286 réponses à ce sujet

[2484Stryker]

No Snakes Alive wrote...

Ma3j wrote...

No Snakes Alive wrote...

After 100+ hours of some of the very best gaming I've experienced in a life spent gaming, I'm still thinking about the ending more than anything else, and I at the very least love that about it. The ending ties in symbolically, metaphorically, philosophically, etc. with everything from the characters, dialogue and gameplay design of the series itself to real life ideologies about the nature of technology, humanity, theology, and so on.

There's a lot to think about, a lot beneath the surface of the final choices and how they were presented, and a lot to decide for ourselves, which is what Mass Effect has always been about. Shepard and co. told us all along that nothing about our victories in this war would come easy, and I'm glad that carries over to the ending too. I'd much rather figure it all out days - even weeks - later than have Bioware go against everything this series has taught me gaming is capable of and figure it all out for me.

“If you have to ask what it symbolizes, it didn't.”
― Roger Ebert

Good quote, bro! Except that Roger Ebert is a ****ing idiot of the highest order who had to retract his statement that videogames can't be art when his whole life is dedicated to the artistry of the most similar medium out there.

And except that it would take a complete moron to fail to grasp some of the blatant symbolism here. I mean, ****, the nature of the choices you make throughout the series AND the endings are even ****ing color-coded for you lmaoooo.

Really loving the snide remarks from the peanut gallery. No longer very surprised at why some of you couldn't grasp and thus did not like the ending.

So a 10 minute ending can't ruin a series, but one stupid quote from a guy can ruin his reputation?  Sheesh, what a **&*ing joke you are.

[Asari]

I love this gameseries from the bottom of my heart..But I will never be able to understand how some can get something good out of this ending.

Bioware should've gone with the original endings.

[Wolven_Soul]

ashdrake1 wrote...

sean10mm wrote...

The Star Child telling my character that organic-synthetic conflict is inevitable might make more sense if I hadn't spent a good chunk of the game succesfully ending the Quarian-Geth war, making them allies, and uniting them against the Reapers while my pilot was dating an AI, and all without using genocide. Just a thought.

I really wish bioware had put in the option to argue with the starchild.  People could have thier Shepard try and argue philosphy with a being that is millions of years old.  It could result in shepard bleeding out and the reapers killing everything.  

Shepard is dying.  There is no button to push, no monster to kill.  No option to shoot harbinger in the face while shouting "Reap this!' then going home to sleep with the chearleader.  Shepard knows he/she is dying and is looking for a solution not a debate with an equivelent god.  If you hesitate all you did means nothing and everything will die.

Except that we see Shepherd taking that breath in the last second of the destroy ending.  Yep, he's really dying there.  Good call.

[No Snakes Alive]

2484Stryker wrote...

Throwing a bunch of meaningful words together in a sentence doesn't mean the ending was meaningful. That ending betrays every theme presented to us by Mass Effect. It's not philosophical, metaphorical, or symbolically relevant.

It's just plain bad.

I've seen this thrown out so matter-of-factly all throughout this thread without any support whatsoever given to the claim. What does it betray exactly and how?

It's insulting for you to label something I like and support with reasoning as objectively bad without a single reason. I don't think the ending is bad; I think you're bad at connecting dots.

[xMellowhype]

No Snakes Alive wrote...

2484Stryker wrote...

Throwing a bunch of meaningful words together in a sentence doesn't mean the ending was meaningful. That ending betrays every theme presented to us by Mass Effect. It's not philosophical, metaphorical, or symbolically relevant.

It's just plain bad.

I've seen this thrown out so matter-of-factly all throughout this thread without any support whatsoever given to the claim. What does it betray exactly and how?

It's insulting for you to label something I like and support with reasoning as objectively bad without a single reason. I don't think the ending is bad; I think you're bad at connecting dots.

Oh the sheer irony here is amazing.

[Wolven_Soul]

No Snakes Alive wrote...

1Nosphorus1 wrote...

CaliGuy033 wrote...

InfiniteDemise wrote...

Only if he was actually doing that to refute arguements the OP was making. He
wasn't, he was satirizing the end, which content that the OP didn't create, to explain why HE didn't like it.

The worst you could call it is an appeal to ridicule, but it doesn't follow that it automatically is a strawman.

He was satirizing the end to refute the OP's argument that the end was good, thereby misrepresenting the OP's position about what he liked and enjoyed.

This really isn't that difficult.  Seriously.

The OP has nothing in it to make it an arguement on why the ending was good.

This really isn't that difficult. Seriously.

Here's why I liked the ending: the obvious choice all along was no longer so obvious. The reapers almost convinced me of exactly what they convinced Saren and TIM, who I thought to be weak-willed and just plain evil up until this point. Everything that WAS black and white suddenly got swirled together in a moment's notice and now it was all gray.

Even what I knew to still be the right choice, the one the voice of indoctrination tried to play off as pretty much worse than the others, actually DID turn out to be worse than I expected it to be. In order to beat the reapers I was forced to project their own purpose upon MINE, and it left a bad taste in my mouth, shook my moral compass to the core, and really provoked a lot of thought, and I loved it for all of that. The whole idea of them being a necessary evil to save the universe became a direct reflection of my own need to sacrifice all synthetics - synthetics I had just come to fully realize the humanity of - in order to save the rest of us.

I liked the ending because I knew what had to be done all along but only the end made me really wonder about the nature of everything it took (and meant) to do it.

I have never seen these games as black and white.  There has always been a theme in these games about doing what has to be done, no matter how heinous it might seem, to save the galaxy.  There are a lot of hard choices, and even picking the seemingly 'morally right' choice, has consequences in the long run. 

I.E. Curing the krogans saves them from extinction, but could lead to another krogan rebellion.  I hvae always seen shades of gray.

[Devil Mingy]

No Snakes Alive wrote...

Good quote, bro! Except that Roger Ebert is a ****ing idiot of the highest order who had to retract his statement that videogames can't be art when his whole life is dedicated to the artistry of the most similar medium out there.

And except that it would take a complete moron to fail to grasp some of the blatant symbolism here. I mean, ****, the nature of the choices you make throughout the series AND the endings are even ****ing color-coded for you lmaoooo.

Really loving the snide remarks from the peanut gallery. No longer very surprised at why some of you couldn't grasp and thus did not like the ending.

For a second there, I thought you were making a decent argument. Oh well.

[Wolven_Soul]

CaliGuy033 wrote...

InfiniteDemise wrote...

Not really. It'd be like pointing out a crack in the sidewalk and them saying that they like that it was designed that way.

Yeah....that's.....apt. 

Made sense to me.  I have not seen that video, but I understand where he is coming from in that statement.

[2484Stryker]

No Snakes Alive wrote...
I've seen this thrown out so matter-of-factly all throughout this thread without any support whatsoever given to the claim. What does it betray exactly and how?

It's insulting for you to label something I like and support with reasoning as objectively bad without a single reason. I don't think the ending is bad; I think you're bad at connecting dots.

Mass Effect is about making choices and facing the consequences; it's about uniting the galaxy and your friends; it's about facing the impossible and winning; it's about investigating & making up your own mind.  I don't understand how you can't derive that from all the hours you must have spent playing ME1 and ME2.

That ending throws everything above out the window.  Shepard is well aware of Reaper indoctrination and how insidious it can be.  He has witnessed it firsthand just moments prior.  But when vent brat, who admits to be the creator of the Reapers, gives Shepard three choices, Shepard does not questions and does not challenge, and simply chooses.  If that's not betraying the core themes of ME and completely out of character, then I don't know what is.

And wild speculation and imagination isn't connecting the dots, it's failed conjecture.

Modifié par 2484Stryker, 30 mars 2012 - 02:41 .

[demin8891]

If they hadn't promised vastly different endings where your choices actually mattered, I wouldn't have minded the endings as much. I would have been disappointed, but I wouldn't be holding the line. Instead, BioWare lied and broke promises, gave me two choices masked as 16, and expected me to be happy with a god-like force that makes, some how, with no explanation, renders the Reaper threat harmless and provides speculation when closure and certainty were promised.

**** that. I'm glad you're okay with being swindled. I, however, am not.

Modifié par demin8891, 30 mars 2012 - 02:53 .

[Wolven_Soul]

No Snakes Alive wrote...

So the vast majority of you really do believe the choices presented to you? Holy crap I'd be pissed too!

I'm sorry but even avoiding all spoilers until long after the ending sunk in I thought it was painstakingly obvious the starchild was just the voice of indoctrination. I thought it was brilliant how convincing it was, which really made me question my faith in myself (Shepard) over Saren and TIM, but I still thought it was so blatantly an attempt to persuade you that destroying the reapers wouldn't make a difference and that controlling them/synthesizing would be preferable. To me this was an obvious ploy and the Catalyst taking the form of something embedded in Shepard's mind (the boy from Earth) only made it even clearer to me that this was a voice in my head and one I did not want to persuade me off my gameplan.

There was a lot of truth in what it said (which is why indoctrination was so effective!) but I just didn't fully buy the idea of the eternal conflict between organic creator and synthetic creation (I just united Quarians and Geth!), or the harmony of synthesis (Husks, anyone?), or the ease of control (Bravo, TIM) or so on and so forth. I wondered about their plausibility but in the end remained steadfast in my resolve. I didn't give in to the coercion but holy crap a lot of people seem to have done just that.

Maybe I projected too much of my own self into the ending and that's why I like it so much. Maybe I filled in too many blanks. But isn't that the point? I think it's a matter of perspective, and the ending, for many, giving you a lot of bad answers, versus the ending, for me and very few others, simply making us ask good questions.

I can see where dislike would stem from but I find it hard to believe so many people think the ending was simply some randomly-introduced plot device of a character providing three straightforward choices with lame repercussions...

Woah, woah, woah, now your saying you believe in the indoctrination theory?  Umm...okay.  First of all, I wish, I realllly wish that Indoctrination is what was going on here.  However, I am not entirely sure that is the case yet.  Time will tell, but I am not convinced yet that the endings we got are not just bad writing because it is what they intended all along.  Besides, if Indoctrination is what is going on here, then what we got, is not the real ending.

[Janus382]

No Snakes Alive wrote...
*snip
The ending ties in symbolically, metaphorically, philosophically, etc. with everything from the characters, dialogue and gameplay design of the series itself to real life ideologies about the nature of technology, humanity, theology, and so on.

There's a lot to think about, a lot beneath the surface of the final choices and how they were presented, and a lot to decide for ourselves, which is what Mass Effect has always been about.
*snip

I can't agree with any part of the above.  At all.  It's just... I don't even... no.  None of it.  Did we play the same series?

I'm tired of typing the same things over and over in response to similar posts, so I'll just link the most appropriate (and relevant, not trolling) video that pretty much nails it.  

 (Tasteful, understated nerdrage)

Modifié par Janus382, 30 mars 2012 - 02:52 .

[Craigolas]

Geomon19 wrote...

I'd also like to thank the writers for giving me half a story and giving me the opportunity to pay them so I can fill in the rest with my imagination. That's just awesome.

Here is a great story written from me to you...

Ready?

Chapter 1.

Fill in the blanks with your imagination!

The End...or is it?

Modifié par Craigolas, 30 mars 2012 - 02:51 .

[Geneaux486]

demin8891 wrote...


Enjoy your ban.

Said the troll.

[aliengmr1]

Wolven_Soul wrote...

No Snakes Alive wrote...

So the vast majority of you really do believe the choices presented to you? Holy crap I'd be pissed too!

I'm sorry but even avoiding all spoilers until long after the ending sunk in I thought it was painstakingly obvious the starchild was just the voice of indoctrination. I thought it was brilliant how convincing it was, which really made me question my faith in myself (Shepard) over Saren and TIM, but I still thought it was so blatantly an attempt to persuade you that destroying the reapers wouldn't make a difference and that controlling them/synthesizing would be preferable. To me this was an obvious ploy and the Catalyst taking the form of something embedded in Shepard's mind (the boy from Earth) only made it even clearer to me that this was a voice in my head and one I did not want to persuade me off my gameplan.

There was a lot of truth in what it said (which is why indoctrination was so effective!) but I just didn't fully buy the idea of the eternal conflict between organic creator and synthetic creation (I just united Quarians and Geth!), or the harmony of synthesis (Husks, anyone?), or the ease of control (Bravo, TIM) or so on and so forth. I wondered about their plausibility but in the end remained steadfast in my resolve. I didn't give in to the coercion but holy crap a lot of people seem to have done just that.

Maybe I projected too much of my own self into the ending and that's why I like it so much. Maybe I filled in too many blanks. But isn't that the point? I think it's a matter of perspective, and the ending, for many, giving you a lot of bad answers, versus the ending, for me and very few others, simply making us ask good questions.

I can see where dislike would stem from but I find it hard to believe so many people think the ending was simply some randomly-introduced plot device of a character providing three straightforward choices with lame repercussions...

Woah, woah, woah, now your saying you believe in the indoctrination theory?  Umm...okay.  First of all, I wish, I realllly wish that Indoctrination is what was going on here.  However, I am not entirely sure that is the case yet.  Time will tell, but I am not convinced yet that the endings we got are not just bad writing because it is what they intended all along.  Besides, if Indoctrination is what is going on here, then what we got, is not the real ending.

My reaction was this exactly.

Guess I didn't pick up on it.

[No Snakes Alive]

2484Stryker wrote...

No Snakes Alive wrote...
I've seen this thrown out so matter-of-factly all throughout this thread without any support whatsoever given to the claim. What does it betray exactly and how?

It's insulting for you to label something I like and support with reasoning as objectively bad without a single reason. I don't think the ending is bad; I think you're bad at connecting dots.

Mass Effect is about making choices and facing the consequences; it's about uniting the galaxy and your friends; it's about facing the impossible and winning; it's about investigating & making up your own mind.  I don't understand how you can't derive that from all the hours you must have spent playing ME1 and ME2.

That ending throws everything above out the window.  Shepard is well aware of Reaper indoctrination and how insidious it can be.  He has witnessed it firsthand just moments prior.  But when vent brat, who admits to be the creator of the Reapers, gives Shepard three choices, Shepard does not questions and does not challenge, and simply chooses.  If that's not betraying the core themes of ME and completely out of character, then I don't know what is.

And wild speculation and imagination isn't connecting the dots, it's failed conjecture.

This makes absolutely no sense to me. You came there to destroy the reapers once and for all and now you want to be able to challenge that option? That is THE choice to make. It's the only one that ends in Shepard surviving, FFS. What bigger clue do they need to give you that it's the only right one?

You really think that's the creator of the reapers giving you options? I can't help you then.

[Erield]

No Snakes Alive wrote...

2484Stryker wrote...

Throwing a bunch of meaningful words together in a sentence doesn't mean the ending was meaningful. That ending betrays every theme presented to us by Mass Effect. It's not philosophical, metaphorical, or symbolically relevant.

It's just plain bad.

I've seen this thrown out so matter-of-factly all throughout this thread without any support whatsoever given to the claim. What does it betray exactly and how?

It's insulting for you to label something I like and support with reasoning as objectively bad without a single reason. I don't think the ending is bad; I think you're bad at connecting dots.

Synthetics vs. Organics is a prominent theme throughout ME.  However, from the in-game perspective, what we are shown is that we really can get along.  At the very least, a paragon Shep can.  This does not refute the Star Child's statement that eventually there will be a technological singularity, blah blah blah.  However, the fact that we are not allowed to even address the fact that it is possible for everyone to get along is a betrayal of the most prominent theme of paragon-Shep: If we work hard, we can all live together and form something greater than the sum of our parts.  The Star Child says "No you can't" and Shepard doesn't even try to say "But we can."  He just nods and moves on.

One of the major focuses of the game is on the characters; the characters are what drew me into the game universe in the first place.  Bioware actually made me care about them, on a personal level, that is perhaps sad and embarrassing, but also emblematic of storytelling at its finest.  Why would they abandon this focus in the last minutes of the game?  Why would they deliberately put so much confusion in, without resolving the issue of what happened to my squad- and crew-mates?  Sure, I got a chance to say goodbye to them--but that was before I died saving the galaxy from the Reapers (and destroying it in the process).  What are they doing after that?  How do they react to that?  And why the **** is Joker fleeing through FTL or maybe a Relay jump or something, and then crash-landing on Random Habitable Planet #000431?  How did Tali get from the beam on Earth to be hanging out with Joker? Etc.  Etc.  Etc.

The ME games had a nice, clean narrative focus and coherency throughout the games.  There were blips and mis-steps along the way, but they did a good enough job that it was easy to over-look the problems and focus on the good.  When they stepped away from the tried and true model of, literally, every thing that they had done in-game before, they disrupted this focus to a mind-jarring degree. Why is the motivation of the Reapers reduced to what, two lines of dialogue, where we are allowed to refute one line?  Why is the Star Child involved in the ending at all?  What is happening when Shepard is "assuming control" of the Reapers?  Will he control them forever, until someone else "assumes control" the same way he did, or does he just get one command to send out as he is being disintegrated? Those are just the immediate questions that I thought of regarding one of the possible choices, and there is literally zero information on this in the entire game, books, codex, tweets, or forum posts.  This completely ignores the fact that there is very little reason to believe that this kind of thing is actually possible.

The problems with the ending continues on from here; this is nothing more than a basic overview of some of the ways in which it fails.

[demin8891]

Geneaux486 wrote...

demin8891 wrote...


Enjoy your ban.

Said the troll.

Said the troll.

[Wolven_Soul]

BuckHammer wrote...

 I didn't mind the endings. The only things I HATED about the ending were the lack of closure and the false promises made by BioWare. It's clear that BioWare won't follow through with their promises, so I must settle for closure, which they will provide, supposedly. In general, though, I liked the ending, and here's why:

1) Bittersweet. I love bittersweet endings. Disney endings that contain "And Happily Ever After"  make me nauseous. I know you guys say that you don't want a happy ending, but a lot of you do. And yes, "I want the OPTION of a happy ending" = "I want a happy ending".

No it doesn't.  It just means people like variety in their endings.  I do not honestly think that we would have anywhere near as many complainers if the only problem with the ending was that there was no happy ending option.  I think most people pretty much expected a bitter sweet ending where Shepherd sacrificed himself.  I know that I did, no matter how much I would have liked a happy ending, and I admit that I did.  However, I would be more than happy with a bitter sweet ending that made sense.

5) I love the theme of sacrifice. By the way, yes, creating an option that would allow you to finish the mission scot-free would demolish this theme. If that option were available, you would have to intentionally avoid it in order to enjoy the theme of sacrifice. The problem with that is in order for a sacrifice to mean anything, it has to be wholly necessary. If it can be avoided, then it is unnecessary. Then, it would be pure wastefulness and suicide as opposed to a wholesome sacrifice. There is a huge difference.

I disagree.  Even if Shepherd lives there has been a whole lot of sacrifice  Mordin, Thane, Legion, Kaiden/Ashley, Anderson.  Just because none of these are Shepherd does not mean that the theme of sacrifice is destroyed.  That, and hundreds of millions of people have died in this war, dozens of planets destroyed, relays and citadel destroyed.  That is a lot of sacrifice.  I am not making an arguement to say that Shepheard should have lived here, I am just saying the theme of sacrifice is still present if he did.

[TeffexPope]

No Snakes Alive wrote...

There's a lot to think about, a lot beneath the surface of the final choices and how they were presented, and a lot to decide for ourselves, which is what Mass Effect has always been about. Shepard and co. told us all along that nothing about our victories in this war would come easy, and I'm glad that carries over to the ending too. I'd much rather figure it all out days - even weeks - later than have Bioware go against everything this series has taught me gaming is capable of and figure it all out for me.

Then why bother putting all the work they did into the universe lore? The codex, the planet descriptions. Why not leave the details of the tech in the game up to us to imagine and figure out for ourselves? They came up with the story. They came up with the reapers. Then they decided they didn't want to explain the reapers beyond some stupid logic, and destroy the chance of any future games in the ME universe that take place after the Shepard storyline.

Bioware has said that not all their details were figured out when they set out to make the series; i.e. in the ME, the C atalyst and Crucible were likely not thought of yet, or not fully fleshed out. So how does it make any sense for htem to say "let's destroy the mass relays, preventing us from ever doing any future games"? How can they be so sure that they won't want to do a game after the Shepard storyline, when they didn't even know when they set out how you were going to defeat the reapers? That's so shortsighted!

[FieryIceQueen]

No Snakes Alive wrote...

If you can't draw your own conclusions from what you've been given or simply don't want to/ think Bioware should draw more of it out for you, oh well. Your loss, to be honest.

A lot of people who like the ending tend to explain their reaction in this way. They like the ending because it confused them and that stimulates their brain... which they found pleasurable... or something. I'm not ADHD, so I can't relate.

I would argue that if you think the ending fits with the rest of the series, then you are not being objective. You are making too many assumptions. If shepard was indoctrinated at the end of the game, the developers would have made it clear that that was the case. Since they did not, we must take the ending at face value.

[JMA22TB]

No Snakes Alive wrote...

Really? REALLY?

THIS much outrage over endings that leave a lot up to interpretation in a game series that has stressed player choice from the start?

So let me get this straight: we want obvious black and white choices that answer everything for us in a game about player choice? We don't want thought-provoking endings that leave enough up to our own interpretation that we can come up with theories that reach 10,000+ responses in these forums?

After 100+ hours of some of the very best gaming I've experienced in a life spent gaming, I'm still thinking about the ending more than anything else, and I at the very least love that about it. The ending ties in symbolically, metaphorically, philosophically, etc. with everything from the characters, dialogue and gameplay design of the series itself to real life ideologies about the nature of technology, humanity, theology, and so on.

There's a lot to think about, a lot beneath the surface of the final choices and how they were presented, and a lot to decide for ourselves, which is what Mass Effect has always been about. Shepard and co. told us all along that nothing about our victories in this war would come easy, and I'm glad that carries over to the ending too. I'd much rather figure it all out days - even weeks - later than have Bioware go against everything this series has taught me gaming is capable of and figure it all out for me.

I may be in the minority but I'm okay with that. I'd just like to thank the writers of the ending just as much as everyone else involved in this project for keeping this journey my own until the credits rolled, and helping cement Mass Effect as the best series I've ever played.

Oh lord the kraken has been released!



Watch out folks here comes the artistic integrity!

[Wolven_Soul]

ashdrake1 wrote...


Nothing from the Reapers indicate they know about the starchild.  The history of the prior games reflect this to be case.  The starchild states he created the reapers, not that he controls them.  He also belives that the created would turn on the creator.  Anouther reason for them not to know about him.  

Except we hear the Reapers sayng that they are our salvation.  That lends credence to the possibility that the know about the Starchild, and his solution.  If your going to say that every Reaper gets a program when they are created saying that 'we exist to save organic life by purging it every so often so that synthetics can't destroy it', then that is just kind of lame.

Especially since Sovereign has claimed that they are each a nation and independent.

[Sal86]

I'm so confused! I really want IT to be true, because i would love it.

But I also want it to turn ou to be false so that all these condescending.... folks, who state IT as an obvious fact can be proven wrong?

Did I just come up with a win/win situation of the outcome of this debacle? O_o

[No Snakes Alive]

Janus382 wrote...

No Snakes Alive wrote...
*snip
The ending ties in symbolically, metaphorically, philosophically, etc. with everything from the characters, dialogue and gameplay design of the series itself to real life ideologies about the nature of technology, humanity, theology, and so on.

There's a lot to think about, a lot beneath the surface of the final choices and how they were presented, and a lot to decide for ourselves, which is what Mass Effect has always been about.
*snip

I can't agree with any part of the above.  At all.  It's just... I don't even... no.  None of it.  Did we play the same series?

I'm tired of typing the same things over and over in response to similar posts, so I'll just link the most appropriate (and relevant, not trolling) video that pretty much nails it.  

 (Tasteful, understated nerdrage)

There are direct references made to concepts of objectivism, autonomy, and so on made in conversations throughout the game, reflected in the conversations surrounding the final choices. Direct. Do you really need to be beaten over the head with heavy-handed rhetoric in order to notice this stuff or does brief, direct mention of key terms in the context of the game's plot suffice? I guess not.