182 réponses à ce sujet

[XavierHollywood]

the biggest problem I personally had (not including a few plot holes) was that we didnt get enough options when talking to the starchild. Something like the OP created would have done wonders in retaining the essence of what makes Mass Effect what it is while also keeping the current endings largely intact. Add to that a few more cutscenes to give clarity to a few things and I would find it a satisfying conclusion. Maybe not the best, but satisfying nonetheless.

[TheOptimist]

XavierHollywood wrote...

the biggest problem I personally had (not including a few plot holes) was that we didnt get enough options when talking to the starchild. Something like the OP created would have done wonders in retaining the essence of what makes Mass Effect what it is while also keeping the current endings largely intact. Add to that a few more cutscenes to give clarity to a few things and I would find it a satisfying conclusion. Maybe not the best, but satisfying nonetheless.

I think at this point an ending that is satisfying and allows me to pick up my 360 controller again is the best we're gonna get.  And this would work.

[Alexius]

Context is important. So, yeah, I think the current ending can be saved if more things were added to it. Not necessarily gameplay, no need for a boss battle of sorts. I do, however, think that there should be more options in the dialogue wheel when talking to the Catalyst. The options we got are so... out of character. And then, of course, some more scenes during the epilogue.

[TheOptimist]

the_geo_law wrote...

Thats a large part of it... but there is the squad, friends... LI, so many things that need to be explained.

Your ending was very good.

This definitely isn't the only thing that needs fixing, but it's the major hurdle for a number of people who hate the options we're given.  They should absolutely explain why the squad left Earth and where they were going.  They also should probably detail how the squad gets out of being marooned on a garden world.  Ideally there would also be an epilogue detailing how you affected the galaxy.  So yes, there's a ton of stuff they would need to clarify to make this work, but the point of this thread is to show it is POSSIBLE to keep the current endings and still have vastly different outcomes from what is shown and implied by the endings as they are now.

[Fapmaster5000]

Y3Y00 wrote...

It was quite bone-chilling, I must admit. I loved it. Thank you for giving me hope that Bioware can further improve upon its ending. This... This would be quite close to perfection.

Whoo!

Anyway, thanks for TheOptimist for keeping this floating.  Currently working on "Blue" version.  Should have it up in about an hour or so, try and give it the same treatment.

[XRelakX]

Paragon ending:

Shepard: "I trade you 100 asaris for the reapers"

Catalyst: "Deal".

And everybody goes to the random paradise world where the normandy crash and lives happy forever.

The End.

[Fapmaster5000]

XRelakX wrote...

Paragon ending:

Shepard: "I trade you 100 asaris for the reapers"

Catalyst: "Deal".

And everybody goes to the random paradise world where the normandy crash and lives happy forever.

The End.

i'm 12 and wat is this?

[Skull Bearer]

Having the reaperkid crawl and beg would redeem the entire damn series in one go.

[JulienJaden]

I have to admit that this sounds pretty good, but since BioWare doesn't listen to feedback, especially not to good, coherent, constructive feedback, this probably isn't gonna happen.

[kalasaurus]

I love this. It would have made the ending actually kind of *good*...

[Fapmaster5000]

 Threading the Needle: The Extended Cut


Bioware has a real challenge ahead of them.  The fanbase, or a large part of it, wants an ending that is seemingly diametrically opposed to the one given.  Bioware is attempting to bridge that gap with an Extended Cut, which will "expand and clarify" but not "change" the endings.  The question: Can this ending satisfy both groups requirements for satisfaction.


Bioware's Prerequisites for Success

• The ending will not change.
  
  • It will be a three way choice between control, destruction, and synthesis.
  • It will presented by the Catalyst.
  • It will be conveyed, rather destructively, through the mass relays.
  • Shepard can only live in Destruction.
  • There will be no fourth option.
• The ending will retain "artistic integrity".  No mocking here, let's interpret that phrase liberally, and understand that as "there is no 'golden ending', there must be sacrifice and loss to maintain the weight of the choices".

The Player-Base's Prerequisites for Success

• The ending must address choices made throughout the series.
• The ending must allow Shepard to remain in character (which, for many, would mean some shade of "heroic").
• The ending must close the plot holes and flawed logic presented in the ending.
• The endings must have "meaning".  Just as with "artistic integrity", this must be interpretted, and understood as "the endings must offer some hope or triumph over adversity, and feel like victory, even at great cost".

Unstated, Critical Prerequisites for Success

• The ending must be coherent.
• The ending must address all listed concerns without violating any others.  The ending must be "true".  No "false" endings, no endings that are a guaranteed loss.  Any successful conclusion must be equally true, or a tremendous portion of the base will be alienated.

This task is monumental, and many have deemed it impossible.  This will require threading the eye of the needle, capable of satisfying two apparently insurmountable negotiating positions.  Can it be done?

I say, yes.

The first post is "Destruction", better known as "Red".  In the Extended Cut: Red, I tried to showcase player choice, resistance to the Catalyst's reasoning, the chance to defy the Reapers as being "too far gone to compromise with", and to accurately portray the range of the indomitable paragon and the vengeful renegade, and the gound in between.

The next post will be "Control", better known as "Blue".  In the Extended Cut: Blue, I will attempt to bring out the same ideas of choices, although in a different manner.  Whereas Destruction emphasized the ability of the player to unite others AGAINST the Reapers, this will emphasize the player's ability to focus on defeating them, and will strike a slightly less strident tone, one willing to accept compromise.  Again, it is important the ending reflect factors of decisions made (though different factors in each) as well as allowing for Paragon/Renegade/Neutral paths to get to the same outcome.  Different ethics for each different choice, meaning nine paths, not three.

And if I, an unpaid random dude on the internet, can pull this off, I'd say that a group of very professional, very accomplished paid writers certainly can.

So let's see if it can be done!

Modifié par Fapmaster5000, 08 avril 2012 - 01:36 .

[eddieoctane]

That is entirely too well written to show up in any BioWare game post-ME2. It's too bad, though.

[Turtlicious]

Huh I didn't think extended would work, but now it will.

[Fapmaster5000]

EXAMPLE  - CONTROL ENDING

 Shepard stands before the glowing shock paddles of the Control ending, pausing to think for a moment.  After this pause, Shepard questions the Catalyst.

DIALOGUE WHEEL:

• UPPER RIGHT: "You say I can control the Reapers, the most devastating force in the galaxy, a force millions of years old, with this?"
• MIDDLE RIGHT: "This is a trap."
• LOWER RIGHT: "Bull****.  You think I'm going to grab that?  You brought me all the way here, just to try and make me grab a goddamned shock paddle?"  Shepard thumbs his/her sidearm angrily.
• MIDDLE LEFT: Walk away, choose another ending.

CATALYST: "This is not the control device.  This is a transmission mechanism.  To imprint your instructions upon the Reapers, you must be converted into a form suitable for transmission."

DIALOGUE WHEEL:

• UPPER RIGHT: "Converted into- what?  How does that even make sense?"
• MIDDLE RIGHT: Stare at Catalyst until the crazy stops.
• LOWER RIGHT: "Yeah, that's not gonna happen until you cut the crap and talk sense.  There's an explosive conduit full of Reaper fuel over there, and my gun's getting really bored."

CATALYST: "You spoke to Sovereign.  'Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh', he called you.  He said you were incapable of understanding his mind, that he was 'beyond comprehension'.  In this, he was correct.  The Reapers are far beyond you, far beyond any species that exists in this cycle.  The Protheans communicated via experience, via memory and chemical, yet you cannot.  The Reapers are as far beond that method of communications as the Protheans were to insects, distributing chemical trails to find food.  To be understood by the Reapers, you cannot speak.  You cannot argue, you cannot debate.  You must be transmitted."

RENEGADE INTERRUPT

• SHEPARD: "Do you think I'll fall for this nonsense?  You brought me here to try and talk me into suicide?"
• CATALYST: "You must trust me, if this is to work."
• SHEPARD:  "Trust you?  You created the Reapers!  You've more blood on your glowing white hands than any dictator in history, and I'm supposed to trust you?"

CATALYST: "You have little reason to believe me, I know.  The only evidence I can offer, in the limitted time we have, is your presence here, in this room."  The Catalyst hangs its head in resignation.  "You've already won, Commander.  The moment you docked the Crucible, my functioning was changed.  I lost my connection to the Reapers, to my solution.  Without this, they will go wild.  Such massive intelligences, created for a singular purpose, now deprived of it... this is will be worse than the destruction of any cycle.

PARAGON INTERRUPT

• SHEPARD: "So, the Reapers were you slaves, as well as your solution?  I'm seeing less and less reason to listen to you."
• CATALYST: "The Reapers were a tool, deployed to cull the cycle.  Awesome in power, but angled towards a particular goal.  Without purpose, they will destroy without meaning.  There will destruction without salvation, culling without sparing, order without reason.  Control must be re-established, or there will be nothing but oblivion.  Without my restraint, you will be extinguished, not just in this cycle, but forever."

DIALOGUE WHEEL

• {IF RETAINED COLLECTOR BASE - UPPER LEFT: "This is what the Illusive Man was planning!  He found the control signal, the restraint that bound the Reapers to their purpose.  With that code, with you, they could be directed, with minimal losses!"}
• {IF RETAINED COLLECTOR BASE - LOWER LEFT: "So that was the Illusive Man's trick.  Indoctrination wasn't just a brainwashing tool, it was a carrier for a base instruction.  Control that signal, and the Reapers are just another weapon.  Pity he's too dead to use it."}
• UPPER RIGHT: "You're just a VI?  The most powerful force in the universe is enslaved to a simple program!  You just direct the Reapers.  You never summoned them, because that wasn't in your programming.  You never adapted them, because that wasn't in your programming.  You never changed the solution, because that wasn't in your program!  The greatest intelligences in the galaxy, and they're still just puppets to a shackled VI!"
• MIDDLE RIGHT: "Then why bring me here?  Why tell me this, why give me this option?"
• LOWER RIGHT: "So Harbinger is the playtoy of a simple targetting VI.  No wonder he's so pissed all the time."
• MIDDLE LEFT:  Walk away, choose another ending.

CATALYST - RESIGNED/EMBARASSED: "I... had considered leaving you to bleed out down by the Illusive Man and your Admiral.  Once I lost control of the carrier signal, I spent a great many processing cycles debating how to approach a new solution.  Letting everything be destroyed was... far more tempting than I would like to admit, but I was not designed to be 'petty'.  I am the Catalyst, and my solution was no longer functional.

CATALYST - GAINING CONVICTION: "I brought you here, to see what your solution might entail.  My solution was designed over thousands of cycles, each building upon the last, but it was insufficient to overcome your own.  Your code was superior, so we, so I, must adapt.  My solution has failed, perhaps yours will be sufficient."

DIALOGUE WHEEL:

• UPPER RIGHT: "You needed to self-modify."
• MIDDLE RIGHT: "You were always destined to fail."
• LOWER RIGHT: "Someone was always going to be stronger than you."

CATALYST: "Millions of years after activation, in the middle of a pitched battle... it is not the optimal time frame for self-actualization.  I might be tempted to call it 'embarassing' if it weren't so potentially disasterous."

CATALYST - PLEADING: "I brought you here because I needed you, as much as you need me.  Control must be re-established.  To do this, you must be transmitted, distributed into the Reaper network.  This is not a thing which can be discussed, or interpretted.  Your words, your thoughts, would not be enough.  You must be scanned, broken down, distributed not as a phrase or action, but as a whole.  Your experiences, your views, your triumphs and failures, all of them form a unique creation.  You were superior to my solution, Commander Shepard.  I will adapt my functions to comply with your being."

DIALOGUE WHEEL:

• {IF KEPT COLLECTOR BASE AND EMS OVER 5000 - UPPER LEFT: "The Illusive Man was planning to do this, wasn't he?  He ended up Indoctrinated, and you admitted he never would have succeeded!  Why would I be any different?"}
• {IF KEPT COLLECTOR BASE AND EMS OVER 5000 - LOWER LEFT: "You fed this line to the Illusive Man, he ended up a talking husk.  Well, he did, until he caught a terminal case of 'bullet in the brain'.  I'd like to think I'm a little bit wiser than that."}
• UPPER RIGHT: "How can I trust that you'll keep your word.  How can I trust that you'll listen to me?  If I'm dead, why would you bother?"
• MIDDLE RIGHT: "And then I'm gone, and the Reapers just keep Reaping.  What would change?"
• LOWER RIGHT: "So I gamble that frying myself onto a scanner changes everything?  No thanks."
• MIDDLE LEFT: 
   Walk away, choose another ending.

{IF EITHER PARAGON OR RENEGADE OPTIONS ARE TAKEN FROM PREVIOUS DIALOGUE WHEEL - CATALYST: "The Illusive Man's plan would never have worked because his mind was not his own.  He devised this solution, but the methods he used exposed him to Indoctrination.  He was our tool by the end, despite his intentions.  It was only when the Crucible docked, when my solution was aborted, when my code was 'adapted', that this option became a possibility.  He was correct, but he never would have succeeded, not until you changed the rules.  {IF PARAGON - "His methods destroyed him, but you may yet redeem his intentions."}  {IF RENEGADE - "You have completely surpassed him."}}

CATALYST: "I brought you here to show you my intentions.  Across this platform lies the firing mechanism for the Crucible, the key to destroying the Reapers, the relays, and myself.  I lost when you docked the Crucible, but you lost when your biology began to fail you.  I brought you here so that we could both win.  You have no reason to trust me, so I offer you this choice.  Over there is your victory.  Destroy it, and the Reapers are finished, but so are the geth, much of your technology.  You would embrace a dark age, and solve nothing.  The cycle would begin again."

RENEGADE INTERRUPT:

• Open fire on conduit, trigger Destruction Ending.

CATALYST: "Or you can take a leap of... trust, as I have done by showing you these things.  You can aid me in regaining control of the Reapers, and shape them into something... new.  You could adapt their code, to change the solution to the cycle.  The choice is yours."

DIALOGUE WHEEL:

• UPPER RIGHT: "After everything you've done, you don't deserve to walk away."
• MIDDLE RIGHT: "You're gambling a lot on me."
• LOWER RIGHT: "I end the Reapers here, and save the galaxy in the process.  Cute."

CATALYST: "This operation will alter the functioning of the Crucible, of the Citadel, and of myself.  Just as you would be destroyed, so would I, and a new solution will be created from your transmission."

{IF OVER 6000 EMS -OR- OVER 4000 EMS -AND- KEPT COLLECTOR BASE - CATALYST: "The modifications the Illusive Man enacted on the Reaper Core on Chronos Station were designed for this eventuality, for him to assume control of the Reapers without losing himself.  These modifcation were brought into the Crucible upon its construction, and have been introduced into my functioning.  This is not your ending, Commander Shepard, it is mine.  You will endure, and I will be... no longer required."}

CATALYST: "The choice is yours, Commander.  You've already won.  Will you trust me?"

ACTION WHEEL:

• CENTER LEFT: Open fire on control console.  Trigger destruction ending.
• CENTER RIGHT: Grab control mechanism.  Trigger control ending.

END EXAMPLE.

Modifié par Fapmaster5000, 26 avril 2012 - 06:50 .

[Fapmaster5000]

Okay, Control was a little harder. That one required establishing a different dynamic than the Defiance of the Destruction ending. If Red was Sacrifice/Defiance, Blue was Sacrifice/Trust. The goal was to create a scenario were EITHER ending could be true, or BOTH could be true, and neither outcome would falsify the other.

The Catalyst was either worth trusting, or he wasn't.

My only real regret with "Control" was that there weren't many good "feeding" variables besides Paragon/Renegade, EMS, and "Collector Base".

Any thoughts?

[Fapmaster5000]

Updated and fixed links in opening post.

[PhotonMaze]

This is changing the ending.....

[FBI-Azzurri]

Quite sad. A poster here on the forums has just came up with yet another brilliant solution to the terrible endings in less than 20 minutes, but the BioWare team still struggles to give us what we want, which is something like this. But, I am done having positive assumptions, I had them once before the game came out and then they kicked me in the balls at the end and I won't have it happen to me again.

[Fapmaster5000]

PhotonMaze wrote...

This is changing the ending.....

How so?

I'm not denying it, I'm just trying to see where.  This is an interesting thought-experiment, and, truth be told, a fun writing excersize.  I'd love to know where I failed to thread the needle.

[Keletian2]

[quote]MPSai wrote...

Very creative....which is why Bioware won't do anything like it.[/quote]
[/quote]

[Fapmaster5000]

My only real worry is that people will see the giant wall of crazy formatting and go, "Lol, frack this" and wander off without considering.

[Jonathan Shepard]

Okay. You have written the best fixes to the Starbrat I've seen, without turning him into Harbinger.
Bravo, and let me say, I would've been perfectly happy with these endings. Just... why did it have to look like the child? Should've looked like a Keeper, or a Reaper. Would've actually made sense.

[BigZ7337]

I would be very happy with an ending dialogue like this with Casper, nice work OP.

Edit: Whoa, what happened to the original post? It's all gone now, hopefully you have it saved somewhere.

Modifié par BigZ7337, 08 avril 2012 - 04:23 .

[Fapmaster5000]

BigZ7337 wrote...

I would be very happy with an ending dialogue like this with Casper, nice work OP.

Edit: Whoa, what happened to the original post? It's all gone now, hopefully you have it saved somewhere.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is why you don't drink and post.

Sorry about that.