4048 réponses à ce sujet

[7isMagic]

Seifer006 wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

I agree with your review, the whole game besides the ending had problems, plus the Quest system log that doesn't even update you at all

but I did have a problem with Liara, even tho Bioware did force her on you

ha! yeah i got a lot of heat on my views on Liara. but watever, Liara fans should be happy. she's given more emphasis then any other character including WREX

I am a Laira fan and was estatic that she was brought back as a perm squad member.  But I was very disappointed with how (most) other characters did not get the same amount of screen time - not even close.  All those folks you built a relationship with and fought beside in ME2 and especially the Virmire survivor, they deserved MUCH better.  More on-screen time and side stories worthy of the characters.    

[Moorningstaar]

ThomasakaDes_ wrote...


One of the best sci-fi stories I've experienced.
On par with the Fringe story.

Not to be an ass but I just have to say this.  If you think this is good SF then you have NEVER read good SF.  I've been an avid hard SF fan for sixteen years now (started with Ender's Game).  I have read good and bad SF and this falls squarely into the HORRIBLE SF catagory.  There is no way in hell any SF publisher would EVER have published this crap.  It uses EX DEUS MACHINA, makes technical falacies all over the place, and has plot holes that couldn't be filled with a quarry.  There are two tenets to writing sf (not mine, these come from publishers and writers).  One is that the story must use advanced tech (such as tech that manipulates mass) in such a way that the removal of this tech would gut the story.  The entire Mass Effect series fits this well.  But the second tenet is that the story must MAKE SENSE.  Ben Bova wrote in 'How to Write Science Fiction that Sells' that SF fans are the most unforgiving, analytical readers there are.  This isn't fantasy where I can create a magic crucible that will do whatever the hell I want it to.  Not only does the function of the crucible have to make sense, but the idea that someone trying to stop the reapers would build it to do what it does has to make sense.  It's function has to make sense.  The motives of your enemies (which can still be repugnant) have to make sense.  ETC.
If you want to expose yourself to good (or even great) SF I suggest you read some of the following:

1) ARMOR by John Steakley.  This book has been on bookstore shelves for THIRTY YEARS.  A good condition PAPERBACK first edition was selling for $300 last time I looked.

2)Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.  Another long timer on the book store shelves (and probably better known).

3)Old Man's War by John Scalzi.  Amazing writer.  Read anything of his and you realize that his range is from good to amazing.  CANT WAIT FOR HIS NEW BOOK 'RED SHIRTS' TO COME OUT IN PAPERBACK!

4)Live Free or Die by John Ring (seems that good SF writers have the same first name doesn't it?)

5)The War Against the Chtorr by David Gerrold.  Find an early printing.  He keeps rewriting it and it just gets wierder and wierder.

6)Crusade by David Weber and Steve White.  Great book.  It mirrors events of our own history and is good space opera (meaning it deals manly with the issues of honor, integrity, and courage).

Other writers of note are Timothy Zahn, Anne Mccaffrey, Robert A Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Ben Bova to name a few.  You can trust these people to give you an amazing SF experience.

Modifié par Moorningstaar, 10 juillet 2012 - 07:50 .

[Pinax]

BlueStorm83 wrote...

Pinax wrote...

Shepard108278 wrote...

I am infact doing my third complete trillogy playthrogh and couldn't disagree more. THe catalyst does fit with the lore of the series and the EC completes it IMO. ME 3 fits with the rest of the series ending included.

Would you be so kind to explain why do you think the catalyst fits into the lore and how does the EC completes the series? I disagree, but I am really more than interested to see an argumentation pro-ME3 ending to understand the others' side perspective. Looking forward to seing a reply on this and thank you!

The catalyst fits with the Mass Effect series and lore the same way what happens in the bathroom fits in with having 10 White Castles for lunch.

@ BlueStorm83

I know, you don't need to tell this I just thought that maybe someone would be able to present a detailed analysis pro-ending to give a new level to the discussion and permitting at least to have a try why some fans like the current endings. I am hoping this could bring closer into: what Casey and Mac were thinking while wiriting this and why they could ever think this will work?

Generally it kind of shows: on one side the amount of very detailed and IMO very intelligent critics, ME writing analysis with loads of references and arguments to follow, from the other side I could not found a single similar pro-ending analysis. Most of opinions pro-ending I see I rather comments: "this is epic", "it wonderful" but without any explanation and I really want to see the detailed explanation on "because". I know some of the fans like the current endings and I really want to see a reasoning behind this, especially why do you feel it sticks into the lore. Or is it purely an emotional feeling?

From the literary perspective this question would be: is there any possibility to give an interpretation of the current endings that could defend their integrity into the lore and genre of the game?

I think the answer is: absolutely not possible, but it would be interesting to see why someone has a different point of view.

[I Am Robot]

Moorningstaar wrote...

ThomasakaDes_ wrote...


One of the best sci-fi stories I've experienced.
On par with the Fringe story.

Not to be an ass but I just have to say this.  If you think this is good SF then you have NEVER read good SF.  I've been an avid hard SF fan for sixteen years now (started with Ender's Game).  I have read good and bad SF and this falls squarely into the HORRIBLE SF catagory.  There is no way in hell any SF publisher would EVER have published this crap.  It uses EX DEUS MACHINA, makes technical falacies all over the place, and has plot holes that couldn't be filled with a quarry.  There are two tenets to writing sf (not mine, these come from publishers and writers).  One is that the story must use advanced tech (such as tech that manipulates mass) in such a way that the removal of this tech would gut the story.  The entire Mass Effect series fits this well.  But the second tenet is that the story must MAKE SENSE.  Ben Bova wrote in 'How to Write Science Fiction that Sells' that SF fans are the most unforgiving, analytical readers there are.  This isn't fantasy where I can create a magic crucible that will do whatever the hell I want it to.  Not only does the function of the crucible have to make sense, but the idea that someone trying to stop the reapers would build it to do what it does has to make sense.  It's function has to make sense.  The motives of your enemies (which can still be repugnant) have to make sense.  ETC.
If you want to expose yourself to good (or even great) SF I suggest you read some of the following:

1) ARMOR by John Steakley.  This book has been on bookstore shelves for THIRTY YEARS.  A good condition PAPERBACK first edition was selling for $300 last time I looked.

2)Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.  Another long timer on the book store shelves (and probably better known).

3)Old Man's War by John Scalzi.  Amazing writer.  Read anything of his and you realize that his range is from good to amazing.  CANT WAIT FOR HIS NEW BOOK 'RED SHIRTS' TO COME OUT IN PAPERBACK!

4)Live Free or Die by John Ring (seems that good SF writers have the same first name doesn't it?)

5)The War Against the Chtorr by David Gerrold.  Find an early printing.  He keeps rewriting it and it just gets wierder and wierder.

6)Crusade by David Weber and Steve White.  Great book.  It mirrors events of our own history and is good space opera (meaning it deals manly with the issues of honor, integrity, and courage).

Other writers of note are Timothy Zahn, Anne Mccaffrey, Robert A Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Ben Bova to name a few.  You can trust these people to give you an amazing SF experience.

Although I haven't been a SF fan as long as you have but I think the SF ideas in mass effect are among the best. Take space travell in ME for example. Many of the science fictions I have read or seen use FTL as their main space travel method while if we travelled even a 100 times faster than light it could take years to travel the width of the milkyway. in ME there are the mass relays that contract the space and time between themselves and another mass realy resulting in an near instantaneous jump between the two mass realys for spaceships. Each mass realy is connected to two other mass relays creating a chain of mass realys which gives us a means of transportation in the the galaxy. I am not saying FTL or other science fiction ideas for space travel are bad,some sciece fiction using FTL are the greatest SF in history, or that all science fiction includes deep space travel, but I'm saying that mass effect as a science fiction has lots of great ideas. As to how inactive mass relays are found and reactivated though there hasn't been much explanation and only a few clues that there are infact inactive mass relays that are found and activated. 
Another example is the omni-tool. An electronic device that functions as a communication tool, a scanner, a video game console, ...(the only refrence to video games on omni-tool in ME games is in ME2 on the citadel, I'm not sure on which level of the space station but there is a video game shop and if you talk to the game salesman he will say "You can install it on your omni-tool" while commenting on a game. NOTE: not to be confused with the electronics shop on the citadel where you can purchase upgrades for your omni-tool.)

About the Crucible I have to say you are right to some extents. If the design is so clear when decoded, as admiral Hackett said, and if we have built it, it seems unlikely not to know how it will function untill the last minute and then find out that it can function in three diffrent ways without any prior programming. 

Again I emphasize that I am not trying to offend other science fiction. I'm trying to defend mass effect,

 I respect everyones opinion yours included. I'd be willing to continue this discussion but this topic is about the EC dlc and mainly the ending of ME3. I might start a new topic with the name "Mass Effect as a science fiction" if such a topic does not already exsist. 

Modifié par Farid-Yoda-N7, 10 juillet 2012 - 09:42 .

[metalheaded0117]

plz plz make mass4

Modifié par metalheaded0117, 10 juillet 2012 - 09:27 .

[IntoTheDarkness]

ME3 was the worst story-telling game in my life.

The game was filled with so freaking many plot holes caused by writers' incompetence and on the top of it they could not finish the trilogy without using deus ex machina despite creating numerous plot holes to tell stories. They went back on their own lore and had lots of retconnings. That is fine. But even with all those works they ended up with more plot holes than holes in French cheese.

I love how the reapers turned into a paperwall with no intelligence, how Cerberus became a galatic empire from star wars after their disastrous defeat in ME novel, how all allies except Shepard think they are fine with the reaper invasion and do something else, like attacking geth or sending Shepard on stupid errands.

I especially loved the part where Harbinger ignored Normandy, didn't kill off Shepard, and the whole silliness of take a beam to the citadel thing. Oh, I should also mention the catalyst and the brat whom Shepard dreams of again and again.

Seriously I could have come up with better stories in 1 min than what ME3 writers did because It's just so freaking horrible and incomprehensibly childish.

alright let me even try it. I'm pulling these out of my ass.

Shepard says good bye to friends after Arrival DLC. Shepard is smarter than ME3's dumb hero so she attach a recording device under her skin and record conversation with Harbinger and what transpired in the base. Before they go back to the citadel, Jack overhears Miranda telling Shepard that the Illusive Man will try to salvage what's left of the collector base and he is already studying the reaper indoctriantion.

Jack hacks Miranda's files and find out a suspicious base in which cerberus might be conducting the study. Jack heads there(thinking she can't give more work to shepard. according to Miranda's file it is in a far remote area that its personnel numbers are minimized) But at the facility bunch of cerberus strike team and Miranda was waiting to capture Jack; her leaking info was a ruse.

Miranda's sister was threatened because TIM informed her place to Miranda's papa(remember how Cerberus was protecting Miranda's sister? and how TIM would have captured her the moment Miranda betrayed Cerberus? ME3 writers forget everything lol), but Miranda couldn't betray Shepard or interfere her war against the reapers, so she instead negotiate with TIM to hand over Jack and herself to Cerberus in return for a protection of her sister.

So Jack is captured, TIM uses Jack's biotic potential to use her as a medium of communication with Harbinger by implamenting the reaper devices found on collectors in her brain. (Javik was a biotic, too)

Harbinger talks with TIM and TIM is convinced that they can dominate the reapers. (players should notice if they look hard that it was really Harbinger who indirectly, sub-consciously plant this idea during their conversation) Harbinger convinces TIM that Shepard will undo his ambition to control the reapers, thus send Jack to assassinate Shepard who now is going to attend a trial for her killing 300, 000 batarians. However in fact Jack in under Harbinger’s direct control.

Back on Normandy everyone but Liara goes off to do their own work, and Shepard exchanges a fist fight with Grunt before saying addue.. In the trial Shepard reveals her recording devices and other evidences(scientists going mad by reapers relic and etc in fact sovereign alone should have proven the reaper threat), finally convincing everyone that the reapers exist. She condemns the council and the alliance for their incompetence and get the idea across that the galaxy must be united to face the reapers. After the trial Jack attacks Shepard but get captured.

Shep has become very influential person for revealing and proving the reaper threat. She spends next weeks solving disputes between races(genophage, tuchanka mission and Rannoch covered with Cerberus interfering) and preparing fleets. She uses Jack to draw Cerberus(as she is a important asset for Cerberus to study the reaper indoctrination since she was directly influenced by Harbinger), and ambush the Cerberus rescue team, sieging the escape routh with the alliance fleet. Howeveer Cerberus outwits Shepard by escaping through Batarian space’s relay(which obviously the alliance fleet could not block. And let’s call this relay beta relay) and during pursuit the missile fired from Shepard’s shuttle hits batarian patrol force on beta relay.

Batarians are enraged and asks to hand over Shepard, or give them a right to patrol further areas around the beta relay to ensure their forces’ safety. Hackket summons Shep and Shep hear WHY Hackket was one of the few people to believe Shep’s story about the reapers. Shortly after the battle of the citadel Hacket gets report from alliance expedition team that they discovered something called the crucible, an alien device designed by Protheans in order to defeat the reapers, on mars. The data was unlocked after the collector’s base was purged because the system(prothean designed) detected prothean numbers thinning, thinking the reapers retreated to the dark space. Since then he has ordered a construction of the crucible and that is why the alliance ecouldn’t effectively deal with collectors in ME2, as their forces were used to build the crucible.

Hacket tells Shep that the crucible is not YET ready(it was being built around the beta relay because it required lots of rare resources only acquirable in the region), and the only option they can do is to share this knowledge with Batarians and asks for cooperation, because if they have to allow batarian sihps to the region they will find out anyway. Shep insists no, even questiong the validity of this device, but what can she do as a mere soldier? In order to avoid conflict the alliance does as Hackett said.

So months later the crucible is complete, and it is sent to the citadel, which was revealed as the catalysist, under a protection from both Batarian and the alliance fleet. But when passing the last Sharon relay the crucible simply ‘disappears.’ Shep thinks its something like reaper IFF, sending the sihps with this special signal to differ relays. Later the alliance patrol fleet discover the crucible near by the beta relay(the one in batarian space) and find that some of the batarian ships are docked on the crucible. Shep tells hacket to attack batarian ships but he refuses because his own fleets are flying alongside with the main force of batarian fleets, and engaging the docked ship will mean a full scale war.

Shep at this point feels that everything is going wrong and she thinks Batarians are under the reaper infleunces(as they assisted, or at least overlooked Cerberus escape before), but Hacket can’t start a war that can posively alienate and annihilate humans(since they will be the attacker) on an assumption, suspecting that the ships are only docked to steal the technology.

When they arrive to the beta relay they find out that the crucible is operating to do something they don’t know. Hacket finally orders the fleet to fire on the crucible. But as the crucible takes bombardment, A bunch of reapers appear though the beta relay(the crucible was the reaper trap all along. They left a blueprint requiring huge rare materials so the crucible could be only built around the beta relay, and the crucible would be teleported to the beta relay when they enter Sharon relay of the citadel, activating the beta relay’s secondary connection to the dark space), with Harbinger at its head. Batarian&human ships concentrate on Harbinger, who activates quantum shield (one used by the relays) and the allied forces are defeated without destroying single reaper. Shepard narrowly escapes and she lead united galaxys’ forces against the reaper invasion.

Holy **** this is long. So here I, a random gamer with no writing experience, wrote the reapers invasion out of my ass in 10 min. ME3 professional writers spent months making the story and their explanation of the reapers’ arrival doesn’t make any sense.

Sovereign was devising plans for the reapers’ return at least from 1000 years ago in the rachnii invasion. If the reapers can just fly in to our galaxy in 6 months(from the arrival’s incident where the reapers tried to use the relay in the dark space to invade), or at most 12 month(since ME2’s event where all the reapers awake from hibernation and start flying), what the **** was Sovereign doing for over 1000 years? Lol I laughed so hard every time I played ME3 because the number of plotholes were just insane. They were presented literally in every single plot point.

So yes, ME3 has the worst story in years. The writers should read any books on market and learn from those.

[sdinc009]

PuppiesOfDeath2 wrote...

From the Wall Street Journal story:

Mass Effect 3’s lead writer Mac Walters acknowledged, “There was some feedback that we can’t address. There are people who just outright rejected the whole concept of the endings, and wanted us to start from scratch and redo everything. And we can’t do that because that’s not our story, we wouldn’t know how to write that story.”

I don't find at least one interpretation of what is admittedly a very vague statement to be credible. I don't think it is difficult to envision an ending where Shepard defeats the Reapers using the Crucible or to write such an ending. Moreover, I don't think its difficult to envision the choices presented in the current endings, with one choice being Shepard defeating the Reapers with the Crucible and showing Shepard surviving, and to write that ending. I think that Bioware is fully capable of understanding and writing all of those endings. It simply chose not to write them. If the Destroy ending is that ending, Bioware chose not to make Shepard's survival patent. I also think Bioware chose not to highlight its narrative choice during the pre-order marketing period. We heard no "the endings will be controversial, not everyone will like them" talk, even though that reaction was completely predictable.

Time for Bioware to do what Conan Doyle did and fix a mistake.

THGEHJI#$^F%^E%! Wew, sorry, that quote gave me a rage seisure. WTF is he talking about!?!? "We wouldn't know how to write that story", um how about they just pick a few of the hundreds of fan fictions already written, because if some how they can't write that story, for some reason all of us can. I wrote a decent ending in 15 minutes and they've had 3 months since ME 3's been released. I'm getting so fed up with their crap excuse for PR. Hey, Bioware, there is nothing wrong with owning up to a mistake. In fact most would respect you for it I sure would. But, when you pull this crap all you do is further infuriate what few fans you have left. Don't ****** on our heads and tell us it f@#%^ing rain.

[sdinc009]

Moorningstaar wrote...

ThomasakaDes_ wrote...


One of the best sci-fi stories I've experienced.
On par with the Fringe story.

Not to be an ass but I just have to say this.  If you think this is good SF then you have NEVER read good SF.  I've been an avid hard SF fan for sixteen years now (started with Ender's Game).  I have read good and bad SF and this falls squarely into the HORRIBLE SF catagory.  There is no way in hell any SF publisher would EVER have published this crap.  It uses EX DEUS MACHINA, makes technical falacies all over the place, and has plot holes that couldn't be filled with a quarry.  There are two tenets to writing sf (not mine, these come from publishers and writers).  One is that the story must use advanced tech (such as tech that manipulates mass) in such a way that the removal of this tech would gut the story.  The entire Mass Effect series fits this well.  But the second tenet is that the story must MAKE SENSE.  Ben Bova wrote in 'How to Write Science Fiction that Sells' that SF fans are the most unforgiving, analytical readers there are.  This isn't fantasy where I can create a magic crucible that will do whatever the hell I want it to.  Not only does the function of the crucible have to make sense, but the idea that someone trying to stop the reapers would build it to do what it does has to make sense.  It's function has to make sense.  The motives of your enemies (which can still be repugnant) have to make sense.  ETC.
If you want to expose yourself to good (or even great) SF I suggest you read some of the following:

1) ARMOR by John Steakley.  This book has been on bookstore shelves for THIRTY YEARS.  A good condition PAPERBACK first edition was selling for $300 last time I looked.

2)Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.  Another long timer on the book store shelves (and probably better known).

3)Old Man's War by John Scalzi.  Amazing writer.  Read anything of his and you realize that his range is from good to amazing.  CANT WAIT FOR HIS NEW BOOK 'RED SHIRTS' TO COME OUT IN PAPERBACK!

4)Live Free or Die by John Ring (seems that good SF writers have the same first name doesn't it?)

5)The War Against the Chtorr by David Gerrold.  Find an early printing.  He keeps rewriting it and it just gets wierder and wierder.

6)Crusade by David Weber and Steve White.  Great book.  It mirrors events of our own history and is good space opera (meaning it deals manly with the issues of honor, integrity, and courage).

Other writers of note are Timothy Zahn, Anne Mccaffrey, Robert A Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Ben Bova to name a few.  You can trust these people to give you an amazing SF experience.

I'd add the Dune series to this list. Frank Herbert created a extremely riveting universe with this series with an incredibly broaf themetic range and indepth characters. And, the reader never knows when one of these characters might get killed, but they go out in a way that conforms to the story. This is SF done right and I would recommend the entire series to anyone.

[i am gustavox]

Mass Effect 3 was very disappointing. It is hard to please everyone with an ending to a game, but this ending was very banal. I was hoping for an ending that I could at least enjoy. That is not too much to ask for, especially since I played ME1 and 2. The fans who had played both ME1 and 2 should have been rewarded the most. While Mordin's and Legion's endings were done really well, the majority of the game was just not rewarding. Insanity difficulty was a joke. The side missions were dull fetch and quest missions. The N7 missions on the multiplayer maps were different, but the combat was just too easy. There is also no point to the war asset rating since it doesn't matter. Getting a 5 second scene at the end with Shepard breathing is not a worthy reward for having all the war assets. There is also no ending that punishes you for not having enough war assets. Being able to see Wrex and Grunt fight side by side until death is an ending that this series deserves. Watching Jack go crazy on a bunch of Reapers as her biotic squad gets wiped out is an ending this series deserves. I don't see how watching each character fight to the death or beat the snot out of the Reapers isn't an obvious ending. Each character in Mass Effect 2 had a moment at the end of the game in which they could live or die. Why was this not done in Mass Effect 3 when Mass Effect 2 had done it right?

[BlueStorm83]

sdinc009 wrote...

PuppiesOfDeath2 wrote...

From the Wall Street Journal story:

Mass Effect 3’s lead writer Mac Walters acknowledged, “There was some feedback that we can’t address. There are people who just outright rejected the whole concept of the endings, and wanted us to start from scratch and redo everything. And we can’t do that because that’s not our story, we wouldn’t know how to write that story.”

I don't find at least one interpretation of what is admittedly a very vague statement to be credible. I don't think it is difficult to envision an ending where Shepard defeats the Reapers using the Crucible or to write such an ending. Moreover, I don't think its difficult to envision the choices presented in the current endings, with one choice being Shepard defeating the Reapers with the Crucible and showing Shepard surviving, and to write that ending. I think that Bioware is fully capable of understanding and writing all of those endings. It simply chose not to write them. If the Destroy ending is that ending, Bioware chose not to make Shepard's survival patent. I also think Bioware chose not to highlight its narrative choice during the pre-order marketing period. We heard no "the endings will be controversial, not everyone will like them" talk, even though that reaction was completely predictable.

Time for Bioware to do what Conan Doyle did and fix a mistake.

THGEHJI#$^F%^E%! Wew, sorry, that quote gave me a rage seisure. WTF is he talking about!?!? "We wouldn't know how to write that story", um how about they just pick a few of the hundreds of fan fictions already written, because if some how they can't write that story, for some reason all of us can. I wrote a decent ending in 15 minutes and they've had 3 months since ME 3's been released. I'm getting so fed up with their crap excuse for PR. Hey, Bioware, there is nothing wrong with owning up to a mistake. In fact most would respect you for it I sure would. But, when you pull this crap all you do is further infuriate what few fans you have left. Don't ****** on our heads and tell us it f@#%^ing rain.

---  What Walters means here is that they can't make that ending because that's not the story they've been telling all along.  Which I CATEGORICALLY denounce as bull****.  Let's look at some of the points of the previous ME games and try to see the themes.  I'll do so in chronological order, as best as I can remember.

ME1: Eden Prime.  Message: Big Bad Things are coming to kill us.  We need to stop them.
Noveria:  We have to make a hard choice (Previously enslaved Rachni Queen) face a sacrifice (Indoctrinated Matriarch Benezia, for Liara,) and do what we believe right to stop Saren from beringing about Reaper Invasion.
Feros:  An old evil THING is controlling people, linking them all into one mind.  It's an abomination.  Decide how to best deal with its first thrall, free her or kill her.  Learn that Geth are being manipulated and lied to, they think Reapers are their gods.
Vermire: Cloned Krogans of questionable mental ability are being bred by Saren, and must be killed.  Deal with Wrex's moral issues with this, and in a crappy situation deal with the loss of a friend.
Ilos: Fight against all odds to follow Saren to the Citadel, don't let anything stop you, learn more about the nature of the Reapers, learn how the Protheans died, continue onward to fight to the very end.
Citadel: Save everyone who never believed you, fight against indoctrination, against a superior enemy, unite different and disparate people to destroy Sovereign and prevent Reaper Invasion.

Overarching theme, as far as I can tell?  Being manipulated, controlled, placated by promises of power or prosperity, or outright oppressed, by anyone at all, is not good.  Reapers use all of those things to bring about our utter destruction.  Reapers are bad, and must be opposed by any and all means, and never, EVER agreed with, lest we become nothing but their mindless pawns.  Fight against overwhelming odds, risking everything, and bring about victory through unity, strength, and standing by what one knows is right.

ME2:  Miranda:  Don't let what others tell you to be determine who you are.  Make your own way, believe in your own abilities.  Never capitulate to a greater power who has supposed authority over you when their means and methods are wrong.
Jacob:  Don't let events in the past limit who you are now.  The failings of who came before can be a lesson for you now.  You can be a better man if you want.
Mordin:  You may have to face hard choices, but always endeavor to do the most good that you can at a moment.  Genocide is never an option.  Loss of life is a tragic thing.  Hold out hope for the future, and always fix your mistakes.  Work tirelessly to help people.
Garrus:  Wrongdoing must be stopped, and there are no exceptions.  You can't allow small crimes to slip through the cracks.  But contrite men can be forgiven.  What's important is to stick to your own beliefs, and don't lower yourself to the level of those you seek to defeat.
Grunt:  What we are, our very nature, is nothing compared to the choice of what we want to be.  Whether a perfect genetic sample or an average man born to mortal parents, we need to take pride in who we are, build our own accomplishments, and find ourselves through overcoming adversity, be it learning to walk or killing a Thresher Maw on foot.
Jack:  Don't let cruelty beat you.  Your enemies may be inhuman monsters who do unspeakable things to you: so what?  Learn from it and grow.  Be more than what they told you over and over was your purpose.  Be a human being and live free from physical chains and emotional ones alike.
Thane:  Do the best you can, others may be watching and learn from a bad example.  Doing the wrong thing may be easy, but it can spiritually damage those who love you and want to be like you.  Your own life is nothing compared to the lives of your family and friends.
Samara:  There is right and there is wrong.  Some people are too far gone to be redeemed: they need to be dealt with permanently, lest they  continue onward and harm the innocent.
Tali Zorah Vas'Normandy:  You're not a child anymore.  You've grown up and can stand on your own.  And now you HAVE TO stand on your own.  Mourn for those who came before and were lost, but learn from their examples, and correct their mistakes.  Stand by your friends, and don't be cowed by pressure from those who supposedly know better than you do.
LEGION:  You can be what you want.  It doesn't matter what others think of you; if you're sure in your path, take it against all odds.  Stand on your own, against aliens, against your own kind, even against ancient unknowable gods, and ensure freedom and self for all who live.  Don't listen to those who tell you that you are small, unimportant, or even just a machine.
Lair of the Shadow Broker, and Liara:  You may have done some shady things in the past, but you've done them to support your friends, and to save peoples' lives.  Don't think you can't be forgiven, good people believe in you.  Don't separate yourself from others who would stand with you, you can overcome the impossible with their help.
Overlord:  Life is a sacred thing.  You violate it when you force it to become half machine against its will.  No goal is worth forcing this to people you claim to love.
The Suicide Mission:  You CAN lay it all on the line and come out of it alive.  The future isn't set in stone.  With enough allies, strong enough weapons, and enough determination there is no reason why Evil has to triumph in ANY regard.  Punch through the ceiling in the sky, and pierce the heavens.
The Arrival:  The Reapers are dogged and multi-talented.  When they can't invade directly, they manipulate from afar.  When their manipulations fail, they reach into the minds of the weak.  Don't accept their control.  Don't believe in the inevitability of their victory.  When they put you into an impossible situation, don't give in; hit back, no matter what the cost.
Quitting Cerberus:  Don't make allowances to do the wrong thing for the right reasons.  There may be shades of gray, but there's also things that are black and that are white.  Stand by your convictions, you can do it without becoming just like your enemy.

Overarching message, as far as I can tell:  You must make your own way.  Don't let someone bigger, stronger, smarter, or richer tell you that he knows best.  If you never give up, you will overcome in the end.

ME3: Leaving Earth: You were right all along.  The Reapers are here, and they won't be ignored, compromised with, or placated.  We need to stand together to fight back, and show them that we own the Galaxy now.
Mars:  We've found plans for a Prothean Weapon to kill the Reapers.  We won't only stand together with those alive now, we'll have unity with the oppressed and wronged from the past.  We'll fight for ourselves and for the fallen, and together we'll win.
Palaven:  I need your help, and I'll gladly help you in return.  Saving my friends means they'll help to save me.  Unity of purpose is what we need, and since we're all in the same situation, we show each other mercy.
Sur'kesh:  We can't hide from our fates and ignore the suffering of others.  When one of us is threatened, we all are.  It is unacceptable to sit in seclusion and manipulate the very being of other races, with genetic augmentation or experimentation, we are not gods who can meddle in the lives of others without grave consequence.
Tuchanka:  We need to undo the mistakes of the past, and heal old wounds to come together for a greater purpose.  We don't need to agree on everything.  We don't even need to forgive the old wounds.  We merely have to accept that we need each other.  The enemy of the enemy is my friend, and if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.  If we can fix our past mistakes and become friends, all the better.  And a true hero sacrifices of himself to save others.  When all is said and done, we've forged a bond that is stronger than man, machine, and Kalross herself.
Udina's Coup:  One man does not have the right to decide for everyone.  If others do not accept your reasoning, no matter how sure you are right, you should not and can not force it on others.  An alliance is not an alliance when it is built on lies and manipulation.  Again, a true hero fights for what is right, despite his own gravely reduced capabilities, and he sacrifices what could have been a peaceful end with his son to protect friends and freedom.
The Geth:  When you bring injustice against others, they will fight back.  You can not subjugate or destroy another form of intelligent life just because you disagree with their nature.  If you try, you bring unneeded conflict and loss of life.
Rannoch:  We can make peace with someone very different, if we put enough work into it.  If we stop warring for long enough to listen, we will find that no being is truly alien from us.  Being manipulated by men, machines, ancient feuds, what have you; none of that is too much to overcome.  When we put aside hatreds that were passed on for generations, and just talk to each other, we find that living in peace is actually easier than finding things to fight over.  And when a greater power tells you that the things you have just done are not real, you can stand triumphant over its corpse and denounce it.  For a third time, a hero looks at his own life, and looks at the lives of the people he cares for, and decides that he can give of himself to bring about hope for them.
Thessia:  Sometimes we can't win.  We can stand, we can fight, we can be proud that we gave it our all, but we lose because the enemy cheats.  But we can also live to try again.  We can be confident that as long as we're standing on our own two feet, it's never over.  We can learn from the experience, and move forward.
Sanctuary:  Accepting smaller evil leads only to greater evil.  The most lofty goals can be tainted beyond redemption.  One drop of poison can make gallons of water deadly.  This is the fate of those who make allowances for the Reapers.  Using their technology, following their methods, accepting that they have greater power than we do; it's all the same.  The Reapers are an evil that MUST be fought against and destroyed.
Chronos Station:  When you bring the fight against evil, you can punch right into its heart and defeat its greatest champion.  When your cause is right, you can not be stopped.  What you see there may trouble you, but you can be resolute in your righteousness and unwavering when the time comes for the fight.
JAVIK:  As long as you are alive and free you can keep trying.  You never have to accept defeat.  You never have to be beaten.  You will make your destiny, you will continue on, and even if fifty thousand years pass, as long as you are alive you can continue to fight.
Earth:  Even with your world in cinders, you can keep fighting.  You can share moments with your friends.  You can bolster each others' spirits.  You can plan for the future.  There is no need to ever accept inevitable death.

Overarching message?  Very simple: NEVER give up, never give in, you can overcome, you don't have to compromise who you are.

And then the Citadel...

The Citadel:  You were wrong all along.  The great evil is actually trying to do good.  You are nothing but an anthill in its way.  The existence of everyone you know is nothing.  Your achievements are nothing.  Everyone you love is nothing.  There can be no victory.  It was all for nothing.  There is no way out besides to acquiesce to the evil.  It is fine to transform your friends, against their will, into abominations.  It is fine to oppress them by placing them under the heel of the evil they strove for so long, and sacrificed so much, to defeat.  To betray and murder an entire race is an acceptable price to end the evil; temporatily, at least, as the evil itself assures you that one day, this will all happen again.  If you try to remain righteous, you will die pointlessly, and accomplish nothing.  Evil is your only hope.

---  To correct mister Walters' viewpoint, it is very possible for the writing team to tell a story that is not the story they have been telling all along.  That is, apparently, exactly what they've done.

[BlueStorm83]

--- That was quite a wall of text I put up there. Hope that at least one person reads it, rofl.

In a smaller point, am I the only one tired of hearing from Walters and Hudson about the ending? I'd MUCH prefer to hear from OTHER members of the game's writing team, and see what THEY think about the ending fitting with the overarching story...

[3DandBeyond]

PuppiesOfDeath2 wrote...

From the Wall Street Journal story:

Mass Effect 3’s lead writer Mac Walters acknowledged, “There was some feedback that we can’t address. There are people who just outright rejected the whole concept of the endings, and wanted us to start from scratch and redo everything. And we can’t do that because that’s not our story, we wouldn’t know how to write that story.”

I don't find at least one interpretation of what is admittedly a very vague statement to be credible. I don't think it is difficult to envision an ending where Shepard defeats the Reapers using the Crucible or to write such an ending. Moreover, I don't think its difficult to envision the choices presented in the current endings, with one choice being Shepard defeating the Reapers with the Crucible and showing Shepard surviving, and to write that ending. I think that Bioware is fully capable of understanding and writing all of those endings. It simply chose not to write them. If the Destroy ending is that ending, Bioware chose not to make Shepard's survival patent. I also think Bioware chose not to highlight its narrative choice during the pre-order marketing period. We heard no "the endings will be controversial, not everyone will like them" talk, even though that reaction was completely predictable.

Time for Bioware to do what Conan Doyle did and fix a mistake.

I actually found that statement that they wouldn't know how to write that story to be totally strange and ridiculous.   The ending structure and form was taken from other games and stories, so apparently they knew how to write someone else's ending.  And how can it be that countless fans can actually envision far better endings (I don't mean me)?  I've read many many ideas that fit far better than what was given and yet people that lived day in day out with the stories came up with an ending that is so unlike and so out of context with the stories that I cannot believe this is the best they could do.  Hell, I give them more credit than he gives them. 

An ending needs to say why the characters did what they did, it needs to achieve the goal of the story, and it needs to be a part of what came before.  But the biggest questions it needs to answer is why and what now in a way that fits all the rest.  ME3 actually had an ending that would all but write itself-someone had to work really hard to create something that is this far removed from what ME was about.  They had to watch and read and play other shows, movies, books, and games.  Sad that the one point of reference that was the most important was ignored; ME itself.

[AresKeith]

the Metal Gear solid series is still the greatest story now, Mass Effect was suppose to beat that

[3DandBeyond]

BlueStorm83 wrote...

--- That was quite a wall of text I put up there. Hope that at least one person reads it, rofl.

In a smaller point, am I the only one tired of hearing from Walters and Hudson about the ending? I'd MUCH prefer to hear from OTHER members of the game's writing team, and see what THEY think about the ending fitting with the overarching story...

I agree.  Hudson and Walters have repeatedly said the same things over and over again as if stuck in cement.  I think this is the main problem.  There was a deep pool of creativity there that just seems to have been irrelevant.  Considering that Mike Gamble did post once in reply to a conversation some of us were having, I wll lend credit to that.  But, to his detriment, he was also spouting something that was not quite true.  He stated the endings did "reflect" all of the choices made in the games-krogans and so on.  Well, yeah if you are anal and near-sighted, that slide of a Krogan baby I guess is there if you cured the genophage.

But, and this is really important for anyone at Bioware to actually say with a straight face that our choices were all reflected in the endings is insulting.  It's double speak.  It's ambiguous.  And it's meant to be so.  When people want to see the difference their choices made, they want to see differences in the endings that clearly show what the choices did.  They don't want a lot of generic slides that are just popped in based on a choice.  That's not the most critical part of where decisions made in the game should matter.

One example of what I mean is even if you leave in the star kid and the choices that exist.  I have a paragon Shepard.  I choose control.  My paragon Shepard turned heartless god Shreaper says that the woman she was always knew she had to become something greater and then she goes on to say creepier things.  This does not fit with what I did in the games. 

But even further I don't think Bioware is that stupid (I hope not or they really need to just go away) as to believe that putting up slides totally "reflects" all of the choices we made in 3 games.

They know that what we meant is that there would be naturally occurring incidents at the end that grew out of our choices, not these artificial 3 choices fit all things.  It's the same as before.  Everyone gets the same choices, the same endings unless they have low EMS.  But, in the game I can make a lot of different decisions from someone else and then we still have the exact same choices.  They know this.

I do not believe for a moment that this is the ending they were always waiting to write and to see anymore than I could believe the first set of endings fulfilled their desires.  The things they changed like the Normandy leaving the jungle planet, joker getting teammates out of London, the destroyed/not destroyed relays basically say it all; they had no idea for an ending.  And that's ok if they had really just talked to the community.  I've actually seen this kind of thing done before in other media (I know it's been done in graphic novels and even in movies and books)--ask the community what they'd like to see at the end, conduct fun polls and make a game of the game's ending or even just read what fans speculated might happen at the end.  There actually was one fan who posted well before ME3 was released and he said what he hoped would not be done for the ending-it's eerie just how much of what he didn't want we ended up getting. 

You get fans involved and even if you don't use all their ideas, if you have writer's block or no clear idea yourself, it can help get you motivated.  If the devs were ever being truthful all those times when they said the fans helped them write to stories and so on, then they could have made it a true collaboration, even if they never used one fan-inspired ending.  Instead, they consulted Deus ex and Human Revolution, B5, the Matrix, and not ME and not ME fans.

Over the last few days even I have seen far better ideas than what we got-it's too bad the devs are too afraid, of what I don't know.

[sdinc009]

BlueStorm83 wrote...

sdinc009 wrote...

PuppiesOfDeath2 wrote...

From the Wall Street Journal story:

Mass Effect 3’s lead writer Mac Walters acknowledged, “There was some feedback that we can’t address. There are people who just outright rejected the whole concept of the endings, and wanted us to start from scratch and redo everything. And we can’t do that because that’s not our story, we wouldn’t know how to write that story.”

I don't find at least one interpretation of what is admittedly a very vague statement to be credible. I don't think it is difficult to envision an ending where Shepard defeats the Reapers using the Crucible or to write such an ending. Moreover, I don't think its difficult to envision the choices presented in the current endings, with one choice being Shepard defeating the Reapers with the Crucible and showing Shepard surviving, and to write that ending. I think that Bioware is fully capable of understanding and writing all of those endings. It simply chose not to write them. If the Destroy ending is that ending, Bioware chose not to make Shepard's survival patent. I also think Bioware chose not to highlight its narrative choice during the pre-order marketing period. We heard no "the endings will be controversial, not everyone will like them" talk, even though that reaction was completely predictable.

Time for Bioware to do what Conan Doyle did and fix a mistake.

THGEHJI#$^F%^E%! Wew, sorry, that quote gave me a rage seisure. WTF is he talking about!?!? "We wouldn't know how to write that story", um how about they just pick a few of the hundreds of fan fictions already written, because if some how they can't write that story, for some reason all of us can. I wrote a decent ending in 15 minutes and they've had 3 months since ME 3's been released. I'm getting so fed up with their crap excuse for PR. Hey, Bioware, there is nothing wrong with owning up to a mistake. In fact most would respect you for it I sure would. But, when you pull this crap all you do is further infuriate what few fans you have left. Don't ****** on our heads and tell us it f@#%^ing rain.

---  What Walters means here is that they can't make that ending because that's not the story they've been telling all along.  Which I CATEGORICALLY denounce as bull****.  Let's look at some of the points of the previous ME games and try to see the themes.  I'll do so in chronological order, as best as I can remember.

ME1: Eden Prime.  Message: Big Bad Things are coming to kill us.  We need to stop them.
Noveria:  We have to make a hard choice (Previously enslaved Rachni Queen) face a sacrifice (Indoctrinated Matriarch Benezia, for Liara,) and do what we believe right to stop Saren from beringing about Reaper Invasion.
Feros:  An old evil THING is controlling people, linking them all into one mind.  It's an abomination.  Decide how to best deal with its first thrall, free her or kill her.  Learn that Geth are being manipulated and lied to, they think Reapers are their gods.
Vermire: Cloned Krogans of questionable mental ability are being bred by Saren, and must be killed.  Deal with Wrex's moral issues with this, and in a crappy situation deal with the loss of a friend.
Ilos: Fight against all odds to follow Saren to the Citadel, don't let anything stop you, learn more about the nature of the Reapers, learn how the Protheans died, continue onward to fight to the very end.
Citadel: Save everyone who never believed you, fight against indoctrination, against a superior enemy, unite different and disparate people to destroy Sovereign and prevent Reaper Invasion.

Overarching theme, as far as I can tell?  Being manipulated, controlled, placated by promises of power or prosperity, or outright oppressed, by anyone at all, is not good.  Reapers use all of those things to bring about our utter destruction.  Reapers are bad, and must be opposed by any and all means, and never, EVER agreed with, lest we become nothing but their mindless pawns.  Fight against overwhelming odds, risking everything, and bring about victory through unity, strength, and standing by what one knows is right.

ME2:  Miranda:  Don't let what others tell you to be determine who you are.  Make your own way, believe in your own abilities.  Never capitulate to a greater power who has supposed authority over you when their means and methods are wrong.
Jacob:  Don't let events in the past limit who you are now.  The failings of who came before can be a lesson for you now.  You can be a better man if you want.
Mordin:  You may have to face hard choices, but always endeavor to do the most good that you can at a moment.  Genocide is never an option.  Loss of life is a tragic thing.  Hold out hope for the future, and always fix your mistakes.  Work tirelessly to help people.
Garrus:  Wrongdoing must be stopped, and there are no exceptions.  You can't allow small crimes to slip through the cracks.  But contrite men can be forgiven.  What's important is to stick to your own beliefs, and don't lower yourself to the level of those you seek to defeat.
Grunt:  What we are, our very nature, is nothing compared to the choice of what we want to be.  Whether a perfect genetic sample or an average man born to mortal parents, we need to take pride in who we are, build our own accomplishments, and find ourselves through overcoming adversity, be it learning to walk or killing a Thresher Maw on foot.
Jack:  Don't let cruelty beat you.  Your enemies may be inhuman monsters who do unspeakable things to you: so what?  Learn from it and grow.  Be more than what they told you over and over was your purpose.  Be a human being and live free from physical chains and emotional ones alike.
Thane:  Do the best you can, others may be watching and learn from a bad example.  Doing the wrong thing may be easy, but it can spiritually damage those who love you and want to be like you.  Your own life is nothing compared to the lives of your family and friends.
Samara:  There is right and there is wrong.  Some people are too far gone to be redeemed: they need to be dealt with permanently, lest they  continue onward and harm the innocent.
Tali Zorah Vas'Normandy:  You're not a child anymore.  You've grown up and can stand on your own.  And now you HAVE TO stand on your own.  Mourn for those who came before and were lost, but learn from their examples, and correct their mistakes.  Stand by your friends, and don't be cowed by pressure from those who supposedly know better than you do.
LEGION:  You can be what you want.  It doesn't matter what others think of you; if you're sure in your path, take it against all odds.  Stand on your own, against aliens, against your own kind, even against ancient unknowable gods, and ensure freedom and self for all who live.  Don't listen to those who tell you that you are small, unimportant, or even just a machine.
Lair of the Shadow Broker, and Liara:  You may have done some shady things in the past, but you've done them to support your friends, and to save peoples' lives.  Don't think you can't be forgiven, good people believe in you.  Don't separate yourself from others who would stand with you, you can overcome the impossible with their help.
Overlord:  Life is a sacred thing.  You violate it when you force it to become half machine against its will.  No goal is worth forcing this to people you claim to love.
The Suicide Mission:  You CAN lay it all on the line and come out of it alive.  The future isn't set in stone.  With enough allies, strong enough weapons, and enough determination there is no reason why Evil has to triumph in ANY regard.  Punch through the ceiling in the sky, and pierce the heavens.
The Arrival:  The Reapers are dogged and multi-talented.  When they can't invade directly, they manipulate from afar.  When their manipulations fail, they reach into the minds of the weak.  Don't accept their control.  Don't believe in the inevitability of their victory.  When they put you into an impossible situation, don't give in; hit back, no matter what the cost.
Quitting Cerberus:  Don't make allowances to do the wrong thing for the right reasons.  There may be shades of gray, but there's also things that are black and that are white.  Stand by your convictions, you can do it without becoming just like your enemy.

Overarching message, as far as I can tell:  You must make your own way.  Don't let someone bigger, stronger, smarter, or richer tell you that he knows best.  If you never give up, you will overcome in the end.

ME3: Leaving Earth: You were right all along.  The Reapers are here, and they won't be ignored, compromised with, or placated.  We need to stand together to fight back, and show them that we own the Galaxy now.
Mars:  We've found plans for a Prothean Weapon to kill the Reapers.  We won't only stand together with those alive now, we'll have unity with the oppressed and wronged from the past.  We'll fight for ourselves and for the fallen, and together we'll win.
Palaven:  I need your help, and I'll gladly help you in return.  Saving my friends means they'll help to save me.  Unity of purpose is what we need, and since we're all in the same situation, we show each other mercy.
Sur'kesh:  We can't hide from our fates and ignore the suffering of others.  When one of us is threatened, we all are.  It is unacceptable to sit in seclusion and manipulate the very being of other races, with genetic augmentation or experimentation, we are not gods who can meddle in the lives of others without grave consequence.
Tuchanka:  We need to undo the mistakes of the past, and heal old wounds to come together for a greater purpose.  We don't need to agree on everything.  We don't even need to forgive the old wounds.  We merely have to accept that we need each other.  The enemy of the enemy is my friend, and if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.  If we can fix our past mistakes and become friends, all the better.  And a true hero sacrifices of himself to save others.  When all is said and done, we've forged a bond that is stronger than man, machine, and Kalross herself.
Udina's Coup:  One man does not have the right to decide for everyone.  If others do not accept your reasoning, no matter how sure you are right, you should not and can not force it on others.  An alliance is not an alliance when it is built on lies and manipulation.  Again, a true hero fights for what is right, despite his own gravely reduced capabilities, and he sacrifices what could have been a peaceful end with his son to protect friends and freedom.
The Geth:  When you bring injustice against others, they will fight back.  You can not subjugate or destroy another form of intelligent life just because you disagree with their nature.  If you try, you bring unneeded conflict and loss of life.
Rannoch:  We can make peace with someone very different, if we put enough work into it.  If we stop warring for long enough to listen, we will find that no being is truly alien from us.  Being manipulated by men, machines, ancient feuds, what have you; none of that is too much to overcome.  When we put aside hatreds that were passed on for generations, and just talk to each other, we find that living in peace is actually easier than finding things to fight over.  And when a greater power tells you that the things you have just done are not real, you can stand triumphant over its corpse and denounce it.  For a third time, a hero looks at his own life, and looks at the lives of the people he cares for, and decides that he can give of himself to bring about hope for them.
Thessia:  Sometimes we can't win.  We can stand, we can fight, we can be proud that we gave it our all, but we lose because the enemy cheats.  But we can also live to try again.  We can be confident that as long as we're standing on our own two feet, it's never over.  We can learn from the experience, and move forward.
Sanctuary:  Accepting smaller evil leads only to greater evil.  The most lofty goals can be tainted beyond redemption.  One drop of poison can make gallons of water deadly.  This is the fate of those who make allowances for the Reapers.  Using their technology, following their methods, accepting that they have greater power than we do; it's all the same.  The Reapers are an evil that MUST be fought against and destroyed.
Chronos Station:  When you bring the fight against evil, you can punch right into its heart and defeat its greatest champion.  When your cause is right, you can not be stopped.  What you see there may trouble you, but you can be resolute in your righteousness and unwavering when the time comes for the fight.
JAVIK:  As long as you are alive and free you can keep trying.  You never have to accept defeat.  You never have to be beaten.  You will make your destiny, you will continue on, and even if fifty thousand years pass, as long as you are alive you can continue to fight.
Earth:  Even with your world in cinders, you can keep fighting.  You can share moments with your friends.  You can bolster each others' spirits.  You can plan for the future.  There is no need to ever accept inevitable death.

Overarching message?  Very simple: NEVER give up, never give in, you can overcome, you don't have to compromise who you are.

And then the Citadel...

The Citadel:  You were wrong all along.  The great evil is actually trying to do good.  You are nothing but an anthill in its way.  The existence of everyone you know is nothing.  Your achievements are nothing.  Everyone you love is nothing.  There can be no victory.  It was all for nothing.  There is no way out besides to acquiesce to the evil.  It is fine to transform your friends, against their will, into abominations.  It is fine to oppress them by placing them under the heel of the evil they strove for so long, and sacrificed so much, to defeat.  To betray and murder an entire race is an acceptable price to end the evil; temporatily, at least, as the evil itself assures you that one day, this will all happen again.  If you try to remain righteous, you will die pointlessly, and accomplish nothing.  Evil is your only hope.

---  To correct mister Walters' viewpoint, it is very possible for the writing team to tell a story that is not the story they have been telling all along.  That is, apparently, exactly what they've done.

Wonderful post!

[Pinax]

3DandBeyond wrote...

BlueStorm83 wrote...

--- That was quite a wall of text I put up there. Hope that at least one person reads it, rofl.

In a smaller point, am I the only one tired of hearing from Walters and Hudson about the ending? I'd MUCH prefer to hear from OTHER members of the game's writing team, and see what THEY think about the ending fitting with the overarching story...

I agree.  Hudson and Walters have repeatedly said the same things over and over again as if stuck in cement.  I think this is the main problem.  There was a deep pool of creativity there that just seems to have been irrelevant.  Considering that Mike Gamble did post once in reply to a conversation some of us were having, I wll lend credit to that.  But, to his detriment, he was also spouting something that was not quite true.  He stated the endings did "reflect" all of the choices made in the games-krogans and so on.  Well, yeah if you are anal and near-sighted, that slide of a Krogan baby I guess is there if you cured the genophage.

But, and this is really important for anyone at Bioware to actually say with a straight face that our choices were all reflected in the endings is insulting.  It's double speak.  It's ambiguous.  And it's meant to be so.  When people want to see the difference their choices made, they want to see differences in the endings that clearly show what the choices did.  They don't want a lot of generic slides that are just popped in based on a choice.  That's not the most critical part of where decisions made in the game should matter.

One example of what I mean is even if you leave in the star kid and the choices that exist.  I have a paragon Shepard.  I choose control.  My paragon Shepard turned heartless god Shreaper says that the woman she was always knew she had to become something greater and then she goes on to say creepier things.  This does not fit with what I did in the games. 

But even further I don't think Bioware is that stupid (I hope not or they really need to just go away) as to believe that putting up slides totally "reflects" all of the choices we made in 3 games.

They know that what we meant is that there would be naturally occurring incidents at the end that grew out of our choices, not these artificial 3 choices fit all things.  It's the same as before.  Everyone gets the same choices, the same endings unless they have low EMS.  But, in the game I can make a lot of different decisions from someone else and then we still have the exact same choices.  They know this.

I do not believe for a moment that this is the ending they were always waiting to write and to see anymore than I could believe the first set of endings fulfilled their desires.  The things they changed like the Normandy leaving the jungle planet, joker getting teammates out of London, the destroyed/not destroyed relays basically say it all; they had no idea for an ending.  And that's ok if they had really just talked to the community.  I've actually seen this kind of thing done before in other media (I know it's been done in graphic novels and even in movies and books)--ask the community what they'd like to see at the end, conduct fun polls and make a game of the game's ending or even just read what fans speculated might happen at the end.  There actually was one fan who posted well before ME3 was released and he said what he hoped would not be done for the ending-it's eerie just how much of what he didn't want we ended up getting. 

You get fans involved and even if you don't use all their ideas, if you have writer's block or no clear idea yourself, it can help get you motivated.  If the devs were ever being truthful all those times when they said the fans helped them write to stories and so on, then they could have made it a true collaboration, even if they never used one fan-inspired ending.  Instead, they consulted Deus ex and Human Revolution, B5, the Matrix, and not ME and not ME fans.

Over the last few days even I have seen far better ideas than what we got-it's too bad the devs are too afraid, of what I don't know.

Actually I found this video today - Mac Walters explaining why the endings are as they are. Date: Apr 2012 (sorry if someone posted this already, just wanted to give some info for the people who may not see it):



Shortly speaking: we really don't need to know anything, it's better for the story and the gamers experience. Plotholes? No, don't worry, you don't need to know what and why exactely happened.

This is just sad and shows that Mac apparently 1) had in reality no idea what many people find attractive in Mass Effect, 2) confused plotholes with understatements.

[Benchpress610]

sdinc009 wrote...

PuppiesOfDeath2 wrote...

From the Wall Street Journal story:

Mass Effect 3’s lead writer Mac Walters acknowledged, “There was some feedback that we can’t address. There are people who just outright rejected the whole concept of the endings, and wanted us to start from scratch and redo everything. And we can’t do that because that’s not our story, we wouldn’t know how to write that story.”

I don't find at least one interpretation of what is admittedly a very vague statement to be credible. I don't think it is difficult to envision an ending where Shepard defeats the Reapers using the Crucible or to write such an ending. Moreover, I don't think its difficult to envision the choices presented in the current endings, with one choice being Shepard defeating the Reapers with the Crucible and showing Shepard surviving, and to write that ending. I think that Bioware is fully capable of understanding and writing all of those endings. It simply chose not to write them. If the Destroy ending is that ending, Bioware chose not to make Shepard's survival patent. I also think Bioware chose not to highlight its narrative choice during the pre-order marketing period. We heard no "the endings will be controversial, not everyone will like them" talk, even though that reaction was completely predictable.

Time for Bioware to do what Conan Doyle did and fix a mistake.

THGEHJI#$^F%^E%! Wew, sorry, that quote gave me a rage seisure. WTF is he talking about!?!? "We wouldn't know how to write that story", um how about they just pick a few of the hundreds of fan fictions already written, because if some how they can't write that story, for some reason all of us can. I wrote a decent ending in 15 minutes and they've had 3 months since ME 3's been released. I'm getting so fed up with their crap excuse for PR. Hey, Bioware, there is nothing wrong with owning up to a mistake. In fact most would respect you for it I sure would. But, when you pull this crap all you do is further infuriate what few fans you have left. Don't ****** on our heads and tell us it f@#%^ing rain.

Indeed most people would respect BioWare if it owned to its mistake. However there is a window for this to happen. The longer it takes them to man/woman up and say “sorry we were mistaken” and keep coming up with these cockamamie excuses, the smaller that window gets…at some point they will lose all the good will accumulated over the years and it will be too late.  

[3DandBeyond]

BlueStorm83 wrote...

--snipped, but people do need to read your most excellent post.

---  To correct mister Walters' viewpoint, it is very possible for the writing team to tell a story that is not the story they have been telling all along.  That is, apparently, exactly what they've done.

I'd only want to add some things to the great things you said.  Overall, I do tend to think the games, no matter how you play them-renegade or paragon, have overarching themes of resisting control-control that stifles diversity and that stifles self-determination.  A big event in ME2 (one of many but it can get lost) is Miranda's total change.  She wanted to put a control chip in Shepard, but later is glad it never happened.  That control that even TIM can see would change Shepard in even subtle ways might make Shepard do or act in some "wrong" way.  In order to succeed even TIM saw Shepard needed to be an individual-him/herself.  It is amazing that the main control freak in the game admits just what it could do even on such a small scale to just one person even in pursuit of what he saw as a good cause.  Miranda sees that. 

Even so, if you look at every single one of the people in the games - ME1 and 2, they were all under some form of control, internal or external.  In gaining their loyalty in ME2, you see them break free of that control.  Zaeed had for too long been controlled by his desire for revenge-renegade or paragon, Shepard helps him get rid of that which controlled him.  Jack was controlled both internally and externally and had given up her free will.  On the one hand it was taken from her, but then she grew to let her rage take over that control.  This has as its corollary not only the Control option but the option of Synthesis, since they both involve to some degree the subjugation of the individual in deference to the debatable betterment of the many.  I don't see either as anything beneficial and that is also obvious in what the people in ME2 are before and after loyalty.

There are also recurrent themes of attempted synthesis and the wrong-headed effects of such a thing.

Thematically, all 3 games debate and decry Control and Synthesis and then they further help define what it means to be alive, what you sacrifice to protect that life, and what you never give up.  They define the value and meaning of individuality and unity.  This is critical.  The protheans tried to create a forced kind of unity through slavery and totalitarianism-that's again got a parallel with Control and Synthesis.  What the 3 games define is what makes people truly better-what is the best form of unity.  This was abandoned in the end.  Why did the Protheans fail?  They lacked diversity, and they lacked freely offered unity and selfless sacrifice.  There were instances where some Protheans gave up things, much like Saren in the selfish hope they would survive.  Shepard created something far better.

Under Shepard's guidance and with Shepard's example, people learned that no life was truly expendable.  Shepard said that you don't sacrifice one over here to save many over there. 

People learned that they do best when they remain unique and CHOOSE to work together.  Ever heard the phrase that sometimes a problem needs new eyes?  It's like if everyone is alike and looks at how to solve a problem, they all see it the same way so they can't conceive of any new idea to solve it.  So, you need "new" eyes to look at it from a different perspective.  That's what the galaxy had with all these misfits drawn together-cast away people that became respected and whose opinions began to be heard.  No one ever cared what Aria's mercenaries, the Batarians, the Krogan, the Quarians, the Geth, the Rachni, Cerberus defectors, AIs, and so on ever thought before.  The only people that ever mattered were the Council races that had so organized everything as to be almost of like minds on all matters-that's why they couldn't and wouldn't listen to Shepard until they had to.  An unexpected threat broke up their idea of order---ORDER.  Shepard's constant attempts to wake them up first about Saren and then about the Reapers, was chaos.  Eventually, Shepard brought everyone to the table-Volus, Elcor, Batarian, mercenaries, everyone.  New eyes.  Unity through individuality.

ME3 showed that in unity there is also true strength-we are far more together than apart.  It's more than 1+1=2.  2 people that stand together can be worth many that stand apart.  That is the meaning of trying to get all the people from different worlds to agree and even to come together to help take Earth back.  I will say I still found it wrong to pur Earth at the center, but some place needed to be the focal point of all the effort and where everyone would show that they acted as one.

So, all along the themes were:
Anti-Control
Anti-Synthesis
Individuality and uniqueness
Unity
Free Will
Self-determination
What it means to be alive/the soul
Redemption
The rejection of stoic, unthinking, steadfast order
The needs of the one are not overshadowed by the needs of the many (this is a definition of sacrifice that sometimes one life is more important or the loss is more powerful than the destruction of the many).

I know there's more, but I thnk some of these are main points.  And mostly it doesn't matter if your Shepard was renegade or paragon, these issues were still addressed.

It's amazing how many of them in the ending are either totally ignored or are contradicted or are incorporated into the choices and when chosen do the exact opposite of what was done or desired in 3 games.

Modifié par 3DandBeyond, 10 juillet 2012 - 05:16 .

[Voodoo2015]

metalheaded0117 wrote...

plz plz make mass4

plz plz don't, fix mass3 first.

[Pinax]

BlueStorm83 wrote...

Overarching message?  Very simple: NEVER give up, never give in, you can overcome, you don't have to compromise who you are.

And then the Citadel...

The Citadel:  You were wrong all along.  The great evil is actually trying to do good.  You are nothing but an anthill in its way.  The existence of everyone you know is nothing.  Your achievements are nothing.  Everyone you love is nothing.  There can be no victory.  It was all for nothing.  There is no way out besides to acquiesce to the evil.  It is fine to transform your friends, against their will, into abominations.  It is fine to oppress them by placing them under the heel of the evil they strove for so long, and sacrificed so much, to defeat.  To betray and murder an entire race is an acceptable price to end the evil; temporatily, at least, as the evil itself assures you that one day, this will all happen again.  If you try to remain righteous, you will die pointlessly, and accomplish nothing.  Evil is your only hope.

---  To correct mister Walters' viewpoint, it is very possible for the writing team to tell a story that is not the story they have been telling all along.  That is, apparently, exactly what they've done.

Thanks a lot for this wall of text!

After mining in the net today and looking for some positive argumentation on the current endings I found out that the only one that may rationally explain the "event" on the Citadel without breaking the ME lore and the feeling it is just so wrong is the IT interpretation. I do not praise here the IT, just pointing this as the most convincing logical outcome if The Citadel ending is kept in the game as it is. Otherwise, the actual Catalyst, the conversation with him and it's conclusions are, just like you very well said, a part of some story we were never told.

[3DandBeyond]

Pinax wrote...


Actually I found this video today - Mac Walters explaining why the endings are as they are. Date: Apr 2012 (sorry if someone posted this already, just wanted to give some info for the people who may not see it):



Shortly speaking: we really don't need to know anything, it's better for the story and the gamers experience. Plotholes? No, don't worry, you don't need to know what and why exactely happened.

This is just sad and shows that Mac apparently 1) had in reality no idea what many people find attractive in Mass Effect, 2) confused plotholes with understatements.

I'd say great video, but by that I'd only mean that what he says is ridiculous.

Since the EC makes it pretty clear they had no idea about a lot of what they were trying to say in the ending and they now are trying to (badly) explain the kid's existence, I don't think they ever had any clear idea for this.

The 3 choices are fro Deus ex--Control, Merge, Destroy.  Chaos and order is from Babylon5, but in B5 there were 2 entities the physically represented the conflict, one trying to aim for total chaos, the other order and they used people as pawns, surrogates to fight for them and against the opposing view.  In the end people rejected the fight and were told they would then be destroyed, but others in the galaxy showed their unity by sacrificing themselves to save those in charge and to voice their rejection of this "war" as well.

The fact that Walters is seriously trying to tell people they knew who the kid was is totally laughable.  Everything the kid said in the original ending was moronic and most people didn't even care to speculate as to who he was-they just hated him.  That isn't leaving it up to your imagination, if what you've written is so ignorant as to cause people NOT to want to speculate.

In the EC the kid is worse-this is where he came from and what he is?  Oh, yeah that makes it all better now I'm glad he's here.  I hate him, so they did what they meant to do.  No they didn't.  He is supposed to be the antagonist (should be the reapers, but).  As the antagonist, I should hate him because he's been hurting and killing people.  I should.  But I hate him because he's there-he ruined the game.  He should be the epitome of evil incarnate that says, "I am the reapers.  Fear me."  If he was that, I wouldn't care what he was doing, where he came from-I'd love to imagine that.  He would have been better as an amorphous blob that ebbs and flows.  I could see an awesome being that grows when he speaks of power and the things he wants or when he tries to frighten Shepard.  Or one that wilts and fades as Shepard disputes his claims.  Anyway, the thing is he would actually be laughable if his presence and the endings weren't so depressing and demoralizing.

Nothing can fix the appearance of the artificial choices.  They should not exist and their existence is another laughable moment.  I like them even far less now than before.  They've tried to make them appear valid, but they come off as jokes.  They also make less sense than before-before we all thought the crucible was the device that destroyed things, controlled reapers or changed DNA.  Now, they say it's just an energy beam.  So, the real change to it comes from the Citadel where the kid lives, that is a part of him.  Close a hole, open a chasm.

Since they made some of the choices even more ridiculous with a lot of words and pictures, I seriously doubt they had any of this in mind, ever.

They need direct intervention to save them.  It may be too late.  They've are hiding behind highminded words and virtuality.  They do need to surface and tell us why they still deserve the love we have all had for them and their games.  But in a few short months they have done by inaction and by mindless PR and spin, what even worse companies with far worse games have never done; they've managed to alienate a large segment of those most likely to buy their games, good games with stories-ones with the promise of ME.

[Voodoo2015]

Not that I agree with him more than some things. So, he is completely nuts ME3 revew.Tryck här

[BlueStorm83]

Pinax wrote...

BlueStorm83 wrote...

Overarching message?  Very simple: NEVER give up, never give in, you can overcome, you don't have to compromise who you are.

And then the Citadel...

The Citadel:  You were wrong all along.  The great evil is actually trying to do good.  You are nothing but an anthill in its way.  The existence of everyone you know is nothing.  Your achievements are nothing.  Everyone you love is nothing.  There can be no victory.  It was all for nothing.  There is no way out besides to acquiesce to the evil.  It is fine to transform your friends, against their will, into abominations.  It is fine to oppress them by placing them under the heel of the evil they strove for so long, and sacrificed so much, to defeat.  To betray and murder an entire race is an acceptable price to end the evil; temporatily, at least, as the evil itself assures you that one day, this will all happen again.  If you try to remain righteous, you will die pointlessly, and accomplish nothing.  Evil is your only hope.

---  To correct mister Walters' viewpoint, it is very possible for the writing team to tell a story that is not the story they have been telling all along.  That is, apparently, exactly what they've done.

Thanks a lot for this wall of text!

After mining in the net today and looking for some positive argumentation on the current endings I found out that the only one that may rationally explain the "event" on the Citadel without breaking the ME lore and the feeling it is just so wrong is the IT interpretation. I do not praise here the IT, just pointing this as the most convincing logical outcome if The Citadel ending is kept in the game as it is. Otherwise, the actual Catalyst, the conversation with him and it's conclusions are, just like you very well said, a part of some story we were never told.

---  At first, I thought that the Indoctrination Theory would be a great way out of the mess.  But I didn't want it; it would make BioWare admit that the product they sold us was incomplete.  They'd need to include something that happens LATER in order to finish the story, we'd still have Reapers to defeat.

Now, I sort of want it again.  They'd need to undo the Extended Cut, or at least explain that they were part of the indoctrination again.  Since they added the Refusal ending, and the EMS changes, they already did kinda admit that their product is incomplete out of the box.  Again, it would be a BS way to end things, and it would have to give us whatever came next COMPLETELY FREE, but dammit.

BioWare MIGHT have been wanting to do this all along.  It could have always been planned as some great piece about the futility of trying.  But that would be a really bad idea.  I mean, if everything's futile, why bother buying videogames?

[Thore2k10]

BlueStorm83 wrote...


---  At first, I thought that the Indoctrination Theory would be a great way out of the mess.  But I didn't want it; it would make BioWare admit that the product they sold us was incomplete.  They'd need to include something that happens LATER in order to finish the story, we'd still have Reapers to defeat.

Now, I sort of want it again.  They'd need to undo the Extended Cut, or at least explain that they were part of the indoctrination again.  Since they added the Refusal ending, and the EMS changes, they already did kinda admit that their product is incomplete out of the box.  Again, it would be a BS way to end things, and it would have to give us whatever came next COMPLETELY FREE, but dammit.

BioWare MIGHT have been wanting to do this all along.  It could have always been planned as some great piece about the futility of trying.  But that would be a really bad idea.  I mean, if everything's futile, why bother buying videogames?

well, if its a normal DLC, why not?

the way everythings developed, they could easily say that they will do something like IT just for those who want it... charge it with a bit of money and everyones happy...

or am i wrong?

[Voodoo2015]

One way of looking at it