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[nhsknudsen]

Now I don't say the actual ending is fine, because it isn't. However the ending with sacrifice is good in spirit but not in execution. More on that later.

Now if we take a look at the ME series from the beginning.

In
ME1 we had a minor sacrifice in the Virmire situation. It was great,
victory cannot come without some sacrifice if you want the villain(s) to
remain something to be frightened of. If we could achieve victory
without casualties our enemies were not worthy. To use a krogan way of
thinking...

However people raged and ****ed over the Virmire situation and that we should be able to have both types of cake.

So
in ME2 we have a suicide mission, where sadly Bioware seemed to cave to
fans and let in a possibility for everyone to survive, huge mistake.
If
the suicide mission had forced casualties and the rest of the game
forced you to pick either Miranda or Jack in their catfight and forced
you to pick either Legion or Tali. Forcing someone to not be loyal.
Additionally
throw in the possibility of not having time to do everyones loyalty
mission, f.example Garrus and Thanes missions was running
simultaneously. If you did Garrus mission you didn't make it in time to
stop Kolyat. And if you did Thanes mission Sidonis got away, yet again.
Possibly
another forced casualty would be if the Normandy SR2 simply could not
produce enough power to have both improved Shields AND a Thanix cannon installed at the same time. Forcing a casualty in the run to the collector base.

Instead
we got what we got, a suicide mission where everyone could survive.
Teaching people to expect a total happy ending in ME3 was something we
could achieve. Throughout ME2 we are told that people are going to die.
In the conversation with TIM before chosing to
destroy or save the base Shepard can say "I didn't do it alone, people
died" as a possibly reply to TIM despite NO ONE died.
It implies to me that people were meant to die, but Bioware was afraid
of fan backlash and decided to have the possibility of everyone
surviving.

Fast forward to ME3. Here we can up the stakes, new
players don't lose something really important except some default
choices on who is dead from suicide mission and the opposing gender of
Shepard as the VS)

In ME3 we can have both Krogan support and
Salarian support. WHY?!? Why must Shepard be an almighty god that can
make everything happy joy?
If the genophage had been cured we should
have been cut off from Salarian support. If we sabotaged the genophage
the Krogan army support should have been withdrawn (they don't have a
fleet), but we should have had the Salarian fleet. (would also open up
for another style of ending... later elaborated)

The same case with the Geth / Quarian conflict. Why must 300 years of war be ended with Shepard yelling into a microphone for 15 seconds?
The
Quarians are stubborn as a whole, a hatred so inbred to the Geth, that
peace would be impossible. Even keep the current with Geth actually
wanting peace, but Quarians not going to do it. NO MATTER SHEPARDS CHOICES.
Save the Quarians, gain a mighty fleet but no huge army support since they don't really have a huge ground army.
Save the Geth and get an equally mighty fleet plus army support making it tempting to pick the Geth.

Now why do I mention a difference between Fleet and Army? Because...

THEY ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS!

In the final battle this should make a difference. If you have a low EMS army
you would have to send a squad to a broken front to help, possibly
meaning these squadmembers would die. Which could have been avoided if you had f.example the Krogans to send instead.
It would also mean Kirrahes promise of STG help, despite you curing the genophage, would actually matter. A bit more army support but that much.

Now
getting to the Crucible, Hackett goes "It doesn't fire, it must be
something on your end blah blah blah" and Shepards response should
simply be "I activated it, I can see it charging, you have to defend it
for some more time no matter the cost!" and Shepard could pass out from blood loss.

Now if the Fleet EMS was
below a certain point the Crucible would be destroyed and the cycle
would be lost. Fast forward to an ending where the next cycle is warned
by Liaras time capsules, and we see some techno cyborg Yahg literally
devour a Reaper whole.. Ok I may have gone over the top here but you get
my point.

In the middle Fleet EMS zone the Crucible fires up, destroys every Reaper in sight and everything is good. This cycle defeated the Reapers but Shepard died, cue sadface.

With
a high Fleet EMS it could be possible that Joker, being the best damn
Helmsman in the Alliance Navy, would have the opportunity to fly in (now
the arms are open) and make a daring rescue, same outcome as middle EMS
but Shepard survives. (Shepard have a much greater chance of survival
if you are a heartless renegade and have the Salarian fleet instead of
the Krogan army or possibly the Geth support (they being machines and
all, could perhaps save Shepard by hotdropping some primes whatever...
(Saving Geth should be a bad choice, in the epilogue, due to the
Catalyst logic which is fine, the Starchild character isn't fine.)

Now
considering if the series had been like this, with forced choices of
sacrifice the spirit of the ending would have been an epic conclusion.
You won (most likely) and stopped the Reapers. A very costly victory,
but still a victory. Hardearned and well deserved. Yes you made some
choices along the way and some races would have been doomed but still.
And the Starchild did not need to be there. Because all the Starchild
did was explain the Reaper motivations, which we did not need an
explanation for.
Because we couldn't comprehend their reasoning
anyway according to Sovereign. It would have been a great debate what
their motivations were, with speculations for everyone...[smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/wizard.png[/smilie] (but I wouldn't mind this speculation personally)

Now cue to the epilogue: (I would prefer a DA:O style epilogue but doesn't matter really)
You saved the Quarians, great. Tali if she lives gets to build a house on Rannoch possibly with Shepard if Shepard lives blah blah.
You
saved the Geth. great, except in 200 years despite the Geths best
effort to keep to themselves some politicians call for war against the
Geth, for fear of being overtaking.. Cue to a new galaxy consuming war
that is barely won by, say Organics. We don't want to go way to grimdark
now do we? (Proving the Starchild logic right despite him not being
present in this ending)

You saved the Krogans, great - Except if
Wrex and Eve didn't both live a new Krogan rebellion conflict would
arise. If both lived the Krogans managed to change their ways. The
Salarians would in this scenario become the new Batarian state. Being
pushed off galactic influence by their choice not to help in the
conflict.
You sabotaged the genophage, great - Except the remaining
Krogans would certainly make one last dish effort to get their cure,
possibly using the weakened galaxy as a hope they would actually could
win. Though with the rest of the galaxy united their efforts was in
vain, and their new rebellion was put down. Violently. In 500 years the
last Krogan died. Cue sadface.

More epilogue things pertaining to minor choices.

The
point being, if Bioware had stuck to their guns and had forced
sacrifice a part of the entire trilogy people wouldn't expect a
perfectly happy ending. Because it didn't fit the theme of the conflict.


However since this is not the case the current ending isn't
fine. There should be an option for a happy ending. The ending should
have been better elaborated. Your choices should have mattered (but
mostly ME3 choices of course for new players)

Instead we got this - Multicoloured explosions. But the idea of sacrifice for this victory is good, good job Bioware for sticking to that.
Really. It was just not well executed and that is why your ending still suck.

You do make great stories.

DA:O
had it about right with the armies, you couldn't get both. If was
great. And made for a lot more replayability of the game. Because no
matter your choices, you couldn't get both armies and have everyone be
happy...

Hope the above is comprehensible.

I still want a new ending, I still think the Starchild suck, I still think it was a horribly way to go out. For many reasons already pointed out on this forum many times, and on youtube, and on Forbes etc.
But
player expectations for a happy ending and that we were taught by
Bioware that mindlessly always picking Paragon or Renegade, would ensure
that we would get a happy ending if our blue or red bar was high
enough.

At least this is how I feel.
Looking forward to the day choices actually matter... Oh wait I just
have to play The Witcher... Shame their combat system suck for my old
man reflexes..

Just my two cents, posting despite not reading it
over. Just a sleepless night I wanted to do something with, now excuse
while I yell "shut up and take my money" in TOR.

[nhsknudsen]

****ed up formatting somehow...