481 réponses à ce sujet

[FulfilledDeer]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Rickets wrote...

The Crucible looks big enough to serve as a ram to smash Reapers.

BWAHAHA that would have been an interesting and unexpected twist XD.


Hackett:  "It's not firing.... ah screw it ram the bastards!"

I stopped reading the thread after this post (sooo much to catch up on), but can I just say this would have been brilliant? Not only do you get to undercut the mythology of the other cycles being idealized (Liara with Javik does the same thing) but that is an amazingly human response. I'm imagining seeing the news of the crucible not firing spreading throughout the fleet - shots of every race losing hope, seeing the futility of resistance and wishing they were with their loved ones......and then Hackett does the thing only a human can and forces hope.

Would be sweet....

[Sohlito]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Yougottawanna wrote...

I gotta say I'm impressed with Allan Schumacher here. One man alone, in an unfortified position with no air support, taking on the combined typing ability of half the internet.

You don't give me enough credit!

(that's me in the lower right)

Could be the fact that he's a fan of the series, just like the rest of us.

Also, is that a Farside comic?

[Beldamon]

Allan Schumacher wrote...



Thanks. As a fan and an observer/lurker to the ME3 twitters, I find three common themes of people having issues with the Catalyst ("Where did he come from he makes no sense!"), issues with the lack of resolution (What happened? Are the Dextro races doomed? Did all relays go supernova?), and issues with the bleakness of the ending (Leading to people feeling that you cannot really win in the game). This is a simplification for sure, as there's details for why someone might buy in to one (or all) of these issues. I posed the question just to help make sense out of it in my head.

The underlined portion is about as close as anyone has gotten to my own problem with the ending. Aside from the fact that Shepard just seems completely out of character when talking with the machine god.

I've seen people ask 'what's the problem? He defeated the Reapers!'

Unfortunately the most generous spin I could put on that would be that, yes, it's a victory, but only a technical victory. Like completing an agenda item from a board meeting, rather than winning an objective on the battlefield. I'm sure boardroom victories are stirring for some people, but I wanted more emotional payoff for my victory, thank you.

And honestly, even if I were willing to buy machine god's presuppositions, and also buy that Shepard would buy them too, "winning" in this case just seemed as bad as losing would have been.

It was made pretty clear from ME1 that the mass relays were essential to any form of galaxy-wide travel.

More, one point I never see anyone mention, is when machine god is laying out the 'destroy' option, he adds in the phrase "and much of the technology you rely on", which to me meant ships too...

I flatter myself with having a very vivid and flexible imagination, but none of the above really left a lot of wiggle room for a positive ending for anyone alive during the mass relay explosions (and yes, all on my own I came to the conclusion that the MR explosions would have had to have been a different 'type' of explosion than the one in Arrival.)

At this juncture I want to bring up a couple points that tie into this whole set of topics. Two things I see commonly when people criticize those of us who dispise the ending as it is: First they wave it off saying, "They're just upset because it's the end of the story." Second, they imply that people just needed some hand-holding with an epilogue.

And both of those assumptions make my blood boil even more than the awful ending itself.

First, I read voraciously, and have been known to take in a TV series or two in my time. One thing pretty much everything I've read or watched has in common is...you guessed it!..they all *end*. And yet, somehow I not only manage to get through that fact without hating the ending or the series/story as a result, I generally appreciate it.

As a metaphor, as much as I enjoy sex, if it just went on and on, and on, I know in my heart of hearts I'd get tired of it eventually. No matter how good it is.

For the second point...I just have to shake my head. Some of my favourite stories end on cliffhangers. Just to take a random example, I'm looking that the box for the 4th season of the TV series 'Heroes' on the shelf. That show definitely ended up with a cliffhanger, with about a billion unanswered questions. Even more interesting, the cliffhanger wasn't meant to be left unfinished, but the series was cancelled, so it was even unintentional.

Yet I can imagine a whole number of interesting possibilities for how life for those characters might have unfolded after the fact. And while I would have loved to see what the producer might have done with what came next, I am content to be left with my imagination in this case.

What is bad with the ME3 ending (ignoring the machine god itself) is there was not nearly enough foundation for such speculation. I have to admit this is only my perspective, but everything we were left with points to a 'galactic dark age', kind of making me wish the reapers had won, as that would have been a more uplifting ending than what I could see.

Modifié par Beldamon, 10 avril 2012 - 01:08 .

[Yougottawanna]

FulfilledDeer wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Rickets wrote...

The Crucible looks big enough to serve as a ram to smash Reapers.

BWAHAHA that would have been an interesting and unexpected twist XD.


Hackett:  "It's not firing.... ah screw it ram the bastards!"

I stopped reading the thread after this post (sooo much to catch up on), but can I just say this would have been brilliant? Not only do you get to undercut the mythology of the other cycles being idealized (Liara with Javik does the same thing) but that is an amazingly human response. I'm imagining seeing the news of the crucible not firing spreading throughout the fleet - shots of every race losing hope, seeing the futility of resistance and wishing they were with their loved ones......and then Hackett does the thing only a human can and forces hope.

Would be sweet....

I read it as a joke too... but wouldn't it be cool?

"Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering reaper; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned reaper! Thus, I give up the crucible!"

Modifié par Yougottawanna, 10 avril 2012 - 12:09 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Sohlito wrote...

Also, is that a Farside comic?

Yup!  Much love for Gary Larson!


Also, I just realized why this thread frequently makes me think of Bib Fortuna...

[TreguardD]

There's another thought from another thread. The Star Child is the VI [of the person] that either created or controls the Reapers.

It feels like he is letting us win. How satisfying is that?

[flub3]

I just don't understand why Shepard didn't even attempt to do something else. My Shepard would have attempted to do everything in his power to make his own answer. He wouldn't of sat there and listen to that foolish godchild creation. I disagree with creating this Deus Ex sort of plot ending, but having an option to tell the Star Child to go screw himself would of made it so much more bearable.

[jmacrosoft]

DJBare wrote...

Like many others I've seen it several times, it's definitely at the top of my favourites list.

THIS!!!!!!

[SolidisusSnake1]

Yes, I've also seen this many times and is another will thought out response that explains how the ME3 Ending is simply broken from a narrative point of view.

As he states the rest of the game is pretty much "perfect" but the ending abandons ME themes and introduces a new plot line and theme in the last 5 minutes of the game. This is what is so jarring and wrong with the ending, the Synthetics v. Organics themes is NEVER hinted at in any of the games, its barely even discussed outside the Geth. ME has been about STOPPING the Raepers, gaining allies making friends, etc. Then all of a sudden at the very end the Star Child introduces a new conflict the supposed future war against Organics v. Synthetics and then proceeds to tell us that we must also resolve it in the same minute that he brings it up.

NOTHING prior to your talk with the Star Child ever hints at this greater conflict, in fact the game does is just the opposite. In ME2 and ME3 you are increasingly shown that AI's and Synthetic life are not completely hostile, you learn that the Geth are in fact peaceful and only fought to continue their existence. You meet EDI whom falls in "love" with your pilot, whom cares about you and your crew, and professes that "she" would die you. But now at the very end you are told to abandon all of this previous evidence and accept the fact that Synthetics are in fact the real enemy and that they will eventually wipe us all out. It's so out of the blue that it makes you feel as if you are playing a different game.

It would be the same thing if at the end of Return of the Jedi the Emperor stated that the real enemy was not him and the Empire but the Ewoks. You see he was given a vision from The Force that shows eventually in the future the Ewoks will dominate the Galaxy and attempt to wipe out all non-Ewok life, and that he has been attempting to unify the Galaxy in order to prepare for their eventual uprising and stop them. At which point Luke must make the decision to use the Death Star to blow up Endor, merge with the Death Star which will merge all Ewoks and Organics into a new framework, or Control the Death Star dying in the process but will somehow release a signal that will compel the Ewoks to obey him. Oh and all hyperdrives in the universe will cease to function after he has released the energy of the Death Star.

Now that of course is complete nonsense, and you are right, nothing in Star Wars leads you to believe that the Ewoks are hostile towards you just as nothing in ME leads you to the conclusion that ALL synthetic life will eventually rise up and destroy all organics.

This is the main problem with the ending.

[Eyeshield21]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Nykara wrote...


In any case I haven't actually watched the video myself but after having read this post and the exlainations here I don't feel -as- bad about the ending as I first did. Not entirely. There are however, things I still dislike.

Haha that's fair.  My intent in posting is not to convince people that they should change how they feel about the endings.

On the topic of the Reapers not being able to be defeated by conventional means - I actually don't buy in to that explaination at all for a couple of very simple reasons.
- If something can be shot, blown up or destroyed it -can- be defeated it is not immortal.
- The reapers can be shot, they can be killed and their ships can be blown up
For this reason alone i came to the conclusion that the reapers can in fact be destroyed by conventional means - not easily but it can be done. For something to not be able to be destroyed conventionally, to me it means that the weapons we currently have - do not work against it at all. That is not the case with the Reapers, that's been prooven time and time again throughout the game. This is what made it very difficult to stomach that explaination.

Hmmm, I don't mind Hackett's explanation.  For myself, stating that the Reapers cannot be destroyed conventionally was more of an acknowledgement that going toe to toe with them, or even trying guerrilla war type stuff, was ultimately a Fools Errand.  It took an entire Quarian fleet several salvos to take out a Reaper destroyer on Rannoch, so while we can destroy them, it's going to come at a huge cost, and Hackett feels it's a war of attrition we'd never be able to win.

On the conventional means to destroy the reapers, it reminds me of the Halo series, in a way. In Halo, the Covenant had better tech than Humanity, so in ground wars we won but at a huge cost, and we just got hammered in space battles. However, the Covenant CAN be beaten, but at a high cost. If it would be a fair fight, we would have to fight them 3 to 1, and even then it was tough. Same deal with the Reapers in ME, they can be  beaten, but it would cost a lot of ships and effort(speaking of ships and effort where were the thanix cannons? we beat the crap out of the collector ship, so where were they)?

[dumdum2]

I was just hoping that at least one of the bullets would get stuck in Star Child's head and kill him! I could let Kaidan die on Virmire and I could shoot a well placed bullet in Udina's heart, yet the most annoying character in the whole series just stands there acting like a little brat telling me what to do. And the worst part of it is that I actually obey everything that Star Child says without so much as a hint of questioning him about his motives.

Loved Mass Effect 1 (played through it about 10 times)! Loved Mass Effect 2 even more which is my favorite game (on the Citadel) of all time! And even though Mass Effect 3 had a couple of flaws here and there that weren't really coherent with the story and gameplay of the first two games it was still a decent game with a lot of epic moments as well. From time to time there were some great storytelling which made me feel like I was back in ME1 or ME2, but mostly it was pretty mainstream without consequences to my choices. I mean, for example I had a thing with Ashley in the first game, in the second I choosed to have a romance with Tali, in the third I got together with Liara. So I had three girls on my ship that I had dated and slept with and I was their commander, and everyone was totally fine with it. Where's the drama and intrigue? I was actually looking forward to see how Ashley would react about me dating Tali, and she just said that it's fine because Tali is like a sister to her or something.

Regardless, the video in this thread really sums it up when it comes to the basic flaws of ME3. The ending doesn't make any sense at all and the last 10 minutes of the game goes totally out of character.

Well Bioware, even though you tried to hold the timeline for this project and not go over budget (like with Tali's photoshopped face) you would have been better off just going over budget and/or giving the project 2 or 3 more months of time. Now you might have to go more than 6 months past the original timeline trying to correct your mistakes and I guess that the budget in both total cost, revenue and turnover will be far worse than it could/should have been. I don't blame Bioware or their project manager though, I blame EA since they were the ones calling the shots.

I'm a big fan of Bioware ever since I first played Baldurs Gate (1 & 2) on PC followed by other epic games like Neverwinter Nights (1 & 2), Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect 1 & 2. On Dragon Age 2 Bioware really dropped the ball and with Mass Effect 3 they have managed to set a new standard in how to destroy a game that had the potential to be the most epic games of all time.

But hey, this is just my point of view.

Modifié par dumdum2, 10 avril 2012 - 02:32 .

[generalleo03]

Hmm, I think people are projecting way too much Cthulhu on the reapers. Yes, they are most definitely based on Cthulhu, but Mass Effect is not Cosmic Horror. If it were, Shepard would have died in ME1, Sovereign would still be alive, and he would be destroying people everywhere. The best "victory" in ME1 would be to destroy the citadel to delay the inevitable. That is how Cosmic Horror would play out. Instead Sovereign is dead, truly and completely. Destroyed by beings he was "infinitely superior" too.

I think it's entirely reasonable to conclude that the reapers have a god-complex and see themselves as significantly more powerful than they actually are.

Also, never forget that the reapers actually set a trap. If they are so powerful, so strong, why bother with a trap. This is not something Cthulhu would care about. Cthulhu would just end all life. The mere fact that the reapers even bother to set a trap shows vulnerability. Even vigil from ME1 states that at least while sleeping the reapers are vulnerable.

Another point of vulnerability is the fact the reapers took the citadel at all. Why would they have bothered at that point in the game? They probably could have taken it whenever. If they wanted to throw the galaxy into a loop, ME 3 would have started with them taking the citadel, instead they leave it till the very end. Again, the reapers feel threatened by the crucible. Plain and simple. They know that these "infinitely inferior" beings are a threat to them. They are vulnerable.

Now I personally was jarred out of the story by the mere existence of the crucible (c'mon just happened to be there) but for the most part I just tried not to think about it too hard. Just like I tried not to think about how incredibly stupid it is for any intelligent being to put the thing they want to keep out of the hands of the enemy (citadel) in a spot where the enemy can get to it (Earth), especially when they could just hide it (say dark space, or beyond the omega-4 relay).

I never bought that the reapers were unbeatable, but I never thought they should just be killed in one battle. I guess my opinion sticks me squarely in the "I don't know" category. Could I understand a conventional victory? Yes, but it would seem cheap. But building a device no one understands whose function is explained by the self-professed galactic-know-it-all who tells me that the very conflict he is bringing upon the galaxy (synthetics versus organics) is inevitable and I must now chose one of three choices that my enemy (the leader of the reapers) that he "promises" will end the conflict. "Totally" not buy right into his goals, like control will totally work for me, I'm superior to TIM. Destroy will "Totally" work and kill off all synthetics and myself, because he said so. Merging all life's DNA and synthetic DNA is "Totally" possible because synthetic DNA totally exists. These options, which we have every reason to doubt, and have blatant lies attached to them, struck me as even cheaper than a conventional victory. Given the choice of these two, I think I'd take a conventional victory.

At least I want the option to tell him to stuff it, go back down through the beam, try to shoot down harbinger with my infinite ammo gun until he's smart enough to make sure when you're trying to stop someone from getting to the device that can defeat you, you actually confirm your kills.

[TreguardD]

Not all Cosmic Horror is the inevitably of failure. I advise looking at Mansions of Madness, or the Arkham Horror games (By Fantasy Flight)

[rpgchick90]

Commenting so I can get to this again

[ArchLord James]

TreguardD wrote...

There's another thought from another thread. The Star Child is the VI [of the person] that either created or controls the Reapers.

It feels like he is letting us win. How satisfying is that?

My gripes exactly! The reapers are simply taking pity on us, and letting us replace the cycle (harvesting 50,000 years) by choosing a new solution that is just as sinister. That is what shepard is reduced to at the end of the game, somebody who takes a charity handout of choosing the reapers king's new plan for the galaxy, and then sitting idly by and watching as the space magic of the heroic catalyst carries out the new reaper solution to replace the cycle. Shepard does nothing of his own will, and has no power. He cant even bring himself to fight back or tell off the reaper king, he almost seems to beg and plead with it instead. And the cycle and the new solution are all to save us from a threat which most of us believe is nonexistant. They are born out of a logic most real fans of ME3 refuse. The only real threat of being killed by synthetics is the reapers themselves as far as I can see, yet the catalyst insists that his minions (the reapers) are the solution.

I dont even think he is letting us win, he is just letting us bare witness to his awesome power, the power of the reapers, and he is letting us witness the birth of his new solution.

[killnoob]

Gaider's ability to argue with fans > Allan

nah, you are good...

[TreguardD]

Thread looks like it is dying down; so I'd like to give one last warm applause for: Allan Schumacher, for the willingness to come in and defend his views and listen to our complaints.

We wish more of Bioware, say the Mass Effect team, was willing to do this.

Most of us do not bite. We promise.

[Beldamon]

Though I vehemently disagree with most of what he says, I too find it refreshing to have someone from BioWare participating in the conversation -- however uninvolved in ME itself he might be. lol.

Much appreciation.

Modifié par Beldamon, 10 avril 2012 - 10:20 .

[Aesieru]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Sohlito wrote...

Also, is that a Farside comic?

Yup!  Much love for Gary Larson!


Also, I just realized why this thread frequently makes me think of Bib Fortuna...

There's also the FACT that you know... they LIED and thus ILLEGALLY ADVERTISED IN A KNOWINGLY FALSE MANNER.

[TeffexPope]

I don't get how people can stand listening to someones voice for thirty minutes on youtube. The worst ones are when they put their camera on their faces and talk the entire time. I can't watch those at all.

Modifié par TeffexPope, 11 avril 2012 - 02:43 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Aesieru wrote...

There's also the FACT that you know... they LIED and thus ILLEGALLY ADVERTISED IN A KNOWINGLY FALSE MANNER.

Not sure how this relates to Gary Larson, Farside, Bib Fortuna, or even the OP.

(rhetorical question there's no need to elaborate)

[eboshi12]

TeffexPope wrote...

I don't get how people can stand listening to someones voice for thirty minutes on youtube. The worst ones are when they put their camera on their faces and talk the entire time. I can't watch those at all.

It depends. This guy is very articulate and well spoken (plus he's talking about something I'm passionate about). It's understandable to not be able to sit through some random person droning on about an uninteresting topic, but for me, this is not the case in this video.

[DJBare]

TeffexPope wrote...

I don't get how people can stand listening to someones voice for thirty minutes on youtube. The worst ones are when they put their camera on their faces and talk the entire time. I can't watch those at all.

I find it depends very much on the speaker, I had a lecturer that could put a class to sleep in seconds, while another lecturer kept the class riveted, this particular speaker timed his delivery of specific points in such a way that he maintained my interest to the next point made.

[Kilshrek]

generalleo03 wrote...

Hmm, I think people are projecting way too much Cthulhu on the reapers. Yes, they are most definitely based on Cthulhu, but Mass Effect is not Cosmic Horror. If it were, Shepard would have died in ME1, Sovereign would still be alive, and he would be destroying people everywhere. The best "victory" in ME1 would be to destroy the citadel to delay the inevitable. That is how Cosmic Horror would play out. Instead Sovereign is dead, truly and completely. Destroyed by beings he was "infinitely superior" too.

Yeah, I think there are only some parallels that you can draw, but not very many. The Reapers had a touch of Cthulhu when their intentions were mostly unknown, and what they were was not known too. The more we came to understand the Reapers, without losing our minds, the less like Cthulhu they became.

[ArchLord James]

TeffexPope wrote...

I don't get how people can stand listening to someones voice for thirty minutes on youtube. The worst ones are when they put their camera on their faces and talk the entire time. I can't watch those at all.

I know what you mean when its a random off the top of the head type of rant. However, this video is not like that. It is planned and executed with the same level of precision that professional documentaries have. Your comparing apples and oranged bud.