This is still how I feel:
OFFICIAL: EA announces Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut DLC (FREE!)
Débuté par
shepskisaac
, avril 05 2012 01:16
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#2752
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:08
hammyhamstersy
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Why do i get the feeling that we're going to get a bunch of power point slides with bullet points to 'clarify' the ending?
But seriously, I hope this is not the reason that we were told to hold on to our ME3 saves...
But seriously, I hope this is not the reason that we were told to hold on to our ME3 saves...
#2753
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:08
terdferguson123
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Myrmedus wrote...
terdferguson123 wrote...
ForceXev wrote...
I love how people are already basically posting "reviews" of this DLC. "OMG, this DLC sucks!"
Really? Are you all time travelers? Can I get a ride in your time machines?
Latching onto a few words like "clarity," "closure" and "cutscenes" is not enough to make a fair judgement of this DLC.
I'm happy to be taking away these three things from this announcement:
A) They really are doing something.They're taking until the summer, which gives them time to do it right, not a rush job.
C) It's FREE
Give it a chance. If it fails to answer the issues and the plot holes and it sucks, THEN I will complain along with you. We have to actually play it first before we judge it.
OMG another person with a brain. No way!
Pre-requisite to "having a brain" = Agreeing with Tardferguson.
And I thought I was egomaniacal.
Well, you can throw insults around all day. But, this poster and a handful of others are the only other people I have come across in this thread that have shown they have the mental capacity to realize that judging something before it's even released is about as dumb as humanly possible.
Modifié par terdferguson123, 05 avril 2012 - 10:10 .
#2754
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:08
RiouHotaru
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The fact you folks honestly expected a complete re-write, and thought Bioware would actually do that?
You set yourselves up to be let down. The only ones to blame here is you.
You set yourselves up to be let down. The only ones to blame here is you.
#2755
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:09
goofyomnivore
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If they truly fix my three major complaints. I will be pleased. The ending won't be great, but it will be tolerable.
Normandy crash scene
lack of interaction with Catalyst/Relays always being destroyed
and text or cinematic epilogue
Normandy crash scene
lack of interaction with Catalyst/Relays always being destroyed
and text or cinematic epilogue
Modifié par strive, 05 avril 2012 - 10:14 .
#2756
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:09
zephyr2025
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RiouHotaru wrote...
DJBare wrote...
Oh good, for a moment there I thought they were calling us stupid.RiouHotaru wrote...
Bioware believes in the ending they wrote for their story. They realized that we didn't understand it because their presentation wasn't quite up to par, so they're helping us to understand what they envisioned.
And they're also giving it to us for free. I can't see how this is possibly a bad thing.
Then you're overanalyzing (which seems to be a common thing). Just because we didn't understand their ending doesn't make us stupid. Nor does giving us this "Extended Cut" mean they think we're stupid either.
How does it in ANY way say they think we're idiots if we go: "Bioware, we didn't understand what you gave us."
And they go: "Ok, here's an explanation of what we gave you."
HOW, I ask, HOW does this in ANY way say "Our fans are retards!"
Everyone (somewhat intelligent) understands the ending. People don't like it because its sophomoric and riddled with plot holes.
#2757
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:09
Dead_Meat357
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Mass Effect: In with a Bang out with a Whimper
Why the upcoming DLC cant’ fix the ending to Mass Effect 3.
There are a lot of opinions and thoughts about the ending of Mass Effect 3. The announcement this morning may fill some with hope, but not me. Instead I’m filled with sadness and dread at the realization that BioWare’s artistic vision is for everyone to die at the end and to leave behind a Mass Effect universe in which the galaxy would have been better off if Shepard had let Saren succeed in ME1.
I’m going to try and minimize the talk about EA commercializing the crap out of these games, being evil, or BioWare being a bunch of sellouts, or even Casey Hudson and Mac Walters going off the rails.
No, instead I’m going to make some predictions and throw out my $0.02 and say that BioWare made a lot of mistakes, backed themselves into a creative corner, pulled a BSG/Lost, and pretty much guaranteed no good return to the Mass Effect universe going forward. While there are some overlapping complaints I’ll make here addressed by others pointing out things in the indoctrination theory or just statements concerning how broken the ending is from a lot of different angles, I hope to address a couple new ones or at least things that are down played and ignored.
This is all full of spoilers. Many of you who haven’t completed the game heard the ending sucks, but I urge you to finish it and make your own conclusions. You should probably even do so before the updated ending comes out so you can make your own judgement as well as see the differences added should you replay it with the DLC.
The Ending Sucks But we Already Knew That
First, there is a lot of talk about how the ending to Mass Effect 3 sucks. It does, you’ll get no arguments from me. It’s full of plot holes, contradictions, it ends abruptly and paints your choices in a confusing light. It doesn’t have the same feel that the rest of the series has. Nothing about it is familiar and it all feels “off” and unfamiliar. Not only does it contradict the nature of the series itself, but it goes against statements made by Casey Hudson himself in interviews. (You know, about the whole A,B, and C thing not being what they were going for.) The worst part is that all your choices essentially all have the same results. I’ll say that I’ve got no clue why a low EMS results in only the destroy ending being available or why the destroy ending is the only one that allows Shepard to wake up in the rubble in London after everything goes to hell.
Implications………….unpleasant.
The Final Mission Sucks and the DLC isn’t Addressing That
But what I rarely see is talk about how the final mission, specifically Priority: Earth sucks so bad. Up until then the game is easily the best of the three in my opinion. Not only graphically or game play wise, but in the way missions and the story are handled. Plotlines from earlier installments are brought to clean and satisfying resolution. The whole game up until the Priority: Earth mission is actually a well crafted masterpiece. Excellent set pieces and backdrops, a sense of urgency, family, and team are all fostered here. I loved seeing all my favorite characters again and the interactions with them are by far the richest and most fulfilling in the whole series.
Before you can understand why the final act sucks so bad you have to understand why the first games had epic conclusions which were not only satisfying, but had you at the edge of your seat the entire time.
In the original Mass Effect, one of my favorite parts of the game is going outside the Citadel tower and making my way to the council chambers with Sovereign in the background with Geth and Krogan trying to stop me. You come face to ugly face with Saren and learn that he’s a tragic figure and not necessarily the evil man you believed him to be earlier. He shoots himself if your paragon or renegade score is high enough, and it seems like it will be the end of him. But you don’t want to ignore the body, you want to make sure it’s not a trick. And of course it doesn’t and you have to fight what Saren has truly become. A tool of Sovereign. Nothing more, nothing less. Once he’s defeated the feedback causes Sovereign to lose control of his shields, then the order is given and the combined Alliance and Citadel fleets destroy the Reaper sending pieces of it all over. The music, the dialog, the battle, the cinematics are all well done here. From Ilos on the game is all about your goals and the story. Some of the best looking and most well thought out segments of the game are in the final act.
In Mass Effect 2 one of my favorite parts of the game is assaulting the Collector base and choosing who leads the second team, who goes into the vents, and literally who will live and die. The long walk music playing in the background really adds ambience to it. I liked fighting within the biotic barrier and cutting down bad guys. While the Reaper battle itself could have been done differently and a whole lot better, all the cinematics and choices in the final act are great.
In Mass Effect 3 I dread everything after the assault on the Illusive Man's base. The Priority Earth mission just sucks on so many levels.
The Good Bye Sequence
You get to Earth and things fall apart. In fact almost everything after the attack on the Cerberus base is pretty much terrible. We get a nice fulfilling and interesting good bye to Liara, especially if you romanced her. Then you proceed and say good bye to the rest of the survivors of your teams from 1 and 2. These are a bit of a mixed bag. I found many compelling and moving, with some of them feeling a little forced and flat. I think my fondness for some characters makes some more bittersweet than others. All of them are generally pretty good but the entire sequence seems out of place. There is this calm base in the worst area of fighting in which you’ve got time to do all of this? Seems tacked on at the last minute. Though it sets a tone in which Shepard seems to lose hope. The dialog delivered lacks a certain fire after that. Shepard’s own commentary contradict his or her nature from the first two games and even the third up until Thessia.
Shepard almost seems prepared to fail. I think they were going for an effect in which you can finally see the events of all three games taking their toll on the Galaxy’s greatest hero and soldier. Depending on how you look at it, this is either well done or completely out of character. This segment is essentially the calm before the storm.
And here is the point where the train really leaves the tracks. It happens well before the games controversial and lackluster ending.
Problematic……………….
Who Needs Rails?
You gather with all your allies one last time and head to where Anderson is planning the final assault to drive the Reapers back and deliver the Crucibal. I had this silly expectation that they’d at least give us what Mass Effect 2 did and outline objectives in which we’d decide which team members did the deeds. Choosing correctly would lead to success, and choosing poorly would lead to character deaths at the very least. I was sure that we’d probably lose some no matter what being the final game and experiencing so much loss already. While it was just an action set piece, we still had an RPG element to it. In that regard Mass Effect 2 triumphed over the first game.
But sadly, in Mass Effect 3 none of that happened. We had one objective, and Shepard just picked two people to go with him or her and that’s it. All you do is fight wave, after wave, after wave of frustrating enemies. The same five to be exact. Marauders, cannibals, husks, banshees, and brutes. No where in this mess did we see Krogan protecting our flank, or Asari bombing the enemy positions. We saw no Salarian commandos blowing up Reaper assets in the background. We don’t even see the Mass Effect Allstar team which showed up to help us in our final push do anything. They fade away into the background like common soldiers. Hardly fitting or satisfying. You are told you have one objective. Reach the conduit. A Reaper destroyer comes into sour that plan. The only hope? Thanix missiles. OK, but Shepard once again has to be the one to do this. So you set out to reach the missiles and you fight the endless horde to do it.
And it is endless. In fact once you are given the go to launch, just run to the truck and do it. Ignore all the enemies at that point. They’ll disappear once you’ve launched the missiles. Yeah, that’s right. You don’t have to wait for a break in the fighting because you won’t get one.
The run to the conduit itself is almost identical to the one in Mass Effect 1, except that we don’t do it in a Mako and we have Harbinger or another Reaper shooting at us. You run in only to get shot anyway before reaching your final objective. Now again I don’t want to argue for indoctrination theory at this point. I’ll just say that the imagery gets confusing, things feel off and out of place, and everything is abrupt and just out of character for the universe. Shepard in no way seems to question the validity of what the proclaimed Reaper creator says. That last part is important. So far Shepard has never accepted anything anyone has said and went his or her own way knowing what the goal was all along and never losing sight of that objective. To do what needs to be done. Sometimes via compromised morals or an ends justifies the means stance, depending on your choices, but always in the pursuit of a noble goal that is abandoned in the final minutes.
The DLC Won’t Likely Address the Citadel Content
Other plot holes aside, I’m uncertain how any of the endings themselves could be changed or have added context based on new cinematics. The choices still suck and are presented in a haphazard and akward way with no context really being given, no questions being asked, and nothing profound happening. So without interrupting before Shepard waking up and explaining how Anderson and the Illusive Man ended up there, we won’t get clarity on this at all. Maybe after the choice is made, but the choices are still presented in an amateur hour kind of way. Far sub-par to the way every other choice has been presented to us before.
This is not to say that every decision in Mass Effect can be made the first play through with an idea of what the consequences will be. I wasn’t sure what the right call to make with the Geth heretics or the with Keji’s greybox. But these choices are presented with context that is easy to follow and more importantly, allow some conjecture on your part which helps you to make a good decision. When I was told my three choices by the Catalyst and it’s some 14 lines of dialog, I really wanted to go back and have it repeat everything because I wasn’t sure I heard everything. Again it’s a huge decision but there is no context as Shepard can’t really ask any questions.
So the Reapers aren’t Sentient?
One point I fail to see get addressed in forum posts and articles is the fact that this Catalyst AI Starchild thing contradicts the idea that the Reapers are sentient on their own. Sovereign and Harbinger, as well as the unknown Reaper on Rannoch are all clearly sentient. Yet this AI Catalyst supposedly created them? How will the Crucibal force them to do anything? In just a few lines of dialog the conversations with Sovereign and Harbinger become meaningless. It diminishes the Reaper threat by making them into machines which follow the machinations of this other being we know nothing about. We just met him in the last 10 minutes.
DLC Won’t Address Shepard’s Complete Trust in the Catalyst
And if it created Reapers, you can trust him. I won’t put complete faith in someone trying to sell me a car, Shepard is distrustful of the Illusive Man who brought him/her back from the dead but this master of the Reapers is totally trust worthy. The fate of the galaxy and trillions of sentient lives are at stake and there is no reason to be sure and ask questions before you do anything.
Not only does Shepard fail to ask questions here for clarification, but Shepard really does take everything presented at face value. The catalyst AI starchild thing tells Shepard that his or her choice will destroy the mass relays. Since Shepard already blew up one, you’d think that would be a point of concern and discussion given what happened the last time. (I would imagine the Batarian legal suit would have still been pending were it not for being wiped out by the Reapers.) Shepard should have taken a lesson from James T. Kirk who never feared to ask anyone anything he wanted an answer for. Important questions which address poor or logically fallible arguments. Questions like; “What does God need with a starship?”
Often times Shepard hasn’t liked the paths laid out for him or her by others and takes new direction. This was evidenced in all three games a lot of times. Yet this attitude is suspiciously absent in the final moments of the game. Most people would have said on Manae that there was no way to get the Krogan to help the Turians but Shepard never said that. When the new Primarch asked, Shepard made it happen. The catalyst would have you believe that these three ridiculous choices are the only options you have. Why should Shepard accept that?
The Catalyst is part of the Crucibal and this is the same being who supposedly made Reapers to harvest organics every 50,000 years. Yeah, let’s go with what he says.
The Endings are Screwed up Before the Cinematics really Start and BioWare isn’t Addressing That
We all know the part about the Mass Relays blowing up whole star systems, stranding races in places without enough resources to survive and all that. But each ending has its own issues and its own added consequences. I will endeavor to deal with them individually and from the perspective of how the choice is presented and some of the differences vs. the others.
Control
In the control ending we are led to believe that apparently the Crucibal doesn’t have a real switch and Shepard needs to complete a circuit or something rather than get what he or she needs from the Presidium Commons market or raid the Keeper’s tool box for something which could be used as a switch. So Shepard has to grab these two glowing rods and whilst being vaporized think happy thoughts and wish the Reapers away.
The biggest issue I have with this is that the Reapers aren’t sentient or are really retarded for not doing something about a back door command signal. Essentially in 50,000+ years no one patched out this critical security flaw? And again if they were truly sentient and were able to rebel against their creators, why are they listening to this Catalyst, and again why does this device compel them to do anything? I also find it odd that the Catalyst endorses this and that Shepard’s eyes look exactly like the Illusive Man’s in the final moments just before disintegration. I’m not advocating indoctrination, but the symbolism of this can’t be ignored. We may lack context, but it’s something you should think about. Something BioWare needs to address. Interestingly enough, the Citadel is also not destroyed in this ending as I recall. I don’t know what that means. I can only speculate.
Synthesis
I’ve often heard of this being referred to as the good ending or the best ending. In truth this is nothing of the kind. It’s essentially the ending to Star Trek the Motion Picture, but more convoluted. This isn’t a movie you really want your story to emulate. Fan fiction and non-cannon fiction basically credits this as the rise of the Borg race, despite being somewhat unlikely based on statements made in the series. This choice bugs me because it’s already what the Reapers do anyway. The catalyst confirms that’s how organics live on. As Reapers. This also forces Shepard to go back on what is said a minute earlier. “We’ll keep our form thanks.” Or something to that effect. This is a unilateral decision in which organic and inorganic fusion should be forced on all beings in the galaxy. As another person pointed out I think in one of the Youtube videos, the solution to diversity is mediocrity? Really? I can’t believe anyone supports this ending. It’s the worst.
Shepard also never asks what this will do to his or her companions and if anyone’s identity will remain intact. Could you imagine waking up and all of the sudden seeing bioluminescent circuitry all over your body. I’d probably freak out and kill myself. Especially if everyone I saw around me looked the same. So Shepard is going to make a unilateral call for the whole galaxy with no context and no questions? Please. At least My Shepard’s don’t do this. And again Shep’s eyes look like the Illusive Man’s just prior to being disintegrated.
Destroy
This is probably the least offensive ending and the most difficult to understand in some ways. The Starchild presents this ending as “oh by the way, you can destroy us if you want, but you are partly synthetic, so don’t do that.” The Starchild also adds that the Geth and EDI will be destroyed with this choice. Now this is the kind of choice that Shepard is used to making. Shepard sacrificed Batarian colonists to delay a Reaper invasion. It would also keep the Quarians, Salarians, Krogan, Asari, Hanar, Drell, Humans, and anyone else I’m missing alive. While Shepard may not like these types of decisions, I think this is the easiest one to take and the most sensible. It’s the only decision that would ensure that the Reaper menace would stay gone.
But there is a catch. If the EMS score is high enough Shepard wakes up gasping for air in a pile of rubble clearly in London. This tells you that Shepard didn’t die, and that everything above was a lie. Indoctrination theory or not, this tells you that the ending here can’t be taken at face value. In fact it brings into question all of them. Also in this ending Shepard’s eyes do not change. It is the only one where they don’t.
Cornered
Many others have outlined all the plot problems and arguments for why the ending to Mass Effect 3 sucks from a literary perspective and a plot perspective. There are tons of great videos about that out there to view on Youtube. I won’t even dive too far into the fact that the Mass Effect universe is essentially destroyed as we know it. This too has already been said many times. What I will say is that this paints the creative team into a corner. A happier ending, or an ending which left Mass Relays intact or left the Reapers OK to return down the line at least gives you options even if you never used the Reapers again as an enemy.
Semi-Optimistic Viewpoint
If we want to be optimistic about the ending, (which is hard to do given the implications of the endings) then we take believe that the Mass Relays didn’t blow up like the one in the Arrival DLC did and they explode “nicer.” Though the Normandy running from the explosion tells us that’s likely not going to work. Still, even if true at best all the races are stranded in the Sol system. Assuming you didn’t blow up the Citadel and chose the control ending, then there are some resources there, but Turian and Quarian fleets may have shortages of food and supplies. Remember they can’t eat what’s on Earth. Earth, if not totally ruined won’t have the infrastructure to support the vast ships and people that will need to most likely call Earth their home for a time. With standard FTL drives it would take some time for any of the races to make it to a nearby inhabitable system. Palaven is one of the closest planets, but it could still take decades or more to reach it. So that’s one major issue that must be dealt with.
Assuming that the Krogan, Humans, and Salarians can all get along, there will be population concerns with the Krogan now free of the genophage. Assuming they have access to females. Otherwise they’ll simply die out. Salarians and Humans would most likely end up dominating the planet in light of that. Which the humans already do, so there is that. But again even with the death tolls, the people left on the fleets will have to go somewhere and a ruined Earth supporting everyone, even with the Citadel’s assistance (assuming it didn’t blow up given your choices) may be difficult. But let’s say for the sake of argument that it can be done and the peace can be kept in the long run. Still the problem of colonizing other worlds and how to get there has to get addressed. Eventually there will be population concerns if cultural problems don’t cause open war on Earth first.
Where did the Normandy and her crew end up? Well let’s assume that Joker picked up your squad mates. Where did they go? Obviously they are in another star system, but unless Liara gets busy cranking out babies, everyone is doomed. There isn’t enough genetic diversity on the Normandy crew to create a viable colony. Since Asari don’t actually need sex as we understand it to reproduce, and use other species to randomize their genetic material it’s possible that she could create a large enough base for an Asari colony. Javik comments on genetic modification to the Asari, and it’s possible that this was a gift of their genetic manipulation so let’s be generous and say that a colony of Asari are incoming. Still it would be hundreds if not thousands of years before we could see anything space fairing again. And most likely, much of the Normandy’s regular crew died in the crash and even Liara herself could be killed long before a viable colony can be built.
In which case many of the crew will die miserable and alone. The stargazer part of the ending shows some kind of colony rose up there eventually. We don’t know how long it took or even what race they are. The fact that the voice of Buzz Aldrin can be heard tells us that the person there is a male. So it’s not likely an Asari colony. So this is yet another plot hole to deal with.
On the bright side, the Protheans created the conduit, and Matriarch Atheyta did talk about recommending the Asari build new Mass Relays indicating that this is possible. Depending on how well Thessia held out during the final stages of the Reaper invasion, in a couple hundred years or so, this might be possible. If so then we could see a new Mass Relay network form. This is of course good news and lends credence to the idea of sequels based on this series at a later, far off period.
Though from a literary standpoint they run into the same problem BioWare ran into with KOTOR. The problem is that you have to keep the technology and style cues of the existing mythology so that you get the right feel out of it. The issue with that is you have to explain technological stagnation. I don’t know what the accepted explanation of it is in Star Wars, though it seems to be at least in the novels and games that the problem is due to constant war. This is of course a sharp contradiction from reality.
Our technology surged many times in history because of war. Not in spite of it. War creates a necessity for bigger and badder weapons. It creates the need for faster propulsion, more power, long lasting provisions, new technologies for killing, detecting enemies, stealth, etc. Jet propulsion was all a result of rocketry. Again the airliners today wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the need for higher flying bombers, and hard hitting missiles. So technology remaining stagnant as a result of war is really just not a well thought out excuse for covering the problem.
So if the story of the next Mass Effect is to take place hundreds or thousands of years from now, maybe even in another cycle, then it has to address technological stagnation. Or BioWare has to revamp everything and create new technology. At that point you might as well create a new IP and let Mass Effect die because that’s about what you’ll get in the end.
Negative Viewpoint
On the opposite end of the spectrum, if the relays do explode like they did in the Arrival then everyone is pretty much screwed. Even the Normandy, the fastest ship there couldn’t outrun the blast. More than likely every ship and the major inhabited star systems around the galaxy were destroyed.
Can the galaxy even survive hundreds or thousands of supernovas happening all at once? Who knows. But let’s say it can. We still have the problem of everyone dying except perhaps the Normandy crew which I addressed above. Races will go extinct. Many colonies won’t be able to sustain themselves without being able to reach major ports like the Citadel and any outlying pockets of survivors or colonies won’t have the ability to go somewhere else. Ships in Mass Effect do have FTL drives, but they only allow for movement in local clusters at best. Not all of them have inhabitable planets. Many people will run out of air or food and simply die.
Sure some life in the galaxy will survive and any pre-spaceflight populations like the Yahg may actually even flourish, but who knows whether or not they’ll ever find a solution without mass relays. Which if the relays destroyed star systems that had them, then the Asari and Prothean data most likely is lost and won’t ever lead to the construction of new relays. So what’s next? Hyperspace or Warp? Again you end up practically reinventing the entire IP. Specifically because this one revolved around the Mass Effect and the relays. So why do that?
And as I said before, the galaxy in this state isn’t worth the trouble. Shepard would have been better off grabbing all his potential love interests and creating a harem on some tropical planet and leaving the galaxy to fend for itself. At least they could have put things in motion to give the next cycle a shot at beating the Reapers. Which Liara tried to do anyway. But with all the relays destroyed, and many inhabitable worlds being gone, what’s there to save? The death toll is likely higher than it would have been had Shepard just give up earlier.
And I almost forgot. No one seems to mention this, but if the Citadel blew up and the relays didn’t destroy the Sol system, then you’ll have huge chunks of the Citadel raining down on Earth. Given the size of the thing, that’s a huge problem even for small pieces of it. The Citadel dwarfs Reapers by a massive amount. Pieces of it would almost certainly render the planet uninhabitable.
Sequels and Prequels
I’ve touched on the fact that sequels and prequels will have to deal with certain problems. A sequel will have to work within the confines of the endings of Mass Effect 3. The problems with this are harder to pin down taking the positive viewpoint but, most likely such a sequel would have to take place a few centuries after ME3. That is unless you want every planet to look like Tuchunka in ME2 and ME3 and limit yourself to a very small section of the galaxy that is reachable by standard FTL. In doing that the scale and scope of the first three games is totally lost.
So you have to take the idea of the Asari or someone else bouncing back with a new relay network. It would most likely have to take place thousands of years later to allow the Mass Effect universe to look anything like what we have seen in the earlier games. Though this will force totally new political situations, possibly new races, and of course we will lose all potential for reoccurring characters. We may be able to have one or two get frozen like Javik or something, but that’s about it.
Even if the sequel is a couple hundred years or more later, we can at least see Grunt an Liara again. But again the further you push out the timeline the more you have to adequately explain technological stagnation. If technology is simply lost and reinvented then you have to reinvent the look of everything even if it resembles what came before. So all weapon models, armor designs, and ship designs have to pretty much get thrown out. This is one thing if BioWare is going to use an updated engine and do all new graphics for the next series to target the next generation of consoles or computers.
If they are going to essentially use the framework of ME2 and ME3 with new stuff, seems like a waste in both time and money to do it. And again if you don’t nail this stuff exactly right it won’t feel like Mass Effect anymore, and you’ve hurt the fans even more than if you had let it die and gone with a new IP entirely.
Now obviously taking the more negative viewpoint and going with the galaxy exploded is even worse. This doesn’t really leave a universe you want to revisit and one you almost feel guilty in helping to create.
Prequels have their own sets of problems.
The first and foremost problem with doing a prequel is that you need a human protagonist. This limits the prequel time frame to a 30 year window, part of which had humans at war with the Turians and of course Batarians were hostile as well. This almost forces you to deal with them as enemies. The Geth are out because the Geth weren’t seen past the Veil until 2183 when Shepard found them in Mass Effect working with Saren. The Reapers weren’t known as anything other than a myth either. So even if you use them, you can only do so much story wise. The same is true of Collector’s and anyone else.
And if you confine the game to such a time period, you are basically stuck with a story that can never be as epic or as large as the current one.
Now, I know some of you are probably pissed off and wondering why I said what I said about needing a human protagonist. Many will disagree with me on this point, and while it will work with some people I don’t think the masses will like being painted into that corner as a general rule. For one thing I don’t want to play a Turian in a game where my romance options are basically Asari. Because Turian females are likely hideous and you won’t be able to identify with them. Salarian females look pretty much like the males. Krogan females? Eve tells you all you need to. So Asari it is. Maybe Drell, but I doubt I could get over the face and those weird Rosewell Gray alienesque eyes.
People tend to identify with and get more attached to protagonists they can identify with. Shepard is deeply customizable which is part of what makes the unique your own. It’s why you can identify with the character. I don’t know that the same effect can be had with a Turian. We all like Garrus, but I don’t know if I would want to play an entire series based on Turians. Non-human characters that are well liked are often anthropomorphized a great deal. Asari, Twi-Leks and any number of attractive females in games and movies are generally regarded as attractive because they still resemble humans. Their subtle differences in a lack of hair or skin color ultimately makes them exotic, and therefore desirable, but them being more or less human is a key component in making them appealing.
There is fan art out there showing nude Asari and Twi-Lek’s. Basically the science fiction genre of porn, but you won’t really find this with Turian, Salarian, or Krogan females. So not having an option for a human protagonist in the series limits them further. It may limit the ability of people to identify with the role as much. Being an RPG game primarily and a shooter second this doesn’t bode well for the future. Prequels and DLC involving other established characters take the customization out of the equation because you are again working within existing confines. So while a DLC giving us a few hours of game play showing Aria taking back Omega from Cerberus could be cool, it wouldn’t justify an entire series.
Oh wait, if the Citadel explodes then that won’t work either. She was most likely there when the thing blew up. There goes that idea.
What BioWare Failed to Understand
Now understand that BioWare’s reactions and commentary on everything is highly suspect. For one thing, BioWare hasn’t always been entirely truthful with us. The game and it’s mechanics contradict things said by Casey Hudson. So take anything they’ve said with a grain of salt. Clarification of the ending may simply be something like validating the indoctrination theory. So a simple cinematic would change our perception of the game’s current ending without them actually doing much of anything.
The main problem isn’t that we need clarity. Either the ending can be taken at face value or it can’t. Taking it at face value makes the ending depressing on multiple levels which is the reason why it’s hated.
Americans culturally speaking don’t generally like movies with sad or bad endings. There are some people that do, but as a rule the masses don’t like it. We are an optimistic people I guess. We’ve invested over 100 hours in the three games and came to know and love many of the characters and the universe. Even if Shepard had to die, we wanted a good life and a good outcome for the galaxy and our team members who stood side by side with us through the difficult times. We wanted to have the possibility to meet them again with a new character in Mass Effect 4, or to see books and movies based on their actions later on. Watching them get screwed over, blown up, turned into cyborgs, or whatever else was hard to handle.
Shepard’s death isn’t what I wanted to see, but I would have understood it if it was necessary, but Shepard needed to die preserving something that resembled the galaxy we knew. Shepards actions and death had to be worth something. The way it is now, the entire struggle is almost invalidated and it is certainly diminished. What makes these games so great is the characters and the replay value. A, B, and C variants of the same sad and crappy ending which occur regardless of your choices makes replaying the series something you don’t want to do.
The ending as it is now is painful. The last chapter in fact is painful and it isn’t bittersweet. Just bitter. Because of that the game is somewhat traumatic and not something you want to repeat.
Commercially this hurts BioWare and EA in a number of ways they probably haven’t seen coming. Not only does it sour our expectations and desires for another entry into the series, but the lack of quality in the final chapter shows us that EA’s meddling has once again destroyed a great development studio. They had things right with ME1 and ME2, then dropped the ball here.
I have no desire to buy merchandise or media involving Mass Effect because it’s nothing more than a painful reminder of ME3’s ending. All that time and emotional investment for what? A big screw you and a “Buy DLC” message at the end?
No BioWare, just no.
So while Mass Effect came in with a bang it’s certainly likely to die out with a whimper. Not because EA forced them to develop sequel after sequel until the creative keg was tapped, but rather because someone decided to confuse profound with dark and intellectual with satisfying. What we got isn’t what Shepard and the crew of the Normandy deserved, and it’s not what we as consumers were promised, nor what we deserved.
The Short Version for the ADHD
Honestly given the implications of the ending, if it's not a total rewrite it will either confirm the indoctrination theory or confirm that what we've already seen is to be taken at face value.
The latter will just make us feel worse as it will crush all hope of deeper meaning and a brighter future as a result. It will confirm the horrible fates of Shepard and the crew of the Normandy. It will most likely invalidate the entire journey and kill replay value in all three because your choices ultimately won't matter. The galaxy as it stands with the way the third game ends really isn't worth saving. One could argue that it is worse off than it would have been had the Reapers just been left to do what they do unchallenged. At least the Mass Relays and star systems would be intact. With a few well placed warnings like Liara’s time capsules, if found soon enough, there would be ample time to develop far enough to challenge the Reapers more.
Implications.............unpleasant.
Why the upcoming DLC cant’ fix the ending to Mass Effect 3.
There are a lot of opinions and thoughts about the ending of Mass Effect 3. The announcement this morning may fill some with hope, but not me. Instead I’m filled with sadness and dread at the realization that BioWare’s artistic vision is for everyone to die at the end and to leave behind a Mass Effect universe in which the galaxy would have been better off if Shepard had let Saren succeed in ME1.
I’m going to try and minimize the talk about EA commercializing the crap out of these games, being evil, or BioWare being a bunch of sellouts, or even Casey Hudson and Mac Walters going off the rails.
No, instead I’m going to make some predictions and throw out my $0.02 and say that BioWare made a lot of mistakes, backed themselves into a creative corner, pulled a BSG/Lost, and pretty much guaranteed no good return to the Mass Effect universe going forward. While there are some overlapping complaints I’ll make here addressed by others pointing out things in the indoctrination theory or just statements concerning how broken the ending is from a lot of different angles, I hope to address a couple new ones or at least things that are down played and ignored.
This is all full of spoilers. Many of you who haven’t completed the game heard the ending sucks, but I urge you to finish it and make your own conclusions. You should probably even do so before the updated ending comes out so you can make your own judgement as well as see the differences added should you replay it with the DLC.
The Ending Sucks But we Already Knew That
First, there is a lot of talk about how the ending to Mass Effect 3 sucks. It does, you’ll get no arguments from me. It’s full of plot holes, contradictions, it ends abruptly and paints your choices in a confusing light. It doesn’t have the same feel that the rest of the series has. Nothing about it is familiar and it all feels “off” and unfamiliar. Not only does it contradict the nature of the series itself, but it goes against statements made by Casey Hudson himself in interviews. (You know, about the whole A,B, and C thing not being what they were going for.) The worst part is that all your choices essentially all have the same results. I’ll say that I’ve got no clue why a low EMS results in only the destroy ending being available or why the destroy ending is the only one that allows Shepard to wake up in the rubble in London after everything goes to hell.
Implications………….unpleasant.
The Final Mission Sucks and the DLC isn’t Addressing That
But what I rarely see is talk about how the final mission, specifically Priority: Earth sucks so bad. Up until then the game is easily the best of the three in my opinion. Not only graphically or game play wise, but in the way missions and the story are handled. Plotlines from earlier installments are brought to clean and satisfying resolution. The whole game up until the Priority: Earth mission is actually a well crafted masterpiece. Excellent set pieces and backdrops, a sense of urgency, family, and team are all fostered here. I loved seeing all my favorite characters again and the interactions with them are by far the richest and most fulfilling in the whole series.
Before you can understand why the final act sucks so bad you have to understand why the first games had epic conclusions which were not only satisfying, but had you at the edge of your seat the entire time.
In the original Mass Effect, one of my favorite parts of the game is going outside the Citadel tower and making my way to the council chambers with Sovereign in the background with Geth and Krogan trying to stop me. You come face to ugly face with Saren and learn that he’s a tragic figure and not necessarily the evil man you believed him to be earlier. He shoots himself if your paragon or renegade score is high enough, and it seems like it will be the end of him. But you don’t want to ignore the body, you want to make sure it’s not a trick. And of course it doesn’t and you have to fight what Saren has truly become. A tool of Sovereign. Nothing more, nothing less. Once he’s defeated the feedback causes Sovereign to lose control of his shields, then the order is given and the combined Alliance and Citadel fleets destroy the Reaper sending pieces of it all over. The music, the dialog, the battle, the cinematics are all well done here. From Ilos on the game is all about your goals and the story. Some of the best looking and most well thought out segments of the game are in the final act.
In Mass Effect 2 one of my favorite parts of the game is assaulting the Collector base and choosing who leads the second team, who goes into the vents, and literally who will live and die. The long walk music playing in the background really adds ambience to it. I liked fighting within the biotic barrier and cutting down bad guys. While the Reaper battle itself could have been done differently and a whole lot better, all the cinematics and choices in the final act are great.
In Mass Effect 3 I dread everything after the assault on the Illusive Man's base. The Priority Earth mission just sucks on so many levels.
The Good Bye Sequence
You get to Earth and things fall apart. In fact almost everything after the attack on the Cerberus base is pretty much terrible. We get a nice fulfilling and interesting good bye to Liara, especially if you romanced her. Then you proceed and say good bye to the rest of the survivors of your teams from 1 and 2. These are a bit of a mixed bag. I found many compelling and moving, with some of them feeling a little forced and flat. I think my fondness for some characters makes some more bittersweet than others. All of them are generally pretty good but the entire sequence seems out of place. There is this calm base in the worst area of fighting in which you’ve got time to do all of this? Seems tacked on at the last minute. Though it sets a tone in which Shepard seems to lose hope. The dialog delivered lacks a certain fire after that. Shepard’s own commentary contradict his or her nature from the first two games and even the third up until Thessia.
Shepard almost seems prepared to fail. I think they were going for an effect in which you can finally see the events of all three games taking their toll on the Galaxy’s greatest hero and soldier. Depending on how you look at it, this is either well done or completely out of character. This segment is essentially the calm before the storm.
And here is the point where the train really leaves the tracks. It happens well before the games controversial and lackluster ending.
Problematic……………….
Who Needs Rails?
You gather with all your allies one last time and head to where Anderson is planning the final assault to drive the Reapers back and deliver the Crucibal. I had this silly expectation that they’d at least give us what Mass Effect 2 did and outline objectives in which we’d decide which team members did the deeds. Choosing correctly would lead to success, and choosing poorly would lead to character deaths at the very least. I was sure that we’d probably lose some no matter what being the final game and experiencing so much loss already. While it was just an action set piece, we still had an RPG element to it. In that regard Mass Effect 2 triumphed over the first game.
But sadly, in Mass Effect 3 none of that happened. We had one objective, and Shepard just picked two people to go with him or her and that’s it. All you do is fight wave, after wave, after wave of frustrating enemies. The same five to be exact. Marauders, cannibals, husks, banshees, and brutes. No where in this mess did we see Krogan protecting our flank, or Asari bombing the enemy positions. We saw no Salarian commandos blowing up Reaper assets in the background. We don’t even see the Mass Effect Allstar team which showed up to help us in our final push do anything. They fade away into the background like common soldiers. Hardly fitting or satisfying. You are told you have one objective. Reach the conduit. A Reaper destroyer comes into sour that plan. The only hope? Thanix missiles. OK, but Shepard once again has to be the one to do this. So you set out to reach the missiles and you fight the endless horde to do it.
And it is endless. In fact once you are given the go to launch, just run to the truck and do it. Ignore all the enemies at that point. They’ll disappear once you’ve launched the missiles. Yeah, that’s right. You don’t have to wait for a break in the fighting because you won’t get one.
The run to the conduit itself is almost identical to the one in Mass Effect 1, except that we don’t do it in a Mako and we have Harbinger or another Reaper shooting at us. You run in only to get shot anyway before reaching your final objective. Now again I don’t want to argue for indoctrination theory at this point. I’ll just say that the imagery gets confusing, things feel off and out of place, and everything is abrupt and just out of character for the universe. Shepard in no way seems to question the validity of what the proclaimed Reaper creator says. That last part is important. So far Shepard has never accepted anything anyone has said and went his or her own way knowing what the goal was all along and never losing sight of that objective. To do what needs to be done. Sometimes via compromised morals or an ends justifies the means stance, depending on your choices, but always in the pursuit of a noble goal that is abandoned in the final minutes.
The DLC Won’t Likely Address the Citadel Content
Other plot holes aside, I’m uncertain how any of the endings themselves could be changed or have added context based on new cinematics. The choices still suck and are presented in a haphazard and akward way with no context really being given, no questions being asked, and nothing profound happening. So without interrupting before Shepard waking up and explaining how Anderson and the Illusive Man ended up there, we won’t get clarity on this at all. Maybe after the choice is made, but the choices are still presented in an amateur hour kind of way. Far sub-par to the way every other choice has been presented to us before.
This is not to say that every decision in Mass Effect can be made the first play through with an idea of what the consequences will be. I wasn’t sure what the right call to make with the Geth heretics or the with Keji’s greybox. But these choices are presented with context that is easy to follow and more importantly, allow some conjecture on your part which helps you to make a good decision. When I was told my three choices by the Catalyst and it’s some 14 lines of dialog, I really wanted to go back and have it repeat everything because I wasn’t sure I heard everything. Again it’s a huge decision but there is no context as Shepard can’t really ask any questions.
So the Reapers aren’t Sentient?
One point I fail to see get addressed in forum posts and articles is the fact that this Catalyst AI Starchild thing contradicts the idea that the Reapers are sentient on their own. Sovereign and Harbinger, as well as the unknown Reaper on Rannoch are all clearly sentient. Yet this AI Catalyst supposedly created them? How will the Crucibal force them to do anything? In just a few lines of dialog the conversations with Sovereign and Harbinger become meaningless. It diminishes the Reaper threat by making them into machines which follow the machinations of this other being we know nothing about. We just met him in the last 10 minutes.
DLC Won’t Address Shepard’s Complete Trust in the Catalyst
And if it created Reapers, you can trust him. I won’t put complete faith in someone trying to sell me a car, Shepard is distrustful of the Illusive Man who brought him/her back from the dead but this master of the Reapers is totally trust worthy. The fate of the galaxy and trillions of sentient lives are at stake and there is no reason to be sure and ask questions before you do anything.
Not only does Shepard fail to ask questions here for clarification, but Shepard really does take everything presented at face value. The catalyst AI starchild thing tells Shepard that his or her choice will destroy the mass relays. Since Shepard already blew up one, you’d think that would be a point of concern and discussion given what happened the last time. (I would imagine the Batarian legal suit would have still been pending were it not for being wiped out by the Reapers.) Shepard should have taken a lesson from James T. Kirk who never feared to ask anyone anything he wanted an answer for. Important questions which address poor or logically fallible arguments. Questions like; “What does God need with a starship?”
Often times Shepard hasn’t liked the paths laid out for him or her by others and takes new direction. This was evidenced in all three games a lot of times. Yet this attitude is suspiciously absent in the final moments of the game. Most people would have said on Manae that there was no way to get the Krogan to help the Turians but Shepard never said that. When the new Primarch asked, Shepard made it happen. The catalyst would have you believe that these three ridiculous choices are the only options you have. Why should Shepard accept that?
The Catalyst is part of the Crucibal and this is the same being who supposedly made Reapers to harvest organics every 50,000 years. Yeah, let’s go with what he says.
The Endings are Screwed up Before the Cinematics really Start and BioWare isn’t Addressing That
We all know the part about the Mass Relays blowing up whole star systems, stranding races in places without enough resources to survive and all that. But each ending has its own issues and its own added consequences. I will endeavor to deal with them individually and from the perspective of how the choice is presented and some of the differences vs. the others.
Control
In the control ending we are led to believe that apparently the Crucibal doesn’t have a real switch and Shepard needs to complete a circuit or something rather than get what he or she needs from the Presidium Commons market or raid the Keeper’s tool box for something which could be used as a switch. So Shepard has to grab these two glowing rods and whilst being vaporized think happy thoughts and wish the Reapers away.
The biggest issue I have with this is that the Reapers aren’t sentient or are really retarded for not doing something about a back door command signal. Essentially in 50,000+ years no one patched out this critical security flaw? And again if they were truly sentient and were able to rebel against their creators, why are they listening to this Catalyst, and again why does this device compel them to do anything? I also find it odd that the Catalyst endorses this and that Shepard’s eyes look exactly like the Illusive Man’s in the final moments just before disintegration. I’m not advocating indoctrination, but the symbolism of this can’t be ignored. We may lack context, but it’s something you should think about. Something BioWare needs to address. Interestingly enough, the Citadel is also not destroyed in this ending as I recall. I don’t know what that means. I can only speculate.
Synthesis
I’ve often heard of this being referred to as the good ending or the best ending. In truth this is nothing of the kind. It’s essentially the ending to Star Trek the Motion Picture, but more convoluted. This isn’t a movie you really want your story to emulate. Fan fiction and non-cannon fiction basically credits this as the rise of the Borg race, despite being somewhat unlikely based on statements made in the series. This choice bugs me because it’s already what the Reapers do anyway. The catalyst confirms that’s how organics live on. As Reapers. This also forces Shepard to go back on what is said a minute earlier. “We’ll keep our form thanks.” Or something to that effect. This is a unilateral decision in which organic and inorganic fusion should be forced on all beings in the galaxy. As another person pointed out I think in one of the Youtube videos, the solution to diversity is mediocrity? Really? I can’t believe anyone supports this ending. It’s the worst.
Shepard also never asks what this will do to his or her companions and if anyone’s identity will remain intact. Could you imagine waking up and all of the sudden seeing bioluminescent circuitry all over your body. I’d probably freak out and kill myself. Especially if everyone I saw around me looked the same. So Shepard is going to make a unilateral call for the whole galaxy with no context and no questions? Please. At least My Shepard’s don’t do this. And again Shep’s eyes look like the Illusive Man’s just prior to being disintegrated.
Destroy
This is probably the least offensive ending and the most difficult to understand in some ways. The Starchild presents this ending as “oh by the way, you can destroy us if you want, but you are partly synthetic, so don’t do that.” The Starchild also adds that the Geth and EDI will be destroyed with this choice. Now this is the kind of choice that Shepard is used to making. Shepard sacrificed Batarian colonists to delay a Reaper invasion. It would also keep the Quarians, Salarians, Krogan, Asari, Hanar, Drell, Humans, and anyone else I’m missing alive. While Shepard may not like these types of decisions, I think this is the easiest one to take and the most sensible. It’s the only decision that would ensure that the Reaper menace would stay gone.
But there is a catch. If the EMS score is high enough Shepard wakes up gasping for air in a pile of rubble clearly in London. This tells you that Shepard didn’t die, and that everything above was a lie. Indoctrination theory or not, this tells you that the ending here can’t be taken at face value. In fact it brings into question all of them. Also in this ending Shepard’s eyes do not change. It is the only one where they don’t.
Cornered
Many others have outlined all the plot problems and arguments for why the ending to Mass Effect 3 sucks from a literary perspective and a plot perspective. There are tons of great videos about that out there to view on Youtube. I won’t even dive too far into the fact that the Mass Effect universe is essentially destroyed as we know it. This too has already been said many times. What I will say is that this paints the creative team into a corner. A happier ending, or an ending which left Mass Relays intact or left the Reapers OK to return down the line at least gives you options even if you never used the Reapers again as an enemy.
Semi-Optimistic Viewpoint
If we want to be optimistic about the ending, (which is hard to do given the implications of the endings) then we take believe that the Mass Relays didn’t blow up like the one in the Arrival DLC did and they explode “nicer.” Though the Normandy running from the explosion tells us that’s likely not going to work. Still, even if true at best all the races are stranded in the Sol system. Assuming you didn’t blow up the Citadel and chose the control ending, then there are some resources there, but Turian and Quarian fleets may have shortages of food and supplies. Remember they can’t eat what’s on Earth. Earth, if not totally ruined won’t have the infrastructure to support the vast ships and people that will need to most likely call Earth their home for a time. With standard FTL drives it would take some time for any of the races to make it to a nearby inhabitable system. Palaven is one of the closest planets, but it could still take decades or more to reach it. So that’s one major issue that must be dealt with.
Assuming that the Krogan, Humans, and Salarians can all get along, there will be population concerns with the Krogan now free of the genophage. Assuming they have access to females. Otherwise they’ll simply die out. Salarians and Humans would most likely end up dominating the planet in light of that. Which the humans already do, so there is that. But again even with the death tolls, the people left on the fleets will have to go somewhere and a ruined Earth supporting everyone, even with the Citadel’s assistance (assuming it didn’t blow up given your choices) may be difficult. But let’s say for the sake of argument that it can be done and the peace can be kept in the long run. Still the problem of colonizing other worlds and how to get there has to get addressed. Eventually there will be population concerns if cultural problems don’t cause open war on Earth first.
Where did the Normandy and her crew end up? Well let’s assume that Joker picked up your squad mates. Where did they go? Obviously they are in another star system, but unless Liara gets busy cranking out babies, everyone is doomed. There isn’t enough genetic diversity on the Normandy crew to create a viable colony. Since Asari don’t actually need sex as we understand it to reproduce, and use other species to randomize their genetic material it’s possible that she could create a large enough base for an Asari colony. Javik comments on genetic modification to the Asari, and it’s possible that this was a gift of their genetic manipulation so let’s be generous and say that a colony of Asari are incoming. Still it would be hundreds if not thousands of years before we could see anything space fairing again. And most likely, much of the Normandy’s regular crew died in the crash and even Liara herself could be killed long before a viable colony can be built.
In which case many of the crew will die miserable and alone. The stargazer part of the ending shows some kind of colony rose up there eventually. We don’t know how long it took or even what race they are. The fact that the voice of Buzz Aldrin can be heard tells us that the person there is a male. So it’s not likely an Asari colony. So this is yet another plot hole to deal with.
On the bright side, the Protheans created the conduit, and Matriarch Atheyta did talk about recommending the Asari build new Mass Relays indicating that this is possible. Depending on how well Thessia held out during the final stages of the Reaper invasion, in a couple hundred years or so, this might be possible. If so then we could see a new Mass Relay network form. This is of course good news and lends credence to the idea of sequels based on this series at a later, far off period.
Though from a literary standpoint they run into the same problem BioWare ran into with KOTOR. The problem is that you have to keep the technology and style cues of the existing mythology so that you get the right feel out of it. The issue with that is you have to explain technological stagnation. I don’t know what the accepted explanation of it is in Star Wars, though it seems to be at least in the novels and games that the problem is due to constant war. This is of course a sharp contradiction from reality.
Our technology surged many times in history because of war. Not in spite of it. War creates a necessity for bigger and badder weapons. It creates the need for faster propulsion, more power, long lasting provisions, new technologies for killing, detecting enemies, stealth, etc. Jet propulsion was all a result of rocketry. Again the airliners today wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the need for higher flying bombers, and hard hitting missiles. So technology remaining stagnant as a result of war is really just not a well thought out excuse for covering the problem.
So if the story of the next Mass Effect is to take place hundreds or thousands of years from now, maybe even in another cycle, then it has to address technological stagnation. Or BioWare has to revamp everything and create new technology. At that point you might as well create a new IP and let Mass Effect die because that’s about what you’ll get in the end.
Negative Viewpoint
On the opposite end of the spectrum, if the relays do explode like they did in the Arrival then everyone is pretty much screwed. Even the Normandy, the fastest ship there couldn’t outrun the blast. More than likely every ship and the major inhabited star systems around the galaxy were destroyed.
Can the galaxy even survive hundreds or thousands of supernovas happening all at once? Who knows. But let’s say it can. We still have the problem of everyone dying except perhaps the Normandy crew which I addressed above. Races will go extinct. Many colonies won’t be able to sustain themselves without being able to reach major ports like the Citadel and any outlying pockets of survivors or colonies won’t have the ability to go somewhere else. Ships in Mass Effect do have FTL drives, but they only allow for movement in local clusters at best. Not all of them have inhabitable planets. Many people will run out of air or food and simply die.
Sure some life in the galaxy will survive and any pre-spaceflight populations like the Yahg may actually even flourish, but who knows whether or not they’ll ever find a solution without mass relays. Which if the relays destroyed star systems that had them, then the Asari and Prothean data most likely is lost and won’t ever lead to the construction of new relays. So what’s next? Hyperspace or Warp? Again you end up practically reinventing the entire IP. Specifically because this one revolved around the Mass Effect and the relays. So why do that?
And as I said before, the galaxy in this state isn’t worth the trouble. Shepard would have been better off grabbing all his potential love interests and creating a harem on some tropical planet and leaving the galaxy to fend for itself. At least they could have put things in motion to give the next cycle a shot at beating the Reapers. Which Liara tried to do anyway. But with all the relays destroyed, and many inhabitable worlds being gone, what’s there to save? The death toll is likely higher than it would have been had Shepard just give up earlier.
And I almost forgot. No one seems to mention this, but if the Citadel blew up and the relays didn’t destroy the Sol system, then you’ll have huge chunks of the Citadel raining down on Earth. Given the size of the thing, that’s a huge problem even for small pieces of it. The Citadel dwarfs Reapers by a massive amount. Pieces of it would almost certainly render the planet uninhabitable.
Sequels and Prequels
I’ve touched on the fact that sequels and prequels will have to deal with certain problems. A sequel will have to work within the confines of the endings of Mass Effect 3. The problems with this are harder to pin down taking the positive viewpoint but, most likely such a sequel would have to take place a few centuries after ME3. That is unless you want every planet to look like Tuchunka in ME2 and ME3 and limit yourself to a very small section of the galaxy that is reachable by standard FTL. In doing that the scale and scope of the first three games is totally lost.
So you have to take the idea of the Asari or someone else bouncing back with a new relay network. It would most likely have to take place thousands of years later to allow the Mass Effect universe to look anything like what we have seen in the earlier games. Though this will force totally new political situations, possibly new races, and of course we will lose all potential for reoccurring characters. We may be able to have one or two get frozen like Javik or something, but that’s about it.
Even if the sequel is a couple hundred years or more later, we can at least see Grunt an Liara again. But again the further you push out the timeline the more you have to adequately explain technological stagnation. If technology is simply lost and reinvented then you have to reinvent the look of everything even if it resembles what came before. So all weapon models, armor designs, and ship designs have to pretty much get thrown out. This is one thing if BioWare is going to use an updated engine and do all new graphics for the next series to target the next generation of consoles or computers.
If they are going to essentially use the framework of ME2 and ME3 with new stuff, seems like a waste in both time and money to do it. And again if you don’t nail this stuff exactly right it won’t feel like Mass Effect anymore, and you’ve hurt the fans even more than if you had let it die and gone with a new IP entirely.
Now obviously taking the more negative viewpoint and going with the galaxy exploded is even worse. This doesn’t really leave a universe you want to revisit and one you almost feel guilty in helping to create.
Prequels have their own sets of problems.
The first and foremost problem with doing a prequel is that you need a human protagonist. This limits the prequel time frame to a 30 year window, part of which had humans at war with the Turians and of course Batarians were hostile as well. This almost forces you to deal with them as enemies. The Geth are out because the Geth weren’t seen past the Veil until 2183 when Shepard found them in Mass Effect working with Saren. The Reapers weren’t known as anything other than a myth either. So even if you use them, you can only do so much story wise. The same is true of Collector’s and anyone else.
And if you confine the game to such a time period, you are basically stuck with a story that can never be as epic or as large as the current one.
Now, I know some of you are probably pissed off and wondering why I said what I said about needing a human protagonist. Many will disagree with me on this point, and while it will work with some people I don’t think the masses will like being painted into that corner as a general rule. For one thing I don’t want to play a Turian in a game where my romance options are basically Asari. Because Turian females are likely hideous and you won’t be able to identify with them. Salarian females look pretty much like the males. Krogan females? Eve tells you all you need to. So Asari it is. Maybe Drell, but I doubt I could get over the face and those weird Rosewell Gray alienesque eyes.
People tend to identify with and get more attached to protagonists they can identify with. Shepard is deeply customizable which is part of what makes the unique your own. It’s why you can identify with the character. I don’t know that the same effect can be had with a Turian. We all like Garrus, but I don’t know if I would want to play an entire series based on Turians. Non-human characters that are well liked are often anthropomorphized a great deal. Asari, Twi-Leks and any number of attractive females in games and movies are generally regarded as attractive because they still resemble humans. Their subtle differences in a lack of hair or skin color ultimately makes them exotic, and therefore desirable, but them being more or less human is a key component in making them appealing.
There is fan art out there showing nude Asari and Twi-Lek’s. Basically the science fiction genre of porn, but you won’t really find this with Turian, Salarian, or Krogan females. So not having an option for a human protagonist in the series limits them further. It may limit the ability of people to identify with the role as much. Being an RPG game primarily and a shooter second this doesn’t bode well for the future. Prequels and DLC involving other established characters take the customization out of the equation because you are again working within existing confines. So while a DLC giving us a few hours of game play showing Aria taking back Omega from Cerberus could be cool, it wouldn’t justify an entire series.
Oh wait, if the Citadel explodes then that won’t work either. She was most likely there when the thing blew up. There goes that idea.
What BioWare Failed to Understand
Now understand that BioWare’s reactions and commentary on everything is highly suspect. For one thing, BioWare hasn’t always been entirely truthful with us. The game and it’s mechanics contradict things said by Casey Hudson. So take anything they’ve said with a grain of salt. Clarification of the ending may simply be something like validating the indoctrination theory. So a simple cinematic would change our perception of the game’s current ending without them actually doing much of anything.
The main problem isn’t that we need clarity. Either the ending can be taken at face value or it can’t. Taking it at face value makes the ending depressing on multiple levels which is the reason why it’s hated.
Americans culturally speaking don’t generally like movies with sad or bad endings. There are some people that do, but as a rule the masses don’t like it. We are an optimistic people I guess. We’ve invested over 100 hours in the three games and came to know and love many of the characters and the universe. Even if Shepard had to die, we wanted a good life and a good outcome for the galaxy and our team members who stood side by side with us through the difficult times. We wanted to have the possibility to meet them again with a new character in Mass Effect 4, or to see books and movies based on their actions later on. Watching them get screwed over, blown up, turned into cyborgs, or whatever else was hard to handle.
Shepard’s death isn’t what I wanted to see, but I would have understood it if it was necessary, but Shepard needed to die preserving something that resembled the galaxy we knew. Shepards actions and death had to be worth something. The way it is now, the entire struggle is almost invalidated and it is certainly diminished. What makes these games so great is the characters and the replay value. A, B, and C variants of the same sad and crappy ending which occur regardless of your choices makes replaying the series something you don’t want to do.
The ending as it is now is painful. The last chapter in fact is painful and it isn’t bittersweet. Just bitter. Because of that the game is somewhat traumatic and not something you want to repeat.
Commercially this hurts BioWare and EA in a number of ways they probably haven’t seen coming. Not only does it sour our expectations and desires for another entry into the series, but the lack of quality in the final chapter shows us that EA’s meddling has once again destroyed a great development studio. They had things right with ME1 and ME2, then dropped the ball here.
I have no desire to buy merchandise or media involving Mass Effect because it’s nothing more than a painful reminder of ME3’s ending. All that time and emotional investment for what? A big screw you and a “Buy DLC” message at the end?
No BioWare, just no.
So while Mass Effect came in with a bang it’s certainly likely to die out with a whimper. Not because EA forced them to develop sequel after sequel until the creative keg was tapped, but rather because someone decided to confuse profound with dark and intellectual with satisfying. What we got isn’t what Shepard and the crew of the Normandy deserved, and it’s not what we as consumers were promised, nor what we deserved.
The Short Version for the ADHD
Honestly given the implications of the ending, if it's not a total rewrite it will either confirm the indoctrination theory or confirm that what we've already seen is to be taken at face value.
The latter will just make us feel worse as it will crush all hope of deeper meaning and a brighter future as a result. It will confirm the horrible fates of Shepard and the crew of the Normandy. It will most likely invalidate the entire journey and kill replay value in all three because your choices ultimately won't matter. The galaxy as it stands with the way the third game ends really isn't worth saving. One could argue that it is worse off than it would have been had the Reapers just been left to do what they do unchallenged. At least the Mass Relays and star systems would be intact. With a few well placed warnings like Liara’s time capsules, if found soon enough, there would be ample time to develop far enough to challenge the Reapers more.
Implications.............unpleasant.
Modifié par Dead_Meat357, 05 avril 2012 - 10:14 .
#2758
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:09
TamLin
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No amount of clarification and pretty movies are going to mend the broken narrative, sudden genre swap and illogical conclusions. Unless BW put the deus ex machina to rest and rewrite the whole "star-child" sequence, I don't see how this DLC is going to work.
"Know your customer" is the first rule of any business, and I have an impression that at the moment BW are thoroughly confused on the subject. They should re-evaluate who their customers are and see what they can do to make it good by them instead of trying to appeal to every gamer out there. Until they do so, I am afraid, any DLC addressing the ending will be doomed to failure. Keeping the original ending and tweaking the cinematics won't make RPG fans happy anyway, while the opposite side of the fandom won't appreciate the new ending either and might desert ME because there are no new MP maps coming up. BW, make up your mind and stop toying with us... and your profit.
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Dragon age Origins + DAA total sales to date: 4.73m
Dragon age 2 total sales to date: 1.89m
source: http://www.vgchartz.com Game Database
Nothing else to say.
"Know your customer" is the first rule of any business, and I have an impression that at the moment BW are thoroughly confused on the subject. They should re-evaluate who their customers are and see what they can do to make it good by them instead of trying to appeal to every gamer out there. Until they do so, I am afraid, any DLC addressing the ending will be doomed to failure. Keeping the original ending and tweaking the cinematics won't make RPG fans happy anyway, while the opposite side of the fandom won't appreciate the new ending either and might desert ME because there are no new MP maps coming up. BW, make up your mind and stop toying with us... and your profit.
*************************************************************
Dragon age Origins + DAA total sales to date: 4.73m
Dragon age 2 total sales to date: 1.89m
source: http://www.vgchartz.com Game Database
Nothing else to say.
#2759
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:10
jarrettwold
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Bathaius wrote...
Stop it with your reasonableness and logic!
Great post, and nicely positive. Good to see!
Yea, it's something that's been a stretch for me. Didn't like the endings, didn't like the people raging against individual employees, didn't like the infinite rage at Bioware. It too strongly resembled this: www.youtube.com/watch
So I've been in the position of defending, critiquing and expressing disappointment with Bioware while still trying to maintain some semblance of sanity in my discourse.
One thing I will say though, the ending has certainly motivated me to write some infrastructure stuff for game developers.
#2760
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:11
jedsithor
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RiouHotaru wrote...
Then you're overanalyzing (which seems to be a common thing). Just because we didn't understand their ending doesn't make us stupid. Nor does giving us this "Extended Cut" mean they think we're stupid either.
How does it in ANY way say they think we're idiots if we go: "Bioware, we didn't understand what you gave us."
And they go: "Ok, here's an explanation of what we gave you."
HOW, I ask, HOW does this in ANY way say "Our fans are retards!"
Because it assumes that we didn't understand the ending. We did. The problem was never about not understanding. It would be a whole lot easier if we didn't understand because we could just say "wow, that was deep" and pretend we knew what was happening to make ourselves seem smart.
But we did understand it. And it made no sense. We can't pretend it did and feign ignorance. I wish to God...Starchild...we could but we can't. It's Bioware that didn't understand the ending, not us. They still don't seem to understand that it doesn't make sense. They screwed up. It happens. But to pretend that they didn't and that we simply didn't "get it" only makes matters worse.
How can they possibly clarify the ending? Have an epilogue that shows, in the Control ending, that the Geth will kill the Quarians in a few years? That would solve the problem...of course it would make my choices on Rannoch and my friendship with Legion utterly pointless. Would we see EDI strangling Joker in his sleep? You can't clarify something like this without utterly destroying the rest of the game.
The easy way out is to make it about choice and consequence as it's always been. Do the right things at the right time and open up a Paragon/Renegade dialogue option during the Starchild conversation. If you don't make certain decisions, you don't get those options and you get the original ending. If you do make the decisions you get a chance to prove that Starchild is wrong and then you take it from there. Easy.
Seriously, all you need is a few extra lines of dialogue and some new cinematics and you're done. No major rewrite needed. Just a tweak or two and some additions.
#2761
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:12
Myrmedus
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terdferguson123 wrote...
Myrmedus wrote...
terdferguson123 wrote...
ForceXev wrote...
I love how people are already basically posting "reviews" of this DLC. "OMG, this DLC sucks!"
Really? Are you all time travelers? Can I get a ride in your time machines?
Latching onto a few words like "clarity," "closure" and "cutscenes" is not enough to make a fair judgement of this DLC.
I'm happy to be taking away these three things from this announcement:
A) They really are doing something.
C) It's FREE
Give it a chance. If it fails to answer the issues and the plot holes and it sucks, THEN I will complain along with you. We have to actually play it first before we judge it.
OMG another person with a brain. No way!
Pre-requisite to "having a brain" = Agreeing with Tardferguson.
And I thought I was egomaniacal.
Well, you can throw insults around all day. But, this poster and a handful of others are the only other people I have come across in this thread that have shown they have the mental capacity to realize that judging something before it's even released is about as dumb as humanly possible.
That was just a reworded version of the equation I displayed in my original post. That is still "They're the only posters with the mental capacity to agree with my point."
I'd also consider a great deal of your posts insulting. I did wait awhile before I went to the same level at least but it's gotten a bit ridiculous now.
#2762
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:12
The Divine Avenger
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pants witch wrote...
The Divine Avenger wrote...
I know you can't tolerate being sad, I'm right there with you, I just don't want to see everyone get there hopes up only for it to turn out that all they've done is increased the torment. I just don't wnat the summer to come & hear people saying stuff like *they promised to take the knife out of my back but instead they plunged it deeper & twisted it round a bit*. All of us that were hurt by the endings are all greaving, we are all feeling the exact same way about the endings, I just don't want to see my fellow soldiers shattered to pieces by faulse promises again because next time the pain will be 100x worse than it is now.
You're sweet.Thank you for caring about all of us.
lol
I just want everyone to remember that the pain we feel right now could be a hell of a lot worse if Bioware mess this up,besides theres strength in numbers. We are all upset but we have eachother take comfort in that & don't let your hopes get too high over this, if we stick to are gun's we can make a difference.
If there is one thing that we should learn from are Shepard's it that nothing worth doing is ever easy, sometimes best rewards are the hardest to get but there worth every second you spend fighting for them.
The flower that blooms late is ofter the prettyest one of all, we CAN make a difference & we WILL make a difference. They made a game based on choice & they failed us in the final hour, what I say to that is that MY choice is to keep fighting until they deliver on those promises.
I will NOT be taken in by faulse promises of "Clarity", I will NOT give up & I will not sit back & watch one of my favourite game be butchered by mad writing.
This is simply an attempt to shut us up, beause we are finally getting through to people about the ending, Forbes was originally boycotting the retake movement but they soon started coming round. EA stocks have been on the decline through most if not all of this protest of ours, we can't give up now this DLC meens we are getting through we just need to stay strong.
Stick together, if we let them separate us then we leave areselfs open to be taken for a more devistating ride than what we've been on already.
HOLD THE LINE PEOPLE
Modifié par The Divine Avenger, 05 avril 2012 - 10:12 .
#2763
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:12
Reptilian Rob
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Oh wow dude...Myrmedus wrote...
This is still how I feel:
+1
#2764
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:12
Versidious
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Thomasa wrote...
terdferguson123 wrote...
Are you guys really complaining about free stuff?
Think about this for a second.... Please, I need you guys to do it, I can't even believe what I am seeing. They are giving us FREE content, and you guys are actually complaining.
don't mind them there crybabys there still 3 year old
Because they're claiming the free stuff should appease us, but it doesn't actually fix any of the major problems we have with the endings? If it's good enough, then I might buy Bioware products in future, but leaving the ending as it is will still ruin the entire series for me, a series which I had hoped wwould give me another four or five playthroughs, so yeah, I will still be unhappy about the endings. If you have a problem with us still being unhappy, then you really ought to be talking to Bioware about that, and trying to get them to at least apologise to us...
#2765
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:12
Myrmedus
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RiouHotaru wrote...
The fact you folks honestly expected a complete re-write, and thought Bioware would actually do that?
You set yourselves up to be let down. The only ones to blame here is you.
Not re-write but additional options/endings would've been a viable possibility.
#2766
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:13
MorSterling
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No. BioWare strongly believes in the team’s artistic vision for the end of this arc of the Mass Effect franchise. The extended cut DLC will expand on the existing endings, but no further ending DLC is planned.
Ok, you don´t have any humility. Thanks i´ll let you be then and bye,bye then.
R.I.P BW for me.
Ok, you don´t have any humility. Thanks i´ll let you be then and bye,bye then.
R.I.P BW for me.
#2767
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:13
Neverwinter_Knight77
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RiouHotaru wrote...
The fact you folks honestly expected a complete re-write, and thought Bioware would actually do that?
You set yourselves up to be let down. The only ones to blame here is you.
They know that they trolled us. They know that they wronged us. Ego is the only thing keeping them from doing a rewrite.
#2768
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:14
-Algernon-
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I believe they had little choice but to do something.
Though it is a little insulting when they say 'provide more closure and clarity.'
More? Really? How do you provide more when there wasn't any to begin with?
Well, to be on the side of fairness, I guess we should all wait and see what comes out
in the DLC and then decide if it was a good save or a failure.
Though it is a little insulting when they say 'provide more closure and clarity.'
More? Really? How do you provide more when there wasn't any to begin with?
Well, to be on the side of fairness, I guess we should all wait and see what comes out
in the DLC and then decide if it was a good save or a failure.
#2769
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:14
Spectre Impersonator
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Why is it going to take them three months to come up with a bunch of cheap ass Dragon Age paragraphs explaining the awful ending? Pathetic. Keep the fight going and go after Bioware hard. Demand what they promised to deliver.
#2770
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:15
RiouHotaru
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zephyr2025 wrote...
RiouHotaru wrote...
DJBare wrote...
Oh good, for a moment there I thought they were calling us stupid.RiouHotaru wrote...
Bioware believes in the ending they wrote for their story. They realized that we didn't understand it because their presentation wasn't quite up to par, so they're helping us to understand what they envisioned.
And they're also giving it to us for free. I can't see how this is possibly a bad thing.
Then you're overanalyzing (which seems to be a common thing). Just because we didn't understand their ending doesn't make us stupid. Nor does giving us this "Extended Cut" mean they think we're stupid either.
How does it in ANY way say they think we're idiots if we go: "Bioware, we didn't understand what you gave us."
And they go: "Ok, here's an explanation of what we gave you."
HOW, I ask, HOW does this in ANY way say "Our fans are retards!"
Everyone (somewhat intelligent) understands the ending. People don't like it because its sophomoric and riddled with plot holes.
Obviously they don't, or we wouldn't be getting the extended cut. I think Bioware's realized that something about the ending is being lost in translation.
And now they're going to fix that mistake. I couldn't ask for a better response.
#2771
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:15
NReed106
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MetalCargo999 wrote...
Wowlock wrote...
Nope, not gonna get caught with the ''hype'' again. Until I see the solid info, I am holding my wallet. And the way they said '' we are proud of the ending ! '' I doubt it will be ANY better...which will cause more frustration for me.
It's free....
Okay so I don't have to pay great.
Paying isn't the issue, the cluster**** of the ending is a plothole of space magic they'll try to explain. It sounds like it'll just be cutscenes to explain why my crew decided to abandon me. Gee thanks, I'm sure that'll make the ending "we are proud of" better sheesh.
Pretty much confirms the sad realization BW will no longer be publishing quality games anymore but just become another casulty of EA....there was such promise for you BW
Modifié par NReed106, 05 avril 2012 - 10:16 .
#2772
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:15
pavi132
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"We heard your complaints but didn't give a ****." Eh. I'm over it.
#2773
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:16
AkeasharK
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Raptr569 wrote...
Although not made by Bioware KOTOR IIs ending was a shambles if my memory serves me correctly...
Kotor 2's ending is the worst I've ever played in an RPG, short of FFVII's 'Meteor falls... everyone dies?' until they released Advent's Children and showed that, no... everyone actually survived.
#2774
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:16
Poison_Berrie
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I already chipped in for that one.Lurchibald wrote...
I'm now waiting till a good game gets released.... I'm thinking Wasteland 2! http://www.kickstart...ile/wasteland-2
#2775
Posté 05 avril 2012 - 10:17
TurboQuarian
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Oh well, at least it's free. Disappointed that once again they're being lazy though.
