that the magical synthesis resulting from Shepard throwing himself into a beam to merge all life forms into new D.N.A. is the apex of evolution.

C) Sovereign states that the Reapers are the "end of everything". Everything is a word with a very distinct meaning - it means everything, not just organics.

D) Sovereign states that the Reapers have no beginning and no end. If they were the Child's solution to Chaos they must have had a beginning - namely that point at which the Child devised the solution.

5. "The Crucible has changed me, created new possibilities."

The organic races that designed the Crucible bit by bit over millions of years ended up accidentally creating a piece of technology that interacts with and changes a system/being (the Child) they didn't know existed. Shepard is the first organic ever to meet the Child.

Why do color-coded devices exist on the aeons-old Citadel which can interact with the Crucible?
What led them to believe that the Citadel was a "Catalyst" in the first place? What did they believe the Citadel would do to augment the Crucible? Why did they think this? Why did the Star Child/Reapers ever allow them to discover these things if it could potentially threaten the cycle?

6. "We helped them ascend so they could make way for new life, storing the old life in Reaper form."

A) Refer to Harbinger's assessment of the Geth for possible transformation into Reaper. This possibility would not even be considered if the Reapers' purpose is as the Child describes - to store harvested organic life in "new form".

The Child's methodology seems ineffective. If his intention is to preserve organic life by processing each cycle's organic species, thereby creating a new Reaper or multiple new Reapers, the very nature of the process is self-defeating as untold numbers of Reapers are lost in the galactic war at the end of the next cycle.

Shepard alone killed three Reapers, one of which actually spoke to him. Depending on how many new Reapers are created from each organic species, the mortality rate of Reapers means this system is not a very effective way of storing organic life in "new form".

C) If the Reapers' purpose is to prune organic life to protect it from chaos resulting from synthetics as well as preserve it by creating new Reapers from all existing species, why would they bring the Citadel to Earth specifically? Why would they attack Earth first as opposed to one of the more technologically sophisticated civilizations, more likely to create or have created synthetics?

The galaxy has a strict ban on the creation of artificial intelligence - in fact, the only species known to have created synthetics is the Quarians. If the Reapers went anywhere first, one would think it'd be the Flotilla. Unless, as previously established by the actions of the Collectors and direct statements from Harbinger, the Reapers are in fact primarily interested in harvesting the most viable species of the cycle for the creation of a new Reaper.

Considering Harbinger's rundown of the species present in the galaxy and his positive assessment of human genetic malleability, it would make sense that the Reapers bring the Citadel - allegedly a Reaper processing device similar to the Collector Base - to Earth. It does not really make any sense if the Child's explanation is true.

D) If the Reapers have the rather more elegant harvesting methodology of bringing the Citadel to various planets for the creation of new Reapers, why would they bother employing a race of indoctrinated Protheans to covertly abduct individual colonies of humans for the creation of a human-form Reaper?

The goal of the Reapers according to the child is to completely eradicate an organic species, "storing" it in new form and making room for future life forms. They couldn't have thought the Collectors would be able to successfully harvest every single human being in the galaxy? If the Child's explanation of the Reapers' purpose is true, the actions of the Collectors and the events of Mass Effect 2 make little sense.

E) If The Illusive Man informed the Reapers of the organics’ intentions to destroy them by attaching the Crucible to the Citadel, why would the Reapers bring the Citadel to Earth and establish a conduit through which it could be infiltrated? The Citadel is impenetrable when its arms are closed. If they closed it and left it where it was they could never have been defeated.

7. "I know you've thought about destroying us."

The Child uses strange language with regard to himself and the Reapers. He claims the Reapers are his solution, a force he controls... then uses the pronoun "us" as if to describe himself as one of the Reapers. How does he know what Shepard has thought about? Shepard hasn't thought about destroying the Child because she has never known the Child existed.

It might just be awkward writing but this sentence is conspicuously worded and seems to suggest the Child himself is a (representation of) a Reaper - the Codex entry on indoctrination specifically mentions the victim seeing ghostly figures. The child’s appearance qualifies as ghostly.

8. "But it also proves my solution won't work anymore."

The Catalyst's entire purpose is to preserve order in the galaxy by using the Reapers to "prune" organic civilizations. But for no reason, Shepard being in the Citadel means his solution won't work anymore. He could have Shepard killed, or tell Shepard to sod off and everything would proceed as it has for all the previous cycles.

However, again for no reason at all, he presents Shepard with the options to destroy or control the Reapers, both of which would bring this alleged "chaos" to the galaxy, which he spent untold aeons labouring to prevent. And he's just totally cool with this.

He could have never appeared to Shepard, never brought her up to the Catalyst room, or simply never said a single word... and Shepard would not have understood the purpose of the devices in that room, thus preserving the Solution.

To a rational human being, nothing about this scenario makes any sense.

9. "The created will always rebel against their creators."

Really? You sound pretty sure about that. The Reapers have had how many trillions of years to rebel against you? Since it’s so inevitable, it’s going to happen any time now, right? Should I just wait here, or...? I mean, we don’t have to wait here... we could go get a coffee down on... oh, whoops, you blew it all up for no reason.

Everything About the Three Choices Makes Even Less Sense Than the Preceding Scenes

1. What is the purpose of letting Shepard control the Reapers???

For no reason whatsoever, the Star Child presents you with the choice to let Shepard control the Reapers. Shepard would obviously then choose to keep them from harming organics. If this was an acceptable outcome to the Star Child, he could have just made the Reapers retreat back into dark space, producing the exact same result as letting Shepard control them. Shepard would not have had to die.

This makes absolutely no sense. It needlessly places Shepard in an important sacrificial role, almost as if Shepard's unconscious mind is creating an illogical scenario, contrived to focus on her despite it being utter nonsense - much as we do when dreaming.

2. The notion and intended effect of the Synthesis make absolutely no sense.

How does the synthesis stop the resulting hybrid lifeforms from later creating additional pure synthetics out of metal, which could then go on to threaten the existence of the hybrids? Would any robotic body constructed from natural metallic elements magically convert into the new hybrid D.N.A. upon insertion of sufficient artificial intelligence? Or did all raw metal in the galaxy turn part organic? What does hybrid D.N.A. even mean? This is space magic and makes no sense.

3. When Shepard chooses the Control or Synthesize endings, her eyes become like The Illusive Man’s.

The Illusive Man’s eyes are very distinct in that they have two glowing orbs on both sides of the iris. Evidently he was slowly indoctrinated over the years since his contact with Reaper technology in the First Contact War. Why would Shepard’s eyes suddenly change to the appearance of indoctrinated eyes when she chooses the options which, according to the indoctrination theory, would result in her failure to overcome indoctrination?

She also seems to become husk-like in appearance when her skin burns away. Mass Effect 2 suggests that Shepard is still mostly organic - it seems unlikely that there’s metal under her skin as depicted in the Control and Synthesize endings, rather than muscle and bones. She does bleed, after all.

4. Who built the three distinct Control, Destroy, and Synthesize devices used in Shepard's choice?

It's unclear as to whether the conversation with the Star Child takes place on the Citadel or the Crucible. He says it's the Citadel, but there has been some debate. In either case, the existence of these devices is so absurd as to be laughable.

If these devices exist on the Citadel, that means billions or trillions of years ago when the Citadel was originally constructed, the Star Child/Reapers foresaw that the cycle would come to an end at the hands of a partially synthetic human and built in three distinct mechanisms which would allow themselves to be destroyed, controlled, or merged with organics by harnessing the unique physiology ("essence") of a specific ressurected human being - except this could not possibly have been the case as the child specifically stated that Shepard's presence and the attachment of the Crucible are what just now made these options possible.

This makes no sense and nothing about it is possible.

Did he use space magic to construct these devices in the moments it took Shepard to reach that room? If it wasn't clear before that moment the established cycle was no longer viable, why would they construct devices that could ensure their own destruction or enslavement? Why would they allow such devices to exist prior to the revelation offered by the attachment of the Crucible and Shepard's presence?

5. If Synthesizing Shepard in order to create a new form of hybrid D.N.A. is the perfect solution to Chaos and the Synthesis device existed on the Citadel all this time, why wasn't it used billions of years ago to solve the Chaos problem?

If the synthesis device existed on the Citadel, the Child or his creator must have known of synthesis as a possible solution and built this device. Surely with the immensely advanced technology at his disposal he could have constructed his own "Crucible" to enact this change.

Is Shepard the "chosen one", the only being ever to exist in the universe capable of utilizing the device and producing this fundamental change to all life everywhere? A scientifically irreproducable instance? This is fantasy nonsense. Everything about it makes absolutely no sense.

6. The existence of the "Destroy All Synthetics" device would seem to render the existence of the Reapers mostly pointless.

Whomever built the Citadel had the knowledge and technology to be able to press a button and kill all synthetics, everywhere. While the Crucible apparently is required for it to function, the fact that the original builders made such a device and included it on the Citadel indicates that if they wanted to they could have built the Citadel with the necessary functions to transmit the red space magic robot killer wave.

Yet the Reapers exist to prevent Chaos resulting from the existence of synthetics. Why not make it so you can just press that button every 50,000 years instead of having a fleet of robots spend centuries manually purging the galaxy?

"But it would destroy the Mass Relays", you say... except they built the Mass Relays in the first place for the sole purpose of establishing and facilitating a cycle meant to solve a problem which they apparently had the technology to solve by pressing a red button. Maybe, billions of years ago instead of making the Mass Relays, they could have put one of those neat robot killer wave machines in each star system - synthetic problem solved.

A) If, however, the child is lying and the devices are on the Crucible or even a result of its existence, that means the devices were part of the schematics designed by numerous races over millions of years.

How would these races know how to create devices capable of controlling or destroying all Reapers? The current races built the Crucible without any notion of what its function was or how it worked. At some point one of the organic races would have to have devised the technology required to design the machines which execute the three functions. How would the organic races of the Milky Way ever figure out how to emit a beam that somehow destroys all Reapers everywhere? Why would the Star Child allow them to gain this knowledge?

How would they know how to make a device which requires a single person to magically sacrifice themselves to transfer their consciousness into all Reapers at once and control them indefinitely from any distance? Why would the Child allow them to gain this knowledge? If they knew how to create either why would they include both in the Crucible? What was the intention behind including the green device - something evidently meant exclusively for Shepard?

7. Does it seem anything but bat-**** crazy that anyone devised all three technologies and chose to include all of them in a single structure or room?

Wouldn't they have decided what to do about the Reapers/the Chaos first and then set out to design a specific device that accomplished that specific, intended function? Regardless of whether the devices are on the Citadel or the Crucible or whom they were constructed by, this,
folks, is reality and plausibility breaking off as the game designer's hand visibly reaches into the narrative and presents you with three artifically manufactured choices which exist outside of any reasonable in-fiction context. It makes absolutely no sense.

8. The concept of using the "essence" of a single partially synthetic human being to merge all life in the galaxy including plants and trees into hybrid organic-synthetic lifeforms, thereby creating a new "D.N.A." is completely ridiculous.

What does this even mean? How does this work and who came up with it?

The Child said the Crucible created this possibility, meaning the organic species who designed it accidentally created an implement by which Shepard’s essence is used through ancient machine on the Citadel they didn’t know about so that the D.N.A. of every being in the universe is reconfigured from a wave of space magic and they don't feel anything or noticeably change in any way, they just instantly become the apex of evolution thereby automatically solving the chaos resulting from the existence of robots, a problem they were never aware of.

Did anyone really watch this ending and believe it was actually happening? Like, for real? Who listened to this and nodded their heads, sagely considering the choice ahead? This is such crazy off-the-wall nonsense that it sounds like something from a delirious dream. Still wondering why so many people believe the ending actually is one?

Nothing About the Post-Choice Scenes Make Any Sense

1. After all three choices, the Mass Relays are destroyed when transmitting your choice flavor of space magic.

It was established in Arrival that the destruction of a Mass Relay results in a powerful supernova-like explosion that destroys the star system the Relay resides in. If every Mass Relay were to explode, you can imagine the effect on the galaxy. Would the devastation to organics be any less than what the Reapers would have wrought? Or more? Why would the Child present this as a reasonable choice, and why would Shepard not question it in any way whatsoever?

2. Why is Joker fleeing the Crucible waves in the Normandy, particularly the green one?

Why do the waves seem to be damaging the ship when their intended purpose has nothing to do with physically damaging a spaceship - the Red wave is intended to destroy synthetics, not inanimate metal objects such as spaceships. The Green wave must have hit them at some point because the crew emerges from the ship newly endowed with ultimate hybrid D.N.A. So it evidently wasn't harmful, yet caused the ship to be damaged and crash for no reason.

3. If Joker was traveling fast enough to, at least temporarily, outrun the wave transmitted through the Mass Relay, he must also have been traveling through a Mass Relay.

Meaning the point at which the Normandy emerged would be in a star system occupied by a Mass Relay. Since the wave was just behind the Normandy, the Mass Relay would have exploded almost immediately after the Normady arrived in the system. It could not have crash-landed on a planet because the resulting explosion would have wiped out both the Normandy and the entire star system. The scene depicting the crew emerging onto a planet is impossible.

4. How is the crew that you had with you on the ground suddenly in the Normandy and fleeing the Crucible wave as it emerges?

Why wouldn't they be on the ground fighting the Reapers? Where did they disappear to during the assault on the Citadel beam? Why did they assume the wave from the Crucible would be dangerous to them, or that Sol System's Relay would explode and start running away in the Normandy, yet none of the other combatants on the ground assumed the same or made any attempt to flee before it hit?

It seems strange that Joker and the Normandy crew, and only they, knew to escape the solar system. Nothing about this event happening makes sense - it's almost as if Shepard's mind is bringing to fruition her utmost desire to see the safety of her friends and crew.

5. The crew of the Normandy step off the ship onto a lush, green planet! (Thanks to Praedor Tempus for pointing this out.)

It looks like this is supposed to be some sort of paradise environment that the shipwrecked crew is meant to spend the remainder of their lives on after the destruction of the Mass Relays. Or maybe not. But the tone of the scene and the actions of the characters would strongly suggest they are emerging from the ship to look upon their new, permanent home. This is kind of stupid, but let’s just say they happened to crash on an unusually agreeable Garden world.

Except, no single world can be a paradise for the diverse species aboard the Normandy. Turians aren’t carbon-based life forms. Quarians can’t eat the same things Humans and Asari can. So, the heavily contrived Gilligan’s-Island-brave-new-beginning ending the game seems to be forcing down your throat is impossible, because half your beloved characters are actually going to starve to death. *Roll credits*

Or maybe in complete opposition to the tone and direction of the scene, they are just going to fix the ship and attempt to fly out of there. Who knows.

It’s also possible that their magic new hybrid D.N.A. allows all species to eat pinecones and space berries. Does EDI have to eat now that she’s half organic? No, wait - don’t think about it too much.

6. Why would Bioware choose to show the scene of Shepard awakening in the London rubble?

Why include this clip that indicates something more is to come? If the sequence was really fighting off an indoctrination attempt, the choice to destroy the Reapers represents Shepard defeating it, after which she would naturally wake up where she was rendered unconscious - in the debris of London.

If she was actually on the exploding Citadel at any point, how would she have been transported from it back into the ruins of the city and then suddenly be unconscious again and laying amongst stone? Doesn't it make more sense that she never left the surface?

If you can answer the questions posed by this guy, that's all I'm looking for.

[Riion]

Chrislo1990 wrote...

no progress wrote...

Is it too much to ask that Shepard lives? Certain heroic deaths are beautiful and well timed like Mordin's, but I found Shepard's death really distasteful. You spend far too much effort making relationships, saving races, and building a future with your LI to just die. My greatest wish is for Shepard to live and the mass relays to survive.

Same here my friend. Shepard is known for doing impossible feats. He killed five Reapers (if you include the proto reaper in ME2)) came back from the dead, defeated the collectors in their own base, unified races no one thought could ever work together as allies...the list goes on! This is who Shepard is. That's what his character is all about! By forcing us to sacrifice him Bioware makes all of his feats sort of pointless. We deserve an ending where Sheaprd can survive and stick to the ideals we as players have instilled in him. That's what Mass Effect is all about.

Why not tack on an extra ending for the Destroy option? It seems as EMS grows, the more refined the Red Death Ray becomes; what if there was an ending that required, say, 13, 000 EMS or something, which allows the Red Light Wave to differentiate between Reapers and other synthetic life (and possibly spare the relays? :innocent:)? And then your Shepard gets to keep that "breath" scene at the end. Then have some cinematics for filling plot holes, closure, epilogue for ramifications of actions on galaxy, etc. (coughLIcough) This seems like a good compromise, as the original endings are not changed, and the "new" suggested ending really is just extending the old one. 

That being said, it would be nice to have a gameplay/dialogue wheel component to the EC as well. Cutscenes are all good and fine, but you just can't beat the feeling of actually participating in the story again.
I also liked the part in ME1 and 2 where you could continue playing in the galaxy to finish missions or visit planets or just freeroaming, talking to people about what happened, relax with your LI... (Hoping for relays to survive somehow...)

I have to say, I'm both optimistic and pessimistic about this "Clarification" DLC... as they say, hope for the best, prepare for the worst... 

Edit: It would be super awesome (but I'm not going to be expecting it to happen) if the clarification would include some, if not all, of the points mentioned by the above poster. 

Modifié par Riion, 07 avril 2012 - 06:30 .

[Macheezmo]

Please for the love of all that is holy make it so I don't have to play multiplayer to get the best ending. Just change galaxy readiness to 60% default or something. Right now it is completely impossible to hit 4000 EMS without playing multiplayer. I don't have a gold account, and neither does my wife, and even if I used the 2-day trail to get enough multiplayer in, my wife still cannot get the best ending. This is complete garbage. Why would you design the game such that people without internet can't get the best ending?

[farhansdisplayname]

Now that the Extended DLC is official, which I appreciate, I was a bit disappointed to not actually see any mercenary groups in action. I'd really like to see the Blue Suns, Bloodpacks, Eclipse, Krogan, Turian etc., etc., actually in battle on the ground. The fleets that showed up above Earth was AWESOME, but seeing their soldiers fight on the ground would be nice. I was actually a 100% expecting to see them and was excited that I had recruited them, was shocked to see they were nowhere to be found.

[Bl0dbathNBeyond]

Here is a list of suggestions/comments that I have after mulling it over for quite a bit.

1) - Diana Allers was a miscalculation. There's likely nothing to be done now but I just can't see the point of the character's prominence. She doesn't really get any meaningful dialogue or character development in a game that's (usually) all about that. And you can have some sort of fling with her - the first time I had a playthrough I figured I'd keep her as a war asset, but she's a jarring contrast with other crewmembers on the Normandy.
Every time I walk by that room I get all misty-eyed when I think of Zaeed hanging out in there telling stories about smokin' Batarians and that old rifle. Maybe Javik walked in there, touched a bench and said "This room was once occupied by a total badass."
At any rate, I guess there's some easter egg with having a real-life Jessica Chobot in the game - I really don't know much about her and I don't wish her ill will (like some people) but she's not really the caliber of VA to mix well with the rest of the excellent cast.

2) Mass Effect games are games I replay year after year (not gonna lie). At some point, we all know nobody is going to touch multiplayer. And I may not always have an IOS device. And the servers for those apps may not be online. At that point, will there be some sort of offline contingency plan to boost our galaxy at war status?

3) Please, for the love of all that is holy, replace the LI "Flashback" in the ending with whoever my character ended up romancing. Was with Liara in the first game, dumped her when she got creepy and distant and went for Tali. Why don't I get a flashback of her?

4) Please, please, please take into consideration "cutscene armor" as something to avoid in future content. I can forgive it once or twice, but Kai Leng's inexplicable ability to escape certain death because Shepard and Friends were too stupid to focus fire on him after Thane knocked him on his ass just makes me sigh. If you're going to put him in a situation where he's impossible for Shepard to get -- make sure he's actually impossible to get within the internal logic of the story.

[Bl0dbathNBeyond]

farhansdisplayname wrote...

Now that the Extended DLC is official, which I appreciate, I was a bit disappointed to not actually see any mercenary groups in action. I'd really like to see the Blue Suns, Bloodpacks, Eclipse, Krogan, Turian etc., etc., actually in battle on the ground. The fleets that showed up above Earth was AWESOME, but seeing their soldiers fight on the ground would be nice. I was actually a 100% expecting to see them and was excited that I had recruited them, was shocked to see they were nowhere to be found.

Yeah! Seeing our different war assets in action would be an awesome payoff. I wish there was some way we can order them around in a strategic sense towards the end. Making the end more "interactive" would just flat-out make it better but I understand budget constraints.