49 réponses à ce sujet

[Allan Schumacher]

dreaming_raithe wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I just want to comment that I don't think it's fair to yourself to think that the peace itself was destroyed.  Assuming you don't believe in outright galactic destruction due to the relays exploding, I think that the ramifications of the Geth-Quarian conflict will still be felt by many.  Especially the Quarians.  In fact, I really hope that they have a scene to reflect this in the ending DLC.  I don't know about anyone else, but I think showing Quarians mourning the sudden loss of their new allies on Rannoch would be magnificently poignant!

Given what Tali tells you about Geth sending their programs into Quarian suits, I'm not even sure how that would play out. Does that put the Quarians at risk when the Destroy beam goes off because their suits have Reaper tech in them now (since the Geth have Reaper code)? There is way too much left up in the air about this ending. Some room for interpretation is good, but we know so little about the repercussions of the various decisions that I don't even feel like you can make a rational choice when you're standing before the three buttons.

This is my reservation with including the scene with the Normandy.  It clearly gets destroyed, which makes me think that anything "reaper tech" is probably affected.  But at the same time, a high EMS score has Shepard clearly live, and even EDI can (apparently, I never saw this) survive... although that could just as easily be a bug haha.  There ARE definitely questions for how the energy dispersal affected everything.

The only issue is whether Shepard is able to break "indoctrination
theory" and carry through with the Reaper self-destruct before he dies,
or if there's some mechanism preventing the Reapers from self
destructing.

When I saw your first question I actually IM'd a friend and that was what he wondered as well.  What level of "control" do we really get?  Absolute?  Does that make the Reapers slaves to Shepard?  I think one thing I find tricky about the control option is that Shepard explicitly dies.  Which is difficult to fathom because it's hard to comprehend what it will be like after we die!  Is his essence spread throughout the Reapers?  Does Harbinger have to deal with this annoying little N7 conscience saying "Nuh uh uhhh!" everything ht wants to go reaping?

[Allan Schumacher]

pavi132 wrote...

Unfortunately, when I beat the game, I did think I had destroyed the entire galaxy when the relays were destroyed due to my knowledge from the events in Arrival. All I could think is, if everyone has to die anyway, why can't they die on their own terms instead of through one of these choices I'm being forced to make? Why do I have to force one of these events on them, all including the destruction of the relays they rely so heavily on?

Yeah, like I had mentioned earlier I never played Arrival so that conclusion didn't occur to me.  Although funny story:  When I first spoke with the Catalyst I thought that the destruction of the relays was a part of the synthetic choice, so I was ridiculously confused at first when they blew up in the destroy ending!  Upon replaying it I realized that I actually misheard him, but yeah my first impression was epic confusion too.  

Given Arrival, I think it's fair that people took the ending worse than BioWare expected.  Which I think fans can fairly be upset with us for, since there's no reason otherwise. 

I'm also not even sure if I will play that DLC. I'll have to see if I have time then and if I feel up to the task of sitting through the end again lol.

Haha.  Well, worst case check them out on youtube when they come out.  I played on PC and I have an autosave just after Harbinger's shot, with Shepard coming to before the conduit.  You should have that too so it wouldn't take too long.

[Allan Schumacher]

Sweawm wrote...

I would actually like to ask a question myself, if you will:
Why does Anderson's survival affect the ending? Correct me if I'm wrong, but according to all I've read: if you save Anderson from The Illusive Man, you avoid the bad ending with over 4000+ War Assets. Though, if you let the Illusive Man shoot and kill Anderson right there, it takes 5000+ War Assets.
How does Anderson's living for just a little longer affect our ending? Is *Gasp!*, Anderson the true Catalyst?

That.... I have no idea haha.  I'm surprised that it does too (I didn't realize that it did actually).  Best rationalization I can think of is the death of Anderson is an emotional blow to Shepard because it was Shepard failing Anderson?  Whereas he has his moment to make peace with Anderson after?  It's probably more the conversation he has with Anderson than when Anderson dies specifically.  (Although you're referring to an ending that leads to Shepard breathing, right?)

Ok, I lol'd at this for a good minute!  Thank you for coming here and
dispersing a little humor about the endings - it's refereshing to hear
this instead of denial or anger.

HAHA.  I've had some fun chatting with friends about some of the sillier interpretations we have.  I laughed my ass off at some of ACAVYOS' Mass Deffect Videos XDXDXD

After reading up on Indoctrination Theory we started hypothesizing that all of ME2 and ME3 was an oxygen deprived hallucination by Shepard as he comes to terms with his death as he falls back down to Earth.  "NOOO I'M Gonna die.... but maybe I'll come back.  Yeah.. Cerberus will revive me, and we'll work together... but then I'll betray them and it'll all be awesome"

[Allan Schumacher]

Khajiit Jzargo wrote...

I have three questions Alan
1. Are you worried that if this problem about fans being mad at the ending never gets resolve, any new upcoming Bioware game won't sell as much.

I'm not really qualified or knowledgable enough to answer this.  I think that there will be some people that are disappointed enough that they're willing to move on and we may not be able to win them back.  I think that there are some people that are emotional and desperate, and willing to declare that they will move on in hopes of presenting a stronger argument to BioWare to do something.  By the same token there wil probably be some that go "What's all this brujhahah about?" that maybe hadn't heard of BioWare before and we've now piqued their interest.

But yeah, it's just not something I could state yes or no about.  The crux for me is that, ultimately the outrage at the ending is as much a reflection of how much these people loved the franchise.  A poorly received ending to a poor game doesn't register a blip on the radar.  A poorly received ending to a great game (franchise) is what causes this commotion.  I don't think it's impossible for BioWare to win people back because deep down I think many of these people really want to.  It's just up to us to make the game so that they want to.

2. In a nutshell how would you have ended this game.

This is a very difficult question to answer.  In large part because my thoughts of the ending will be influenced by what exists currently in the ending, what some of the fan feedback has been, and so forth.  It's important to note that I am definitely a "tough choices" type of guy, so I actually don't know if my vision for an ending would have made fans happier.  Two of my favourite game endings are Fallout 1 and Planescape: Torment.  Neither have particularly happy outcomes regardless of what the player chooses.

One of my favourite moments in ME was choosing between Ashley and Kaiden, because they were my two favourite (and most used) NPCs.  It sucked to have to make that choice, which is what makes it so memorable for me.  In the end I loved that the game would challenge me to make a choice like that.  When I replayed it I actually hoped that the game had a way to determine who your favourite NPCs were so that you always had to choose between them.  It'd be a nightmare for reactivity in future games, but man would it be powerful.

So I don't know if people would have liked an ending I created.  It would have likely involved sacrifice, probably from one or more of the fan favourites types HAHA.  I'm sure somewhere Tali and Garrus are tip toeing away from me >.>

Though I probably wouldn't have left the ending as open.  I enjoyed the 'post-mortems' of games like Fallout and DAO and see it as a relatively easy way to provide some reactivity to the PC's agency.

3.How would you personally fix this ending, would you use the Indoc theory?

I find Indoctrination Theory actually quite interesting.  In fact, shortly after beating the game I came across it when reading up on ending reactions.  It actually had me wondering if we had something epic planned up our sleeves.  As long as it was free, I was like "This could be potentially quite awesome!"  It was pretty well thought out and I think it's pretty easy to let yourself see the connections to make it work out.

As for your question, I think Indoctrination Theory would work well if it's something we always planned.  If it wasn't, then I think it reflects poorly to essentially take someone else's work and go "ta-da new ending."  Ultimately if we planned to make changes to the ending, though, I'd leave it up to the writers to decide how (if at all) to address it.  They're the good ones, not me.

*Note: Just a reminder I have no idea what our plans are for the ending DLC.  My expectations are based on the same press releases that you guys have.  Even my friends on the ME team ignore my inquiries!!!    LOL

[Allan Schumacher]

Diablos2525 wrote...

I have a rather serious question for you. Are you familiar with the intoxication theory?

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/10676720/1
www.youtube.com/watch

Ladies and gentleman.... I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!

I will totally pass this on to the dev team first thing next week!  Wait.... I don't need to... it's their idea!!!

(Seriously I hadn't seen that thanks for the laugh LOL)

[Allan Schumacher]

palician wrote...

palician wrote...

Hi Allan thanks for taking the time to talk to us.

I just wanted to say that the thing that got me interested in mass effect in the first place was that it was based on real world science(where as say star wars has a mix of real science & space magic as people call it)but it was the synthesis ending that really confused me.As someone who has been interested in evolutionary biology & ecology since I was a child,ive built up a pretty good understanding of how D.N.A. evolves & how it can or could evolve in many ways.The synthesis ending implies that there is a new kind of D.N.A.(one that has organic & synthetic parts evolving together in a symbiosis).But a symbiosis is a two way relationship.Now the organic part can perhaps absorb minerals from the synthetic part(as metals come from rocks that some extremeophiles can live off of).But that would end up destroying the synthetic part & would be more like predation or at least a parasite.
The synthetic part also gets nothing out of this relationship & therefore this symbiosis is impossible.That means the organic parts & the synthetic parts(the synthetic parts would have to be similar to nanides that build upon them selves)would never be seeking the same resourses & would have to push against eachover.So they cannot exist in reality.
So does that mean that the mass effect universe has changed course & is now going to include space magic?.

Thanks in advance.

I hit send by accident before I finished & I think it got lost someway back with the earlier threats.

Hey there,

I agree that Star Wars is really more like Space Opera than "SciFi" but as for your question, it's not something I know.  I was never a biology guy in school, and I think the fundamental idea of any sort of synthesis like this is innately difficult to understand because it's not really something we can comprehend.

As for the direction of the ME series, just a reminder in case those missed it but I work on the DA franchise and have no real insight into the ME franchise as a result.  Just speaking as a fan to other fans as waaaaaaaay earlier in this thread someone made a comment I wanted to respond to lol.

[Allan Schumacher]

As long as they have some delicious screwdrivers I'm game!

[Allan Schumacher]

Khevan77 wrote...

@Allan: Thanks for giving us your perspective on the ending. I realize this is your perspective, and not Bioware's, but I had one question that I haven't seen you address, and I'm not about to read this whole thread to see if it's been asked, lol.

My biggest complaint about the ending is specific to the Catalyst himself. He states that he controls the reapers (or it's implied by him saying something about the reapers being his solution to the chaos,etc.)

If he controls the reapers, why then does Sovereign need to be around to send a signal to the Citadel in ME1? If the Catalyst was on the Citadel (it's a part of him), why need an outside source? The Citadel is the heart of galactic civilization, the Catalyst would have known that organics had reached a point where Reaping was in order, and he could have opened the relay himself, instead of relying on Sovereign to send a signal to the keepers to do it for him.

This is my biggest complaint about ME3's ending, that it invalidates the plot of ME1 and ME2. It doesn't fit with estabilished lore in the MEverse. Just wanted to get your thoughts on this if you were willing to respond. Thanks.

Great question actually, and one that I'm not sure of to be honest.

To give a "lazy" answer, I think (rather conveniently) my mind falls back on most of the "inexplicable" and sees if I can tie it into the very convenient Crucible plot device because given the way that the Crucible is present in game.  Since my mind is very human and I find human minds innately attempt to tie up loose ends, it's probably what prevented me from outright rejecting the Catalyst when I saw him.  I remember thinking "Whoa this is unexpected" but I didn't go "What!?  This is just dumb!"  (though to be fair, I was expecting a bad ending so I was also biased to going into it with an open mind).

I have 'yays and nays' with the Crucible.  On the one hand, I don't mind that it has some mystery, and it prepares me for something unexpected to happen.  On the other hand, it's silly that it has mystery and seems strange to suddenly introduce.

My best rationalization (and it is something that falls into the speculation aspect of the ending for sure) is that it's tied to the unpredictable nature of the crucible.  And I do think the game did a decent job of hinting that there were potentially unanticipated aspects towards the crucible.

That's hardly an answer for your question, but at this point it's pretty much all I got .  The convenience/lameness of the crucible then enables us to either fabricate reason, or accept that technology beyond our understanding looks like magic.  I almost wonder if the Catalyst is just performing an experiment and our cycle finally passed.  It's not great, and I think I find myself resigned to not overthinking it too much, similar to my experienced with The Force in Star Wars, or flying people in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon... <.<

Sorry I can't be more help than that for the question.  I think it's an interesting question for sure.  It leads me to believe that the connection with the Crucible enables the Catalyst.  Perhaps at one point the Citadel had a Crucible like device on it, and it was removed for some reason with the Reapers set in their ways of doing their reaping.  This might also explain why the Catalyst is devoid of knowing about the cooperation with EDI and the Geth (he certainly doesn't strike me as ominpotent).

[Allan Schumacher]

Megachaz wrote...

@Allan Thanks for the great discussion!

Do you think an ending where everyone survives, including Shepard, would have seemed out of place given the gravity of the situation?  On one hand, I think that wiping the floor with the Reapers without the loss of any of the main characters or factions might make them seem like pushovers (although Starchild already did this a bit in my mind), but on the other hand, I have a soft spot for the big goddam hero saving everyone's asses.  I would have loved a mechanic where the decisions like saving the council vs. human fleets, being able to talk down Saren, destroying/saving the Collector base, and squadmate survival on the suicide mission could impact the survival and stability of the races after the war.

I do think so.  As much as I can appreciate "Oh cool, everyone CAN survive" in ME2 from a reactivity standpoint, I actually find the ending not very interesting.  Fighting super powerful foes without any loss of any appreciable kind... I know I'm awesome but am I being TOO awesome?

In my "official" playthrough I lost Thane, which was sad.  I sent him in the tube, in part because he was terminally ill and dammit, if he was going to die it might as well be for something!  IIRC he felt the same way.  So he was in the tube, and then we rendezvous at the door and... BAM!    Thane is dead!  I didn't think that would actually happen!  It created a bit of a cost to complete the mission.  So while Shepard and Co are happy to have destroyed the Collector Base (sorry TIM, I just don't trust you!), there's that twinge of melancholy because you realize that a teammate and friend paid the ultimate price to ensure the mission would succeed.  That's powerful stuff.

I think it also had good balance with the first game, where we're forced to lose a teammate as well.  Given Ash and Kaiden were my favs (don't judge...), that sacrifice was even more memorable for me!

[Allan Schumacher]

Zenor wrote...

@allan That's my theory. The catalyst is something that only activates when the crucible is in it. This by itself would explain why he doesn't pay attention to the geth or EDI (That or he looks at a really big picture) and why the citadel doesn't do the reapers bidding without the keepers.

At the very least he's more a passive observer

Plus the sacrifice wasn't as memorable for me. I dislike Ashley (sorry ;-...so it was a easy choice. I sound evil for saying that.

I agree.  It's why I had hoped that the game some how determined your most used NPCs so that, at least on your first playthrough, you'd have to choose between two that were presumably your favourite.

Expensive thing to do unfortunately

[Allan Schumacher]

hippanda wrote...

I would say yes.

I haven't read the entire thread, so I don't know if this has been linked or not, but I figure it's worth a look:


That's a fan's version of a "reapers win" ending. As far as I'm concerend, it conveys a better sense of hope for the future than any of the current endings.

Thanks for sharing that.  I think meaningful "fail" choices should be given more consideration gaming in general.  I think the idea of Shepard passing on this cycle's culture to a new cycle would have been an excellent ending!

[Allan Schumacher]

Megachaz wrote...

How could you let Thane die!   In my primary (FemShep, Paragon) playthrough, everyone survives the Collector base, but I have a Renegade BroShep who loses a couple of people.  The only reason I don't like losing people in the Collector base is because they die right in the heat of battle, so they don't really get a proper send-off.  I could never let Mordin just die in the Collector base and rob myself of the amazing scene at the end of the Tuchanka arc.  Same with Thane, Legion, Tali, or really anyone who has a "wow" moment in ME3.

To be fair, I have heard that Mordin's replacement, Wiks, is also pretty awesome.  And with Thane did, I thought I got a pretty cool scene from Mr. "ice water in his veins" Kirrahe.  I liked Kirrahe and was angry (and impressed) when he sat there and took the shot.  He held the line .
 

On paper that sounds ok but in the game it would suck. It would mean I,
and I think a lot of other people, would play through the game with
companions they hate, which would diminish the overall enjoyment of the
game, just so the companions they like don't die.

Perhaps the solution is to just make sure you like all the companions...

[Allan Schumacher]

fibchopkin wrote...

Allan- brada, it's like, midnight here in Hawaii- so it has GOT to be so late where you are! Really cool of you to stay up so late talking to us geeks on your Sat night/ Easter Sun morning.

It's after 5 now.... I'm going to bed now LOL.

how would you feel if the final conversation had been with harbinger instead of the starkid.
i mean what if it was harbinger who was explaining the cycle

I think people are adversarial towards Harbinger more than the Catalyst.  It probably would have magnified their concerns, especially about things such as refuting the explanations.  If people have a hard time believing the Catalyst, they must have a hell of a time believing Harbinger!

In Planescape (also my favourite game!) I loved the endings, because the
whole game was a cohesive narrative and the choices made sense to me. I
went in knowing full well what would happen. Additionally, while your
actions do affect others in PST, the game is fundamentally about the
story of *one* particular character, and I feel that the choice the
Nameless One makes is rightly a very personal one.

Planescape is amazing and if I find out any of you have never played it, I will leave this discussion forever!!  Although maybe it's my struggles with the setting, but I didn't anticipate being sucked into the Blood War.  Was sad, but cool at the same time.  PST also taught me that really, I don't care for boss fights.  I like boss conversations!   But I will not dispute that it (and Deus Ex) have better endings that fit in with their stories better.

When you refer to the line whereShepard says ("maybe"), I can't help but
feel you're hanging a lot on one word! Not a fault of yours, but it is a
good example of what I'm referring to. The objections, discussions, and
concerns that Shepard might have get simplified down to that single
"maybe".

That's fair.  I think this is where it gets subjective.  The way he says it is what makes me realize that it's not a certainty.  Could there have been more exposition?  Probably.

Another example to contrast is the DX Helios ending  - I don't think it's workable to compare that to Synthesis in ME3.

Yeah, someone else pointed out earlier that it's easier to conceptualize because JC is already partially synthetic and is essentially hooking himself in to Helios.  Though I more brought up the comparison to illustrate that I'll always find transcendant solutions to be ones that leave me confused somewhat, by their very nature.

Also, I'm all for ambiguous endings, but doesn't Stargazer kind of make
them not ambiguous? I mean, whatever you do, a bunch of
technoincompetents 10k years later are mumbling about you in the final
scenes. If I chose synthesis, that doesn't make any sense; they should
be ubertranshumans. If I chose Control and rebuilt the Mass Relays, that
doesn't make any sense, and if I chose Destory, how did we get from
Joker in Jurassic Park to here? I would personally LOVE a choice where
you say "NO WAY" and the Reapers win (because frankly, some victories
just aren't worth it, and I don't think I could make a decision of that
scale on behalf of the sentient universe) but if they aren't changing the ending, that won't remotely be a possibility, because stupid Stargazer would still have to "remember" you or w/e.

Actually, Stargazer is just a weird scene in general.  I guess showing that regardless of what Shepard chooses, it ends up working out.  THe only thing I really like about it is that it demonstrates that galactic collapse didn't occur.  Due to it coming after the credits I think it was more just an easter egg type thing.



Anyways.. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Allan Schumacher]

Deventh wrote...

@Allan Schumacher: How do you explain Shepard surviving after choosing the red ending? Obviously he didn't sacrifice himself (THANK GOD FOR THAT!) so at least we have an option seeing him survive and meet up with his LI & crew. So the child could be wrong about synthetic getting destroyed, because it said that "Even you are partly synthetic" - Yet we get Shepard breath (living) in the end.

As for why Shepard can survive and not be destroyed by the blast, I figure it has to do with EMS score.  Upon learning of the ending differences, the EMS score seems to be more a measurement of "How well can we build and protect the Crucible" as opposed to a "how much military might can be bring against the Reapers."  With a really low EMS score, even humans on Earth are outright disintigrated.  Slightly higher and they survive, but buildings are still eradicated.  With more, it definitely seems possible to make the Crucible more likely to hit its intended target, so even if Shepard's implants make him more vulnerable, evidently he can be protected from the blast.

Also you said that Shepard must sacrifice himself in the end. Why? Why not make it that if you don't have high enough EMS you must sacrifice yourself, but if you have it to the max why not survive? This game is all about choices and decisions throughout the games and how they would affect the ending. We should get a choice for Shepard to survive just as we should get one for sacrifice and failiure.

At its core, I feel Shepard's sacrifice adds weight to the end.  It makes him a more interesting character.  This is the third time he's gone up against all odds, and eventually the odds are going to catch up with him.  It's just a personal perspective that I feel would add a lot of emotion to the scene, and if a game can make me feel a genuine emotion I appreciate that.  Sacrifice resonates very powerfully with me.  If not Shepard, I still would have appreciated some sort of sacrifice.  To get through something so challenging to not even sustain a personal casualty (again!) cheapens it to me.  In order for Shepard to survive, I would have liked a sacrifice from someone else on the team.  And not James Vega .  It's just personal preference.  I still enjoyed the ending to ME2 even though it's possible to survive it flawlessly, so it's not a deal breaker for me.

As for the choice, I actually think there's a fine line you have to walk in order to make the choice interesting.  Sometimes, choice just shouldn't exist, and because of that, I think it makes the fact that choice does exist at other times more powerful.

For example, near as I can tell there is no way to save Mordin while curing the genophage.  Mordin is his own being and capable of making his own decisions, and the gravity of him sacrificing himself to atone for the genophage is powerful.  I think it would have been cheapened if Shepard could have summoned the Normandy and Mordin made some epic jump out with an explosion behind him and he somehow survives.  Now fast forward to Rannoch, when I get a dialogue wheel that basically says "Quarians must die" and "Geth must die" and I'm like "HOW CAN YOU MAKE ME CHOOSE THAT!?"  Given I couldn't save Mordin (though a bit of me wanted to because he's awesome), I didn't know if I'd get a chance to reconcile peace.  Buuuuuuuuut, because of decisions I made (going back to ME2 even), I suddenly was presented with an option, which I hastily took. 

Now if I had the impression that in almost every situation there's a clear, optimal choice to find, seeing that I could reconcile peace makes me expect that the result is there.  The only way for me to not get the optimal outcome is to just not play the game as well (or intentionally choose suboptimal decisions) which is something I struggle to do as a game player.  This is why I tend to like mutually exclusive choice since it presents a situation where I can't possibly experience everything.  Mutually exclusive choice complicates things though because dev resources go into something that many people may never experience.  I know Gabe Newell thinks that that is just silly haha.

[Allan Schumacher]

At it's core, is it more an issue for whether or not killing that many individual life forms is worth it?

Lets assume that there are 1 million Geth. Genocide would be killing all 1 million of them. Would someone that feels the option is too genocidal be more inclined to make the choice if say, it was 1 million random life forms from throughout the world?

Or if you need something more structured, say 20% Turian, 20% Quarian, 20% Asari, 20% Salarian, and 20% Human?

In all these cases no genocide actually occurs, but the total loss of life is equivalent.

[Allan Schumacher]

Ieya wrote...

Either way you have a terrible loss of life there - but with the 20-20-20-20-20 option you aren't eradicating a single culture at all.  Every race could survive the loss of 20% of their numbers - but the Geth losing 100% of their numbers destroys them utterly.

Well, unless someone finds the old Quarian data on how they were built in the first place ... although I suppose they'd probably never evolve the same.

Yeah, I was more curious if there was an issue with just the loss of life, or if it's actually the full on genocide that makes people uncomfortable.

I think you could also rationalize that it's easier (and maybe even fair) if the primary races all took a relatively equal hit.  Everyone makes a smaller sacrifice (relatively speaking) than the entire Geth making the ultimate sacrifice.

Thanks!

[Allan Schumacher]

I guess by "galactic collapse" I really meant "galactic destruction." In other words, the destruction of the relays didn't cause supernovae everywhere.

As for the child's desire to go to the stars, I imagined that as a "when you're older." Kind of like driving a car haha.

I agree that it's definitely some time in the future. Hopefully we find out more this summer.

[Allan Schumacher]

M0keys wrote...

I'd rather not directly kill anyone.

People on my side die when they get involved with war, but never because I choose to kill them when I can save them instead.

My Shepard was a peacekeeper whenever possible. You could say he was like Buddha, but with a gun.

I think it's reasonable that a lot of people played their Shepard's this way.  I'd certainly rather not kill anyone if it was unavoidable.  I like that sometimes it isn't.  For me, Shepard is someone that can make this choice.

But I think this ties into people's perspective about the game not really being "winnable" as well.  It's certainly not an ending that makes you go "Woo!"

[Allan Schumacher]

Beldamon wrote...

I wonder...if the choice had not been killing the Geth, but another species..say you can defeat the reapers, but all Turians have to die...or all Humans?

For those who believe sacrificing the geth would have been acceptable, would one of those other two choices have been as acceptable?

For myself, I found the Geth to be the easiest race to sympathize with (which is why I think that it's the Geth is meaningful), so I don't think it would have made it any more difficult for me.  I don't know if it would have made it easier for me either.

I posed a similar question earlier, and there are some that believe that they would not be able to choose Destroy regardless of the race, which is fair.  It's tricky to determine because it's all hypothetical haha.  I mean, I doubt I would be able to make such a decision, but Shepard.  He has the chutzpah to make the hard choice.

[Allan Schumacher]

tookrunk1991 wrote...

i still dont understand how shepard can live in the red ending when the starchild told you that you would die since shepard is like 90% synthetic since mass effect 2

If you look at the results of the Crucible firing with low EMS, humanity appears to be outright eradicated.  With higher EMS, they seem unaffected.

What I didn't really understand as well while playing, but I am leaning more to now, is that the EMS score appears to relate to how precise the Crucible fires its pulse.  Hackett mentions earlier in the game how he's not certain what the Crucible will do, and how we're not even sure how to make it target only the Reapers.  The Catalyst does say that Shepard is mostly synthetic.  The fact that Shepard can survive, though, tells me that he's not all knowing.  With a high enough EMS the Crucible appears to be able to fire more precisely than even the Catalyst anticipates, and Shepard is spared.  I'm wondering if maybe the Geth are spared too actually

[Allan Schumacher]

Naugi wrote...

Just so long as you know that makes no sense with what EMS was actually supposed to represent in the game - the chance of our forces in a final battle, not the accuracy of the Crucible. How does having Diana Allers on board the Normandy, or a Ciradel Defence Force, or the Vorscha (etc etc etc) have any influence over the Crucible?

This just confirms how badly broken the ending is, because in the end EMS was just a superficial magic number and the make up of the 'Assets' was largely irrelevant. We might just as well have recruited Battarian Boomerang Flingers, Salarian Fishermen and Turian Ballerinas, as long as they had an EMS value attached to them.

I made the assumption that the EMS represented the power of my military fleet as well.  I think I just like big dreadnoughts with powerful guns that make pretty explosions....  But if you notice, a lot of the war assets that you receive explicitly discuss their work on the Crucible.  So the EMS score was always affected by your ability to properly make the Crucible.

As for the military assets, the ability for the fleet to protect the Crucible is also vital.  I agree it's not 100% clear on that regard, but I disagree that the EMS was purely a measurement of our ability to fight the Reapers.  The way the ending plays out actually confirms this, but that only helps from a metaknowledge perspective.

[Allan Schumacher]

Beldamon wrote...

Coolness!    I'm sorry I missed the earlier post.

Ok, how about something more general?

Say one is presented with three choices, and all of them seem 'bad'.  Does picking the least-'bad' seeming choice make it a good choice?

I think it depends on how flexible you are with the term "good."  If you equate good with something more "ideal" or "positive" or "happy" then I'd say probably not.  If you see it as more relative, in that it is "good" because it is "better" then I think it's fair.

Now, interestingly, I was faced with that earlier in the game, on my first playthrough.  Yes, I failed to leave the 'Reaper Base' mission on Rannoch for last, so I was left with the choice to side with the Quarians or the Geth.

Though there was no 'good' choice in this case, there was a 'right' one for me -- I sided with the Geth.  The Quarians had been the agressors in the conflict and had been given multiple opportunities to stand down.  Siding with the Geth was a no-brainer for me.  I shed a few RL tears for Tali and for the Quarians, but my conscience was clear.

I was primed to let the Quarians die too.  Having to choose, they were more in the wrong.

With the ending there was neither a good nor a right choice, for me. 

I explain that in this wall of text:  http://social.biowar...788/19#11223242

tl;dr 'hard choice' doesn't even really come into it.  It is from my point of view that any choice is worse than no choice.

I'll have to look over that post first haha.

how does having a higher effective military strength make the crucible
fire more accurately? that makes the ending make even less sense to
me... hopefully the summer dlc can clarify this..... hopefully

If you look at your military assets, a lot of them describe their ability to work on the crucible.  Hackett makes comments that the engineers working on the crucible are freaked out by the Rachni being present, and stuff like that.  Based on how the EMS alters the endings right now, it seems to me that the precision of the Crucible is related to the EMS value.  It's what causes humanity to be unscathed on Earth, or to be literally disintegrated.

[Allan Schumacher]

Naugi wrote...

Some of the EMS is based on Assets that contribute directly to successfully building the Crucible and / or understanding it / using it successfully BUT the bulk of the EMS score comes from military assets, from fleets to individual ships to commando squads to individuals like Jack. These have no influence on the Crucibles ability to fire a beam.

The Assets that could be seen as affecting Crucible accuracy are dwarfed by those that would have no influence on its effectiveness. EMS was supposed to represent chance of success in a final battle, not ability to defend the Crucible. That just doesnt fit with everything we were told as we amassed these assets.

I disagree that the "fleets" would have no influence on the Crucible's construction (any Naval Fleet is filled with ships that help manage logistics.  Not purely military vessels.  This ignores the sheer manpower that they'd be able to contribute).  Some of them are purely military assets, but at the same time the whole gambit at the end of the game is to link the Crucible up to the Citadel.  Military assets are just as useful from the stand point of having Reaper forces shooting at them instead of at the Crucible.

You won't find any argument from me that this wasn't as clear as it needed to be, but based on how we actually see that the varying EMS values do directly affect the beam, based on the result that happens at the end.

[Allan Schumacher]

Naugi wrote...

Still think its a bit sketchy that a few hundred EMS difference somehow means Shepard can live or that a beam can do something different. Yes the fleets can defend the Crucible, allowing it to fire, but how do they allow it to fire differently? How does having another 200 EMS from lets say, the Terminus Fleet, allow the beam to do something new? How would that change if Shepard lives or dies?

That's more an issue of game production though.  When developing the game, you have to pick some sort of threshold, and if you make it more of a gradient you're going to end up shooting yourself in the foot for representing that in a meaningful way.

You also start to get into semantics over what exactly 1 unit of war score actually represents.  There's no good reason for why 3999 EMS kills Shepard and why 4000 EMS spares him aside from "It's a video game and it's a lot easier to do it that way then some other way."

I think this can be extended to other games as well.  I mean, why is a character still able to fight at 1/100 health (often at the same ability as 100/100), but then suddenly 0/100 it's just game over.

[Allan Schumacher]

tjc2 wrote...

You could dice roll the ending a little bit. If you have 3999 you have a 99% chance of getting the 4000 ending, if you have 3001 score you have a 1% chance. And then of course after 5000 there is only one ending and under 2500 there is only one ending.

You could do that, but I think that that starts to complicate the issue for possibly not much gain.  The increased complexity potentially leads to bugs, and I think you'd also have people confused when they were to replay their game under the exact same conditions, you can get an alternate ending.  Imagine inviting your friend over to show off an awesome ending, and loading up the save and having it play out in a way that you didn't anticipate.

There's benefits to having predictability and determinism and I think, in general, a lot of fans would agree.