7052 réponses à ce sujet

[Epique Phael767]

ShepnTali wrote...

More LI Interaction... just fought a rough battle, unwind by calling him/her up to your cabin for drinks, or just some good ol' lovin. This would enrich the romance immensley. AND... how about making the poker table in the lounge useful. A poker minigame like in Red Dead Redemption. Whenever the mood strikes, pick a few squadies , relax and start bettin' those credits. I can see the table banter being hilarious!

Infinitely this.

[Epiph1]

1) I'm not a fan of the indoctrination theory but I honestly believe you may have to use this to fill up some of the holes you opened up.

Destroy should = break their hold.

Play out the game in a manner befitting following that and reintroduce Harbinger as the bizarre star child. Breaking the control means you can weaken them in some way which then gives you space to reasonably have a chance against them.

View it as the hubris of a race that arrogantly thinks they're too superior to lose.

2) There needs to be a point to the war assets that is more tangible. Oh you forgot to pick up the asari fleet? Well that sucks because that means that x happens. It doesn't have to be implicit for every single thing but at least make it matter!

3) Shep's parent. I'm honestly sure you would have final words either before arriving at Earth or as you arrive. The Anderson scene of being proud of you wouldn't begin to compare to a parent's pride surely?

MAIN THING: Just produce the product we know you're capable of. Sit down and really think about the ending in a user-friendly way. Sure you should have some meaning to the game but right now it's gobbledygook that simply tries to hard. Perseverance and hard work should pay off. If you didn't do much then you should die. Not that hard surely?

[rbrown81]

Jessica

Thanks for posting and I'll try to keep this to the point. I thought once my emotional reaction to the end of the game had died down I would be able to enjoy the ending more. Over a week since I have finished the game and I cannot say that.

Here are my main points of contention.

1) This is a video game, not a movie. Significant time investment in this game should lead to a possible good outcome. I don't mind if its hard to earn, just make it possible, we'll make it happen. If I want a tragedy I'll re-watch Hotel Rwanda. RPG's are fluid moving stories that should take into account the effort put in by the player, which was, In my opinion, not the case with the Mass Effect 3 Ending

2) Plot holes. I can usually let a couple slide if the story is good enough. I thought your story and plot was pure brilliance up until the ending. I cried, I cheered. I should not be going "WTF" about technical inconsistencies in the game.- ala how the heck my crew got back on the Normandy and why it was running from the fight. Also, the Normandy had some of the most powerful cannons in the known galaxy. Would it kill you to have it take down a reaper or two on its descent to earth?

3) I stand by the article written on game front: http://www.gamefront...fans-are-right/ and I agree with all but a few inconsequential points within this article. I think it may be worthwhile for you guys to take a look at this. I does sum up a lot of what people are feeling and why.

Mainly, I want to know why after having such detailed and beautiful story endings for Mordin, Thane, Miranda and Legion, were the endings for our other crew so neglected?

Thought provoking is ALWAYS good. Head scratching, not so much.

I have faith in BioWare that you will make this right. A lot is riding on your response to our community and we all hope that you do the right thing.

Thanks!

[krystalevenstar]

Please check out the Indoctrination Theory's message board Here.

[RagingCeltik]

MissMaster_2 wrote...

Guys the DLC will not be free.The have to pay the team to do it and pay the voice actors.

I prefer to think of it as a patch.

[Spectre_Shepard]

Closure, closure, closure.

Closure for the ME universe as a whole. Where our actions will leave it. We don't want it to be the SAME in every case.

Closure for our squad mates. Those are our virtual buddies out there. Whats next for them.

Closure for Shepard. Where he goes, or how he's remembered.

Closure so I don't have to keep annoying you guys and I can start buying your games again.

[Nephilym83]

I want my war assets and decisions to matter. If I pissed off the entire galaxy and failed to gain enough war assets, I want to see Harbinger and his fellow reapers descend on the Earth and Shepard's crew and lay it all to waste in violent flashes of red lasers and shockwaves. If I do well and get a decent amount of support throughout the galaxy, I want to see a good struggle from both sides before the crucible actually comes into play. And If I manage to build every alliance and uncover every single war asset with a high EMS, I want to see my forces absolutely DOMINATE the reapers, using the crucible only to finish the job with the reapers still scattered around the galaxy.

I don't want to see any Mass Relays destroyed. I think them shooting energy across the galaxy is a cool idea, but if it actually destroys them, it's all wrong. We already know that this would be a disaster. It's a plothole that MUST be filled.

I want closure. Whatever friends are alive, I want to know what they are doing. If they are dead, I want to KNOW that they are dead. Whatever civilizations I saved, I want to see them rebuilding, to let me know that I succeeded. I think if you played the game well and did a great job, it only makes sense that there is hope left. If you did poorly, then it only makes sense to show how you failed and let the galaxy down. With such a huge array of variables in play, a one-size-fits-all ending is crap.

And for the love of god, I want to see my blue babies!

[unclee]

Thanks to the devs and community managers for taking the time to give statements and ask for feedback.



As for my feedback:

The Amazing:
-How about everything up until the last 10 minutes of the game? I've never cheered so hard, laughed so much or gotten so emotional in a single video game in my entire life. The entire game just felt awesome. Mordin and Legion got such emotional send offs. Every past squad member got an awesome cameo (gotta say Grunt's was the best!) and the entire thing really made me feel like a galactic badass (Reaper on Rannoch!).

My biggest praise, however, has to be the writing for Shepard. His slowly building mental exhaustion is written with perfection and the culmiation on Thessia is easily my favorite part of the whole game.


The Negative:

The ending.

It's really just a matter of having something at the end that makes more sense and makes me feel like my choices brought me to where I was. I'm not looking for unicorns and cake. I'm not looking for a steamy reunion with my LI. Hell, I'm not even looking for Shepard to survive (I was actually quite shocked that he survived in my play through). What I would like to see, however, is something that leaves it on a more solid foundation.

I understand that this is Science Fiction, so everything may not always make 100% complete sense. However, Joker suddenly going against all his characterization and fleeing the battle? Squadmates who were with me suddenly teleporting to the Normandy? Shepard surviving (if you get that ending) a fall through Earth's atmosphere?

I'm willing to explain away the sudden unlimited ammo, pistol that two-shots Marauders and Shepard being able to breath outside the Citadel as design choices and Science Fiction, but there still has to be some grounding. I'm generally someone who doesn't have to have everything explain to him and can usually do a good job of imagining what happens next, but if that was the intention at the end then it failed due to the lack of solid structure for me to latch my imagination onto.

The other, and probably larger, issue is that the ending doesn't show nor give any weight to any of the choices I've made over the course of three amazingly awesome games. Yes, your EMS effects the fate of Earth and potentially Shepard, and you get a slightly different Normandy scene with Synthesis, but there's no player input here. Aside from these small changes, and the color of the beam, the endings are pretty much exactly the same.

Where's the impact all my decisions helped bring about? Why did I cure the genophage and settle the Quarian/Geth war if not for visible impact on the endgame? Why did I save the council (twice!) if not to see how that helps or hurts me at the end of things? It just felt like, for a series based so heavily on choice, they were suddenly voided in a span of 10 minutes.

Again, I'm not looking for a "unicorns and cake" ending, and frankly would have been even more disappointed with one. The entire game is an all out galactic war, so the ending is going to be somewhat dark. I love going for the bittersweet yet hopeful ending, but does that have to come at the sacrifice of cohesivness and player input?


Just my 2 cents. 99% amaztastic game.

Modifié par unclee, 17 mars 2012 - 05:19 .

[awilkin]

BobbyTheI wrote...

I said it in the last thread, I'll say it again.

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

Print it out. Put it on a wall in a conference room somewhere. Sit the writers and development team down and ask them, "How can we address each of these issues?"

This.

Also, I just want to say that directly using the indoctrination theory is a bad idea. It'd feel like a cheap out ("Surprise! All that didn't really happen! We're cool now, right?"). People have just become attached to it because it's the only way to make sense of the nonsensical ending. Personally, I'd favor a rewrite starting at the end of Anderson's scene.

That said, the concept of Shepard having to fight off an indoctrination attempt is kind of neat. I just don't think the current ending scenes really play that scenario out very well. There are too many tenuous connections you have to make. Maybe a few embellishments would make the current ending fit the theory better without making it too obvious.

Modifié par awilkin, 17 mars 2012 - 05:15 .

[Mev186]

hippanda wrote...

IV. On the Catalyst, the Normandy scene, and where it all went wrong:
These last 5-10 minutes of the game are on the same level as Mass Effect: Deception when it comes to blatantly ignoring established lore and throwing continuity out the window.

The big reveal of the Catalyst's existance seems to contradict the entire premise of ME1. Why does Sovereign describe the Reapers as "each a nation, independent" if the Catalyst actually controls them all? Why does the Catalyst just casually refer to them as reapers, in spite of the first 2 games making a pretty clear point that it was a label invented by the Protheans and not themselves? Why did Sovereign have to be the one to activate the Citadel relay if the Citadel was alive the whole time? Why didn't the Catalyst bother to undo the signal tampering the Protheans did or, if it was incapable of doing that itself, call in Sovereign in the thousands and thousands of year-long period between the protheans extinction and the rediscovery of the citadel by the Asari and have IT fix the problem? The list of issues goes on and on. Most of them could probably be explained, but the explanations aren't obvious, and at the end of the way we were left without one.

Furthermore, the Catalyst's entire existence seems to be a huge, walking contradiction. I'll start with a general definition of the word catalyst - something that instigates change. This is the polar opposite of both the Catalyst's self-identification as an opponent to change ("chaos") and the Catalyst's track record of billions of years of maintaining the status quo ("the cycle"). More importantly, the Catalyst is a synthetic with the self-described interest of preserving organic life (albeit "in Reaper form"), again directly contradiction his notion that the created always rise up against their creators.

But perhaps most importantly of all, you're not allowed to call him out on his nonsensical "logic." The Catalyst is not the first "godlike" presence he or she has stood before while being openly defiant (Sovereign, Harbinger). Why the sudden change of character? This whole thing seemed like a perfect opportunity to make at least one of your decisions actually matter (brokering peace between the Quarians and the Geth), but your character remains silent and obedient, instead. For most of us, this out-of-character performance by what is supposed to be the player's character completely shattered the immersion.

At the end of it all, we're given a choice between 3 equally depressing endings. Although each of the endings has its own philosophical implications, they all share the same practical implications (relays destroyed, the fleets and the armies you gathered are stranded on Earth, Shepard (usually) dies, the Normandy goes AWOL, etc.), and that is why most of us say the game really only had 1 ending.

And it's those practical implications that make it seem like a lot of the choices we made were all for naught. Finally patched up relations between the Turians and the Krogan? Great! They'll probably never see each other again within the lifetime of anyone who participated in the battle against the Reapers (Asari included). Saved the Rachni? Who cares? They're just as cut off from the rest of the galaxy as everyone else, so the implications of their continued existance is entirely meaningless. Saved Wrex and cured the genophase, ushering in a new, "enlightened" age of the Krogan? I guess it's too bad he's stuck on Earth for the foreseeable future, leaving Tuchanka to fracture back into its pointless and bloody clan wars.

Speaking of the Normandy, the best way to describe that scene is "wtf?" I imagine this scene was supposed to be the "sweet" part of the "bittersweet" ending, but the interpretation of this scene by the great majority of players seems to have been the polar opposite. I imagine the developers were trying to convey a sense of hope for the future with the crew landing on a garden world, but the "practical implications" (Tali and Garrus dying of starvation) ruins any potential for happiness.

Additionally, it's never explained why: (1) your crew got back onto the Normandy in the first place, abandoning the ground battle, or (2) why Joker decided to take the Normandy's crew on a field trip, abandoning the space battle. Again, the implications here aren't good. Absent an explanation of these bizarre behaviors, the player is left wondering why everyone he or she loved abandoned you at the final hour, fleeing from the battle against the Reapers in a seemingly cowardly fashion.

Also, that wave of energy from the Crucible wasn't kind to the Normandy - you can clearly see the ship's engines being torn off. This adds further weight to the implication that the fleet you gathered and brought to Earth is stranded barring extensive ship repairs at best, and that's assuming everyone else gets to be as lucky as the people on the Normandy were in surviving the ship being torn apart and crash-landing on the nearest planet/moon.

The list of issues with the practical implications of the ending (singular) goes on and on, and it's a big reason why a lot of us feel like there's no reason to do a 2nd playthrough of ME3 or to purchase any DLC that doesn't address the endings - the complete absence of our choices being realized at the end of the game totally kills the game's replayability.

Agreed! This is probably one of the best arguments against the Starchild's existance. It deserves to be reposted.

[LegendaryBlade]

krystalevenstar wrote...

Please check out the Indoctrination Theory's message board Here.

[Sigyn2011]

This is all done out of complete respect for all the folks at Bioware.

 Things right with ME3:


Tone before Citadel gets attacked by Cerberus, tone after the attack
Closure with Prothean legacy/asari, etc.
Interaction in between NPCs!
Shepard's humanity (snapping at Joker, nightmares, etc.)
Musical score
More choices for casual outfits
Anderson death scene
Private exchanges in between NPCs and Shepard up in his/her quarters, dates on Citadel, etc!
Beautiful planet designs, environments, the ladders
Thank you, Shepard can now move from cover to cover!
Bringing back a proper power tree and lots of cool new weapons




Things wrong:
Better closure for endings.  I'm not going to say anything incredibly specific, that's why they hired the writers.  All in all, they did a great job with the other 95% of the game.  (Besides, doesn't the destruction of a relay mean death for everyone in the system?  All of them were seen blown up or destroyed in some way regardless of the "different" end cutscenes!)


The last five minutes need to be fixed, that's all.  It would be nice if Shepard had a happy ending, but I'm cool if he/she dies.  Just give it better treatment (krogan victory songs, a funeral, a statue being built for him/her in London while the rest of the city is being rebuilt)?


If a video game can bring literally tears to my eyes not just once but twice, I'm truly moved.  But like my fellow players, I must agree with their grievances.  Choices mattered everywhere else in the game, why not drastically so for the endings?


I love the characters from ME, but if your love interest was not Liara, Kaiden, or Ash, it SHOULD have been in the flashback!  

A big thank you to the PR people for letting us post our opinions and listening!  Now let's hope our voices will matter!

[Night Harlequin]

 I just want closure for your squad, your major choices, and what happens to Shepard if he survives. A ten second vid of him taking half a breath  just doesn't cut it for me.

[morel142]

Oh also, Having one last conversation with Harbinger... He's taunted and threatened you.. Dismissed you and looked down on Shepard from the start.. Having Shepard stand above his crushed body with his big "eye" starting to fade and Giving Shepard (renegade?) a chance to rub it in a bit would have been priceless.

[iwillkillfortali]

Give me a Shepard and Tali marriage clip as well as the ability to build her home and I will buy every
new game you will ever make.

[Espurr]

Personally at this point, I would really like to see the indoctrination theory made canon. It makes sense with what's already in the game (to the point a lot of people were genuinely convinced that it was the Dev's plan from the start) and it doesn't require visually changing anything that's already there, just adding to it. And frankly, it's the only way I can rationalize my Shepard not questioning ghostkid and buying his crap.

Take the indoctrination theory as canon, then extrapolate the various endings from there. For example:

Destroy: we already have the variations of this option that involve whether Shepard lives or dies. Perhaps keep the destroy ending as the only ending where Shepard can live, and break free of indoctrination. EMS then determines whether the reaper fleet is defeated. Shepard being alive adds a last minute bonus to the EMS. EMS determines whether the reapers are defeated, how much damage is sustained earth/the fleets in the process.

Control and Synthesis can represent various degrees of Shepard submitting to reaper indoctrination. This makes it harder to defeat the reapers (synthesis being the hardest, representing giving in to exactly what the reapers want), but that is again determined by EMS.

The crucible can still be used as a weapon. Perhaps it still even destroys the mass relays, and the galaxy's ability to rebuild and/or reverse engineer them is determined by EMS.

These are all incomplete thoughts that I'm just throwing out.

Essentially what I want:

-the ability to get an ending with reasonable hope that galactic society can put its self back together within the current generation (in basic structure anyways, I expect heavy heavy casualties regardless of ending).

-an ending that tells me how decisions I made played out down the line (curing/not curing genophage, Quarians and the Geth, etc). Even if it's only DA:O-style slides.

-an ending that tells me what happens to my squadmates. It doesn't have to be ridiculously detailed, but I want to know how they move on with their lives (something that could be determined by Shepard's relationships with the characters, whether Shepard is alive or dead, etc). Especially LIs and characters who have been there through the whole trilogy.

[Nephilym83]

Pay attention to everything written in this article:

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

If you guys could address even HALF of what is written in that article you will be on the right track.

[Blazingkats]

1.A person should be able to achieve 100% galactic readiness without being forced to play Multiplayer.

2.Closure.

[kzao88]

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

Modifié par kzao88, 17 mars 2012 - 05:20 .

[Khevan77]

This will get lost in the shuffle, since the entire BSN is raging over this issue. However, I felt the need to state my opinion and hope that it will be heard and perhaps be understood.

I, too, have an issue with the War Assets system, seeing as how it's almost universally accepted that there is no way to achieve all endings (best is a subjective term in this scenario) unless you participate in online activities or with the iOS app. This was specifically stated to be completely optional during the lead-up to ME3, and while technically this is true, in spirit it is absolutely false. You do not need multiplayer to have access to the three different options, and for earth to survive, but to see the "breath" scene (easter egg?), you need more than the single-player alone. This is shady advertising, if not technically false advertising.

The Star Child/Catalyst needs to be completely reworked/rethought. Having a sentient being (whether AI, AI/Organic synthesis or whatever) in charge of the Citadel completely negates the entire plot of ME1&2. If the Catalyst decided that the current cycle of civilizations was ripe for reaping, it would have been able to open the Citadel Relay into darkspace and let the Reapers through, and there would have been no need for Saren, Sovereign, the beacons, any of the events that occur in ME1. And since ME1 is invalidated, ME2 falls flat because it relies on ME1 to make sense. The Catalyst itself completely RUINED the Mass Effect franchise.

The endings themselves (merge/control/destroy) aren't too horrible, in and of themselves, except for the whole destroying the relay network thing. This would lead to trapped fleets, systems that are devistated and unable to rebuild because of lack of outside help, rampant starvation of dextro- based lifeforms on levo- based worlds, and vice versa. Instead of a vision of hope as the galaxy starts "over," we see an implied apocalypse where the reapers are gone, but entire civilizations starve. Destroy the relays, sure, I'm ok with that, but change the generic ending to account for this apocalypse, give a way out. Let there be some hope for life to continue without it being a horrendous catastrophe.

Finally, however Bioware chooses to introduce the concept of the choices at the endgame, it needs to be foreshadowed somehow. These endings were ripped nearly complete from Deus Ex, and as I've said before the endings made sense in that game. They made sense because the choices were given by three differing factions, the choice that faction gave made sense for them, and the choices were offered during nearly the entire last level of the game. This gave the player time to understand what was being asked, and to mentally and emotionally prepare him/herself for the final choice. In ME3, the choice is sprung on you completely by surprise, with no real lead up, no foreshadowing. It completely flopped our perceptions of where the game was going, and it was too jarring of a twist. It just didn't work at all.

I can live with the choices, provided that the apocalypse caused by the destruction of the Relay system can be averted, or at least mitigated, by choices made during the game, or war assets collected, or whatever. But I cannot stomach the way the choices were presented. It's too jarring, to slap-dash, and it feels amateurish. As polished as the rest of the games' writing was, I have to shake my head that the writers at Bioware decided this was a good idea. I am not trying to demean anyone, but this is a time where I feel that harsh criticism is warranted, especially as it's intended to be constructive. I have no wish to hurt feelings, or to imply that the writers did any less than give their all...I really, truly believe that they worked their asses off to write ME3, but the endings just didn't work, and I don't know how they passed muster.

Please, Bioware, take this criticism in the spirit it was intended. I thoroughly enjoyed my trip through Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3, and I honestly thought ME3 was the best of the trilogy. The RPG elements were perfectly implemented, the combat was tight and polished, the atmostphere of the entire game was dark, gritty and matched the setting perfectly...everything was grade "A" top notch, Best Game of ALL TIME material....until the last 10 minutes. I appreciate the hard work that was put into this game (and the two preceding it), but if the endings were intended to be as they are now, I...I don't know. I just don't know. I don't want to be melodramatic and say that Bioware has ruined it all for me, but that's pretty darned close to how I feel right now.

[gbanas92]

Everything up until Harbinger begins slaughtering your forces is excellent, but after that, working the indoctrination theory in seems to be the most plausible. And most importantly, some degree of closure that explains what happens to all the important characters of the series, up to and including a funeral for those who were lost. The inclusion of a "Happy" (not super happy, but one that offers happy aspects among the death and destruction) ending that allows for a surviving Shepard to settle down with his love interest (Tali in most of my playthroughs), or just show them together again at least once more before the game concludes. The current endings don't even have to be eliminated, just using the indoctrination theory right after the current ending and adding all of the desired things after that would be sufficient to satisfy a massive amount of the complaints that are currently circulating.

By pulling off all of these situations in an attempt to make everything better, this would (could?) result in the reinstatement of choice and allowing people's decisions to matter once more, as the ending in its current iteration seems as if it goes directly against the basic premise of the game.

Modifié par gbanas92, 17 mars 2012 - 05:28 .

[TiaraBlade]

 
Since this seems to be the thread that at least some developers are monitoring (and I thank you for the opportunity for fan input), I will repost a bit here. The first part will be a few bits of general philosophy while the latter will have some ideas on how I, personally IMHO, would have liked to see the endings be earned and played out. I do not claim that any of those ideas are particularly revolutionary.

Philosophy regarding endings in general:

A story in general is an emotional event: we laugh, we cry, and we are moved as we experience the ups and downs of the journey. Tension builds and releases, fortunes hit peaks and valleys until the end where we receive the four C's of a proper ending: climax, catharsis, conclusion, and coherence.

Climax: We did not get that in ME3. The final minutes are gimpy Shepherd staggering to a final conversation with The Illusive Man. TIM is not the true antagonist although he is an interesting view of what the antagonist is capable of: subverting even the strongest willed man from his purpose. The reapers, especially Harbinger, are yet they are strangely absent (minus that laser attack that almost kills Shepherd) as are any forces to stop Shepherd from activating the Crucible.

It is, frankly, boring nor does it pay off the reaper as antagonists. There are other comments as well but that will be better suited when I speak of video game endings.

Catharsis: relatively little. Earth is saved in the better endings and the Reapers are stopped but none of the solutions satisfy: destroy ALL synthetics, just make the Reapers go away where who knows what will happen, or force a merge between organic and synthetic. And, it seems, that Shepherd is no more in any of those endings. Where is the ending that the story was about: destroy the reapers and settle down in a united galaxy where you can have little blue babies (or something similar)?


We start to get some emotional release as the Reapers fall but the high price paid under cuts it, along with distracting like: is Shepherd alive, how bad is the damage, hey why is Joker running away, etc... that distract. Also, the sheer destruction and devastation of the loss of the mass relays makes the victory a Pyrrhic one that undoes all the progress of uniting a galaxy, returning the Quarians to their homes and children to the Krogan. Indeed, the longer you think of those fleets and aliens stranded on a ravaged world, the worse it gets.

Conclusion: too many unanswered questions as noted above, compounded with new ones like where did the Normandy land, will they get back to the Alliance? Who is that old man and the kid and why should I care? What happened to the people I met and the galaxy I wanted to save?

Coherence: the ending was simply incoherent with the established character of Shepherd and the themes of the Mass Effect games. Shepherd has faced down the god-like Reapers, listened to their spiel about not being able to win, and not only told the Reapers off but also overcame them. Why would he now accept that the only actions open to him how are what some out of nowhere Star Child is telling him?


Shepherd is always told how things will be and he has always forged a path to achieve the impossible: stop Sovereign, come back from the dead, survive a suicide mission with all of his team, end a 300 year old war between the Quarians and Geth, and cure the genophage. Impossible is what he does.


The themes of tolerance, overcoming great odds, and the ability of diverse people to come together were also violated. The Star Child gives a false premise: synthetics and organics are doomed to always fight and kill one another even as I have brokered a peace between Geth and Quarian, BOTH fighting their mutual enemy the Reapers who would certainly break down the Geth once the organics are defeated. This proof is ignored as the Star Child inflicts his irrational solution to prevent organics and synthetics from killing each other: unleashing a bunch of synthetics to kill organics.


Philosophy regarding endings in video games:


In an interactive medium, especially in a Bioware game, choice is important. As noted above though, with the relays destroyed, all those civilization changing choices one makes are undone. Nothing I did mattered, it seemed. Also, no matter what I did, the choices from the Star Child are the same. Synthesis is available with a higher strength but it's hardly a golden ending.


Also important are the actions that we must take to earn the ending. The final moments are simply an interactive cut scene. The conversation is an interesting one but also frustrating: the best action (special renegade or paragon options) appear to be locked out despite a maxed reputation bar and charisma. As near as I can tell, it's because I took a few actions that were not renegade or not paragon. Changing the game choices based on actions is sound but the above seemed a little harsh.


Still, it was interesting and fulfills the strength of the conversation system and yet.., that as the final action to earn the ending lacks a visceral satisfaction. Also, the Illusive Man was ultimately a pawn and not the true enemy: the Reapers. Also, why would be be the final obstacle between you and the weapon to stop the Reapers? A few dozen Brutes around the console, just in case, makes more sense.


The final moments of Mass Effect, talking Saren into killing himself but then having to face a personified Sovereign was more satisfying and paid homage to the strength of both the game's dialogue and combat.


Finally, gamers do not usually want a "polarizing ending" or one that ends in failure. Some movies can get away with this because it is only a two hour, non interactive adventure. After 100 -150 hours of fighting a war across three games, one especially ones climx, catharsis, and conclusions in a package that is coherent to the story, characters, and themes. We want answers, not more questions.


Possible Endings
Again, I do not think these are particularly revolutionary but at least they would have made sense, satisfied, and stayed true to the themes and player desires. As a sidenote,
the best ending should be achievable in the single player campaign. Alternate routes via multi-player are fine but single players should not be punished.


On to the endings:

1. If you don't do the side quests or just choose really poorly, earth blows up and Reapers win... the cycle continues.

2. Get enough resources and the reapers are beaten but the fleet is so scattered after the battle that no one is in position to pick you up as the Citadel goes down. Shepherd dies.

3. Get some more resources and you ahve the choice: the fleet can try to break through to rescue you but the dying Reapers are not going gently into that night. You can issue the order to make the attempt and they succeed but maybe something big happens like you lose a faction or lose the Normandy with some of your teammates on it. Or you decide it's too risky and accept your death, telling them that it's been an honor and telling your love interest how much you love him or her.

4. Get even more resources and the fleet roars through the reapers without losses and the Normandy rescues you, your own lose interest helping to pull you in.

Perhaps if you resolved the Geth/Quarians war and had Jeff/EDI fall in love such that some of the Reapers might even realize that they don't have to reap anymore and either leave the fight or turn on the other reapers. You could get the better endings with less resources. If you wiped out either Geth or Quarian, this just proves that the Star Child is right and you need more resources. Maybe if you get EDI onto the Citadel, she can interface with the Reapers (possibly at the cost of her life) to reveal that she fights for the organics because she believes in them and even loves one.

Just some ideas but in the above, your actions through the game matter and you get to make that choice of sacrifice rather than having it forced upon you. As long as the reapers are beaten, you get a good ending where you see what happens afterward: the galaxy rebuilding and old enmities cast aside for new friendships. If you died, there is a funeral attended by dignitaries who survived and your eulogy is delivered that highlights what you did over three games. Your love interest, if appropriate, might have something to remember you by (like Liara) and the station where the N7 program is located is renamed after Shepherd.

Live, and you also get an ending that touches on so many of your choices and Shep is considering whether he/she will continue to be a Spectre, be a diplomat if Paragon or something else if Renegade, and possibly even marry their LI.

Meaningful, unique, shaped by your choices, cathartic, heroic, and providing not only closure but a future as well. It's what the fans wanted after so long and Bioware failed to deliver in favor of some last minute swerve to be all cool and "polarizing."

[ed87]

Answer more questions in the lore. Make player choices matter in the end

[TheOriginalGoochman]

Please make our choices matter.......what we invested our amazing moments as commander shepard into.....see them come into play in the end.
I would love to see Indoctrination ending be true.

I don't care if shepard does die in the end, but I want there to be a sense of "This man/woman did these things to make the galaxy a better/worse place" and let us see the outcome....so we know that Shep didn't die in vain (Although if you have 'em live that would be cool)

Again having the ending sequence (of ME 3) be just indoctrination would be AMAZING.......let us get up and continue the fight, showing the reapers who are the true masters of the galaxy

So yeah, maybe have the starchild be Harbringer's indoctrination attempt........but over all LET OUR CHOICES over the past 5 years MATTER....and please provide closure to whatever form the outcome of our choices may be (in different ways....not colors......)

(I am typing this as I listen to the AMAZING soundtrack......so epic)

Modifié par TheOriginalGoochman, 17 mars 2012 - 06:00 .

[scrapmetals]

I read this in another thread, but I'd actually love a chance to defend the options I made in the previous games (plus 3 of course).