4048 réponses à ce sujet

[Postman778]

chevyguy87 wrote...

@Postman78, I know that Bioware will never go near ME3 again, I should have renamed that brief list to "Things that Bioware should have done"

I totally agree with your list, regardless how you call it

For me it is a shame, how a series like ME ended.

Next time when the next reworked Star Wars: A New Hope will be shown, I expect the Death Star is not destroying Alderaan, but synthesising all life there (George Lucas saw the ME3 ending and decided it was good )

[Thore2k10]

chevyguy87 wrote...


We need the Crucible as much as we need Herp Derp Diana Allers. The Crucible is just a lousy plot device that drags the story along giving us some sort of goal to work towards. I would not have cared much if it was mentioned or hinted at or foreshadowed earlier in the series or something, but in ME3 all of a sudden we now have a way to kill Reapers. Execution = flawed, Delivery = flawed, Concept = flawed, it just opens up a whole new range of questions that never get answered, so it fails miserably as a plot device. 

@Postman78, I know that Bioware will never go near ME3 again, I should have renamed that brief list to "Things that Bioware should have done"

i was a bit disappointed, because ive read somewhere, that they didnt want to use a giant "reaper off" switch, which the crucible actually is.

but theres no way to remove the crucible anymore, as the whole game is worked towards its deployment against the reapers! anyway, the crucible is not really that bad, serves as an overall central theme to connect the really important missions like tuchanka or rannoch!

maybe in an "alternative cut" the crucible is just there to weaken the reapers, making it possible for the rest of the fleet to destroy em one by one.

please...

[Thore2k10]

chevyguy87 wrote...

@3DandBeyond, I would like to applaud you for keeping an intelligent conversation going, quite refreshing to have an actual discussion rather then a shouting contest.

There are just so many things done wrong or completely left out, that makes the list of the things done right seem like a spec of dust in the wind. Bioware dumbed this game down for the average Joe, which they should not have even considered. Out of curiosity I played a non import ME3 game and compared it to a fully imported ME1,2&3 game, and upon reviewing it, there really is almost no difference between the two aside from subtle dialogue and cutscene alterations. To me that is far worse then having a lousy ending.

The fact that one did not have to even know about the previous two installments and could jump right in is such a bad move on Bioware's end. To hell with the average schmuck off the street who just picked up ME3, think about your fans damnit.

You know the ones who have bought all the comic books, the ones who have played every game and have played them multiple times, the ones who have stood by your side paying you their hard earned money to continue the series, the ones who started that charity deal to raise money to give you so you could afford to go back and fix your mistakes, the ones who have been there since day one. Those are the people that should have mattered the most when creating ME3, those are the people you should have tailored the game to.

It looks like they have been forgotten. ME3 clearly shows that you didn't have to invest five years and hundreds of dollars in games, dlc content and other ME related merchandise, you didn't have to give a rats ass about the story or the brilliant cast chosen to fill it, you didn't have to give your constructive feedback to Bioware, or letters of appreciation, and possibly the worst thing of all, you did not even have to be a fan of the series to pick up ME3 and feel like you didn't miss a beat. In my opinion that right there is far worse then the ending.

The fact that we (the fans) were set aside in favor of the general audience, shows that Bioware is not the same company we fell in love with back in 2007. They have traded us in for the pursuit of the almighty dollar.

just saw that post!

full support! bought all the ME books and now i dont think ill read them again, because i know which fate EVERY character will suffer..

[PuppiesOfDeath2]

I understand that people have wasted their time on an animated prequel relating to James Vega, a character one reviewer accurately described as "that guy who hung out in the cargo bay and that you didn't take on any missions." Too bad they didn't spend their energy on a better ending.

[3DandBeyond]

KevShep wrote...

a9fc wrote...

BlueStorm83 wrote...

The Crucible is based on Prothean Technology... which is based on the guys who came before them... which is based on the guys before them... which was based on the guys before THEM... and continue this onward until we get back to some really really long ago race. And those guys are probably a Reaper now. It's all Reapers. From beginning to end, Reaper Reaper Reaper Reaper Reaper, nobody can beat the Reapers. Reapers always win.

To say that the crucible is based on prothean technology suggests that they started it.

No. The Prothean VI from Thessia specifically stated that it started so many cycles ago that it was hard to trace it's origin.

The protheans added to the puzzle. So a part of it is prothean, yes (but 1%? 10%? 0.1% nobody knows).

It's a creation by the organics. Even the protheans couldn't tell when the catalyst was factored into the puzzle.

Everyone seems to forget that the most crucial part of the crucible (the part where you make your 3 decisions) is not on the crucible but on the citadel side meaning that there is no way that organics built the crucible plans.

I haven't forgotten that.  This was always a big thing (about as big as the crucible is actually) that was a problem and they sort of tried to fix some things that were left open with the original endings and they made it worse.  When the endings came out originally, people thought part of what made no sense about Space Magic MacGuffin vas Crucible was that its origins (of the plans for it) were unknown AND that even with plans people that were making it would have to have some idea how to create things that would alter all the DNA in the galaxy, create a magic control beam that could be used by a dead Shepard or create a beam that without MP would cause tubes when shot at to explode powerfully, killing Shepard and that with MP would cause those tubes to explode less powerfully and let Shepard live.  Basically, even with plans in order to make something you have to have an idea what the technology does and how it's doing it. 

It also made no sense to people that all of a sudden because Shepard made it up the conduit that the citadel had suddenly changed in response to that and that these 3 consoles popped up.  Consider that the citadel is a part of the kid and the kid says because Shepard is there (and I guess the crucible), the crucible changed him.

So, they retconned it.  Another case of where they had no real plan for what they were writing.  Now, the Crucible (its nickname) is no longer space magic.  It's a big old Energizer battery in space.  What a demotion.

However, the mysterious Swiss Army Knife of Space Magic (the Citadel) has added more tools to its repertoire.  The Citadel now not only has the magic instantly created 3 choice consoles, but those 3 consoles are now the things that create the new...DNA, allow for Shreaper to be a god, and with really low EMS will kill Shepard or with high EMS will let Shepard the torso live and ONLY kill reapers, EDI, and the geth and whatever synthetic lifeform had the brains to stay out of all this.

The Citadel is a part of the kid-that is like saying my arm is a part of me.  He didn't say that he is a part of the Citadel.  That means the choices are suspect.  The kid also knows all about them and they may not be what he says they are.  The Crucible since it works with the Citadel is still of questionable origin.  It is right to say that it is also a product of organics, but no one knows who originally started work on it.

One theory might even be that the kid was created and his creators knew he could not achieve his purpose-the kid as an AI saw things in on and off, black and white, 0 and 1.  He had no nuanced understanding.  He turned on his creators who may have wanted even to change him--they may have begun work on a new creation (the crucible) in order to alter the kid's programming.  This may have been why the kid turned on them, before the plans were finished.  He also says he knew of the existence of the plans and he thought they were gone.  Perhaps in "destroying" his creators he assumed the plans had been destroyed.  But, considering his creators are within a reaper and the reapers seed the galaxy with their tech, it is just possible that the reaper with the creators in it continually seed the plans for the crucible as well.

However, its insane on its face to create this crucible and then say now it's just a big battery (not what I think but the writers have Hackett saying it was easy to make and it is just an energy source).  Big batteries or simple energy sources do not alter the programming of advanced AIs.  So, even what they tried to turn the crucible into makes no sense.  It is still space magic--it creates the choices even though the choices are implemented through some space magic on the Citadel.  This convoluted bit of garbage could so easily have been avoided.

[3DandBeyond]

Let me say that I have finally figured out a possible way that the star kid could have worked and it could even have been merely through some altered dialogue and a real refuse type ending. He needed to actually be a part of the resolution of the story AFTER the climax of the story. A fight with the reapers should have been the climax of the story--this was why everyone had been doing what they were doing all along from Eden Prime on. This was the main thing that had to be addressed-it's unnecessary to know who or what or why about the reapers in order to achieve this in the story and that fight, THE GOAL should be achieved and should be the high point of the story. If we needed any explanation as to their motives and origins that could have come after the battle had turned for good or bad. 2 resolutions after victory is certain or defeat inevitable. This could also have funneled people into limited outlets for sequels or after this story DLC.

First off there really would have had to be some ability to mount a real war against the reapers. Some major turning point within a real war that makes it clear that some ways to defeat them have been figured out or not. Perhaps Shepard does get to the crucible and sets it off-causing shields to fully drop or maybe not if Shepard had failed in some ways in the game.

Then, when it's clear what will happen, the kid appears and maybe there could be 2 versions of him. He initially shows himself as a kid. He may be there in order to try and assure his continued existence and to get Shepard to try and join with "him" with Synthesis. He might do things and say things to try to stop the total destruction of the reapers. Or, he might also explain his obsession for Shepard, the need and try to appeal to Shepard in the face of certain doom for the galaxy, to join him. And Shepard might have a few choices at this point-to join him in Synthesis-say that he gives Shepard this option whether the galaxy is winning or doomed. It can be used by the kid to try and avoid his own destruction or used to appeal to Shepard as the only way to stop the total destruction of the galaxy. I don't see the other choices as being needed here. Destroy is something already decided by what has happened and Control isn't what the kid would want to give up.

I think in this way you could have the kid there explaining (manipulating) to Shepard his purpose and the sense of it, but at a point where the end is mostly decided.

But also I think at some point the kid should morph into an image of Harbinger--say if Shepard decides to not choose Synthesis or tries to shoot the kid. The kid morphs into Harbinger and becomes threatening-saying it's the only way for the galaxy to survive. If the reapers have been defeated, he could say they will find a way to return and to set things right and so on. If the reapers have won, he could say Shepard was given the only chance to save the galaxy from certain inevitable cycles of destruction. Perhaps there could also be some last ditch effort based upon other things where Shepard sees that there's an apparent defeat and refuses Synthesis, the kid morphs into Harbinger and starts telling how the galaxy is doomed and the player gets an interrupt, maybe a simultaneous paragon/renegade one and we hear Shepard say, "now EDI", and the Normandy and a lot of other ships open fire on the Citadel, blowing it up, and yes, messing up the Earth, but actually destroying the kid/Harbinger and all the reapers. A Hail Mary pass.

And then you have denouement/epilogue scenes appropriate for what happened.

[sdinc009]

Thore2k10 wrote...

chevyguy87 wrote...


We need the Crucible as much as we need Herp Derp Diana Allers. The Crucible is just a lousy plot device that drags the story along giving us some sort of goal to work towards. I would not have cared much if it was mentioned or hinted at or foreshadowed earlier in the series or something, but in ME3 all of a sudden we now have a way to kill Reapers. Execution = flawed, Delivery = flawed, Concept = flawed, it just opens up a whole new range of questions that never get answered, so it fails miserably as a plot device. 

@Postman78, I know that Bioware will never go near ME3 again, I should have renamed that brief list to "Things that Bioware should have done"

i was a bit disappointed, because ive read somewhere, that they didnt want to use a giant "reaper off" switch, which the crucible actually is.

but theres no way to remove the crucible anymore, as the whole game is worked towards its deployment against the reapers! anyway, the crucible is not really that bad, serves as an overall central theme to connect the really important missions like tuchanka or rannoch!

maybe in an "alternative cut" the crucible is just there to weaken the reapers, making it possible for the rest of the fleet to destroy em one by one.

please...

The Crucible is a Macguffin and though it's not a "bad" plot device it still needs to be used properly or it can cause problems in a story. However, your staement regarding how it's used is false. The Crucible does not serve as a central theme connecting Tuchanka and Rannoch. First, the Crucible is a plot device not a theme. Second, the central theme of Mass Effect is unification of all to save the galaxy. You're on Tuchanka to recruit the krogan to recuit the turians so you can save the galaxy. You're on Rannoch to recruit the Quarians or the Geth or settle their differences and recuit both so you can save the galaxy. So, the Crucible isn't bad, per se, but really just unnecessary just like the Deus Ex Machina plot device aka: the Catalyst. The story does not need things in order to create a well written story. The resources used for the Crucible could have easily been used to create a massive armada to fight against the Reapers thus giving purpose to resource farming. And, I'm not even going to touch on my issues with the Catalyst and it's retard logic cause that will take a 20 page rage dump. Essentailly, "irrelevance" is the best word I can use. ME 3 simply should have just been an epic battle. It didn't need weird meta-physical and philosophical ideas tossed into the mix at the first and final scenes of the story. Then toss in non-sensical crap endings and congratulations, just killed a series.

[3DandBeyond]

The crucible is what all MacGuffins are. They are used in place of actually writing in more difficult plot elements. You create a "saviour" device so as not to have to get entangled with dialogue and drama that completes the task. It's actually considered by book editors and publishers (along with Deus ex Machina) to be lazy writing and books with such things are often rejected.

Now minor MacGuffins are often used and to great effect and they often also provide context and have their context written in. Big MacGuffins do need explanation but often don't get sufficient explanation.

The difference is bad MacGuffins solve all your problems for you. Good MacGuffins help you solve your problems. The Crucible MacGuffin isn't even as good as a bad MacGuffin because it's debatable that it even solves the problems (the Citadel creates the choices, the Crucible powers them and the choices are awful). If it had been a straight up weapon of some sort, it would have been a more predictable but better MacGuffin. If it had been not a real cannon in space weapon but weakened the reapers so they could be fought, it would have been a much better MacGuffin.

The story even completely failed to use a MacGuffin correctly. Generally, there's some good reason or need as to why people will use the thing. If the Crucible had been found as some special power source that just needed some fixing or even needed to be made after a lot of bad events had happened and there had been a real sense of desperation, you might make a leap of faith, that they were ready to try anything. It shows up way too early and it makes no sense that people would use all their resources on it in place of other things. It would even have been better if someone had looked at the plans and remembered seeing other things like it before on smaller scales so that someone really had a clue as to where it came from and what it did.

A MacGuffin has to be something that obviously helps achieve the goal.  This is the mystery MacGuffin. 

Modifié par 3DandBeyond, 13 juillet 2012 - 03:32 .

[Iakus]

Postman778 wrote...

chevyguy87 wrote...

@Postman78, I know that Bioware will never go near ME3 again, I should have renamed that brief list to "Things that Bioware should have done"

I totally agree with your list, regardless how you call it

For me it is a shame, how a series like ME ended.

Next time when the next reworked Star Wars: A New Hope will be shown, I expect the Death Star is not destroying Alderaan, but synthesising all life there (George Lucas saw the ME3 ending and decided it was good )

I'm hoping that when the Baldur's Gate 2 Enhanced Edition comes out, destroying the Bhaalspawn essesnce doesn't kill all the elves in Faerun as well///:unsure:

[AresKeith]

throw the Starchild int the beam

[3DandBeyond]

AresKeith wrote...

throw the Starchild int the beam

Oh yeah, best ending ever!

[AresKeith]

3DandBeyond wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

throw the Starchild int the beam

Oh yeah, best ending ever!

then let Harbinger have his rightful place as the main bad guy

[KevShep]

3DandBeyond wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

throw the Starchild int the beam

Oh yeah, best ending ever!

I heard to that they were not wanting to do a kill-all-reapers-button as well as an ending with an a/b or c choice. That didnt go over too well I guess.

[3DandBeyond]

KevShep wrote...

I heard to that they were not wanting to do a kill-all-reapers-button as well as an ending with an a/b or c choice. That didnt go over too well I guess.

You know you have problems as a game developer if you say you won't create an ABC choice ending and won't have a kill all the reapers button and then your A choice in the ABC choice ending is a kill all the reapers button.

[Loaderini]

they really need to make the Extended Cut a patch so even people who don't care about DLCs will have it installed. it makes the game SO MUCH better!

[AeonOfTime]

I just finished the game with the playthrough I had prepared just for the extended cut. It was exactly what I needed tonight, and also the first game ever to make me cry - and I have a long gamer history (starting with a C64).

After all the heated discussion about the end in which I must admit to have participated myself, I want to thank the whole team behind the game for making it whole. The new ending explains what I wanted to know, and (with the control option) seeing the reapers repair the mass relays and help rebuild on planets was awesome.

Thanks for restoring my faith in one of my favorite development studios.

[x75dnaflames]

 The problem I have with the endings, and I think most people will agree, is that NONE of your previous choice matter in the slightest. ME 1 and 2 were about preparing the galaxy for the Reapers, consoling your forces, preparing them, and in your free time shaping the galaxy as you saw fit. Thats why many of us played through 1 and 2 extensively, to find all possible choices, too see how they played out, and to get a wide selection of games ready for the grand fanaly. So your choices matter a bit in game, it dosn't affect anything but slightly alter the dialoge, but your choices are present. Then you hit the Cidatel. You get on up there, and are confronted with the fate of the galaxy. You choose, and to each his own. Red/Blue/Green Pule, game over.


So what happened to the Geth?


I have spent the last 2 games doing everything in my power to get peace between organics and the Geth, and I finaly get it, but so what? Their future post-war is never talked about, nor are the fates of the Krogan, Salarian, Asari, Vorcha, Batarians, Quarians, and what ever happened to the Rachnii??? The extended cut should have fixed this, it should have done somthing similare to Fallout: New Vegas, make all your choices matter, all effect have a consiquence, and the place you left is forevered changed by your pressence. 3 games worth of build up and all we get is pictures of your friends standing there, rebuilding. WTH Bioware? Fallout: New Vegas had a far more satisfying ending and it was 1 game without half the choices that ME has. There is no differances in endings except for the end game choice, there is no reason at all top play through again to see what choices cause chain effects because none of it matters. 3 games of investment in this trilogy, and I can't even play through this game a secound time because I know that no matter what I do, the ending will be the same thing. 

The extended cut only worked to elaborate and explain an already bad ending when what it should have done was brought meaning to all your hard work and ultimately your final sacrafice. 

Modifié par x75dnaflames, 13 juillet 2012 - 10:20 .

[Promethean 47]

I enjoyed the Mass Effect games immensely. I realize the limitations and pressures of shipping a major product like this, along with time constraints, and the difficulties of crafting a workable fiction and ending that can satisfy fans and still be feasible to build and satisfy a dev team's vision is not an easy thing to do. I hope Bioware can recognize that all of these rants and posts, no matter how offensive, are at their heart an indication of how much people loved their games.

So with that said, my opinion on the Mass Effect ending:

The problems with Mass Effect 3's ending can be traced to a number of sources. The first problem with Mass Effect 3's story and ending was, in fact, the problem with Mass Effect 2's story. At the end of Mass Effect 1, Shepard has learned that the Reapers are coming and has chosen to dedicate himself to stopping that. But Mass Effect 2 does not follow through on this trajectory. Rather, it takes Cerberus - a group used in the first game only for side missions - and makes them a central part of the game. It also introduces the Collectors, and sets their base as something Shepard must destroy. But doing so does nothing to advance the overal storyline of the trilogy. Mass Effect 2 did not result in Shepard discovering some way to defeat the reapers, making some new ally, or otherwise progressing the storyline to setup a logical/plausible conclusion in part 3. The result of this flaw? The deus ex machina/Macguffin that are the catalyst and the space child.

Rather than learning some hidden fact that would only be learnable by braving the omega relay, or facing the consequence of keeping or destroying the collector base, the solution to the galaxy's ills were sitting in the Mars archives all along, all this time.  For some unexplained reason, Earth's researches simply did not uncover this fact until the third game.  This despite the game having told players that the Mars ruins were the reason for humanity's jump forward onto the galactic stage.  The idea that the catalyst would be found in Mass Effect 3, when it had not been found in the decades of research of that location beforehand, renders the catalyst a deus ex machina.  Simply put, the story would have been far better served had Shepard uncovered the catalyst (or some other less cliched solution to defeating the reapers) at the end of Mass Effect 2, thereby setting the stage for the conclusion in Mass Effect 3.  In short, your decision to keep the collector base should have meant something more, or you should have somehow otherwise discovered a secret to defeating the reapers.

To be clear, Mass Effect 2's ending was, in other respects, brilliant and thrilling to experience in another respect.  Despite failing to truly progress the main storyline, Mass Effect 2 did get one thing right that Mass Effect 3 got so terribly wrong: the choices over the course of the game dictated the ending. This should have been the case for Mass Effect 3 as well, only on a grander scale. Your choices in Mass Effect 3, and indeed over the entire franchise should have dictated your ending.  Your decision to keep or destroy the collector base should have meant something.  But it did not. Rather, Bioware provided players with the same 3 (now 4) choices no matter what they did previously. This is probably the most disappointing aspect of Mass Effect 3's ending, much moreso than the inclusion of the space child (as terrible as he is in his own right).  By setting out 4 arbitrary, illogical, and unforeshadowed 'solutions' for the player to choose at the end - which are in no way dependent upon or reflective of the players' previous choices (yes, you can only get the green ending if you do certain things, but the same basic choice is there virtually regardless of whatever you do.  Even if you were an utter renegade, you can still choose control or synthesize, etc.)  - Bioware killed the best thing about the franchise: the sense that this world was truly shaped by your choices.  Instead, no matter what you did previously, you'd always get the same 4 disappointing choices.  Mass Effect 3's ending is thus the opposite of Mass Effect 2, where the choices over the entire game dictated the ending.  This was the single most disappointing thing about Mass Effect 3's ending, and by extension, the entire trilogy.

The next problem is the space child itself. Set against the biggest space battle in the history of the galaxy, in which Reapers are tearing through capital ships with single blasts, players are forced to progress through a prolonged conversation with an infuriatingly illogical AI. Contrary to countless previous discussions over the course of the 3 games, here our Shepard gets no chance to paragon or renegade his way to some altered result. Our Shepard does not show the AI how incredibly flawed its 'solution' is, nor how utterly arbitrary it is for the AI to for no apparent reason whatsoever all of a sudden willingly offer the choice to Shepard to do what it could have done at any point had it so desired itself.  This is the same AI who's reapers have just murdered untold millions and, more importantly, fought desperately to prevent Shepard from gaining access to the Citadel.  Yet now that Shepard made it inside, it all of a sudden surrenders its 'solution' over to Shepard's whims. Indeed, why would this AI allow Shepard to choose the destroy option, and in so doing undo the 'solution' it had put in place for countless cycles? For that matter, if 'control' was a feasible new solution, why had the AI not exhibited that control itself? These and I'm sure several other logical holes in the AI's thinking and actions can be identified.

Beyond these problems however, the space child is also disappointing because he at once both (1) provides a poor and illogical explanation for the reaper's motivations this entire time, while (2) providing an unsatisfactory explanation of the Reaper/Space Child's origins. Who created the space child? What happened to them? This question has lingered in the mind of players since the first game in the franchise, yet it was left unanswered. This choice is respectable enough. Ambiguity in fiction is not a bad thing. But it is infuriating here when the space child is presented to provide an expository explanation for the entire war and conflict our protagonist has endured but we are then not allowed to learn this fact.

Beyond being logically inconsistent and thematically disappointing, the decision to provide the space child explanation and the 4 vastly disparate (yet nevertheless unsatisfying) ending possibilities is commercially baffling. While players bemoan the influence of EA over Bioware and possibly this game, in this instance, a little bit more care for the potential of sequels may have been a welcome thing. As is, the 4 endings are so massively different, that the only way EA will be able to continue the storyline forward (versus some kind of prequel series) will be to pick on of the endings and treat it as the 'canon' ending. This wouldn't be the first time such a thing has happened in gaming, or even this franchise (players who got the 'Shepard dies' ending in Mass Effect 2 did not get a 'canon' ending) but it is bizarre more care wasn't taken to preserve the storyline for future potential games.

For example, Bioware could have ended the game by having Shepard learn that the Reapers are, in fact, the end result of a self-replicating probe sent to this galaxy by a race from another galaxy as a safeguard. The reapers are this alien race's way of ensuring that no civilizations from this galaxy ever rise up to become powerful enough to challenge or threaten them in some other distant galaxy. Indeed, it's plausible that some ancient race has sent the reapers to every other galaxy they did not themselves inhabit precisely to ensure their dominance. With the repears having now been destroyed, an even bigger threat would loom on the horizon: the creator race themselves. Predictable? Perhaps. But logical given the story established in the previous three games? Yes. More logical than the explanation provided by the AI? Yes. Indeed, perhaps the AI's own irrationality when it comes to its solution is evidence of this creator race - they created the catalyst/space child and programmed it to think its solution was superior - even though it is plainly illogical.

Or, as Drew Karpyshyn hinted at, Bioware could have pointed to some deeper purpose by the Reapers.  The title 'mass effect' - was one point thought to refer to some universe or galaxy wide dark-matter based apocalypse.  Perhaps by 'harvesting' the races and putting them into reaper form, the catalyst was creating Arks capable of surviving this apocalypse - some impending galaxy wide collapse, or other mass effect.  (A personal disappointment in Mass Effect 3 came from learning that there was no deeper meaning to the title.  For instance, in medical science, mass effect is a term used in connection with behavior of cancerous cells.) 

As one might be thinking by now, on page 124 of this thread, these issues can easily become convoluted. And even as bad as Mass Effect 3's ending is on some levels, I don't think it's necessarily franchise killing. There's nothing preventing Bioware or EA from doing what I suggest above with the story, or some other spin on it.

Regardless of what EA or Bioware does with Mass Effect in the future however, the sad fact remains that the ending of Mass Effect 3, even with the extended cut's hamfisted fixes to its clear plotholes (the normandy pickup outside the portal, the added scene of the fleet flying away before the catalyst flies off, the mass relays being only damaged instead of destroyed, etc.), will be remembered as flawed for the two reasons identified above: (1) the choices over the course of the previous 3 games do not truly dictate the endings, and (2) the space child and the red/green/blue simply do not make sense and are poorly executed.

Modifié par Promethean 47, 13 juillet 2012 - 10:57 .

[BlueStorm83]

---  I just read over much of the past two pages, and saw that 3D had the idea that maybe the Crucible was the Creators' idea, and that Harbinger had been seeding the galaxy with its information after every cycle.

Good gravy, THAT would have been a hell of a plot twist.  That maybe the Starboy is completely evil, that the later Reapers were a perfected form that are completely evil, but that SOMEWHERE inside Harbinger were the souls of the original race, just kind of dominated by Straboy and the other Reapers linked into them, but still able to have a brief moment of freedom as the cycle came to a close, to try and give the next one a chance to save themselves.

Imagine playing a mission where Harbinger, recently disabled by a shot from some sort of bigass weapon (maybe even the crucible itself?) is boarded by Shep and Crew, in an effort to destroy it from the inside and find a weakness to exploit in the other reapers, but finding whatever organic repository is inside of Harbinger, and talking to it, while ALSO talking to Harbinger's machine-personality, and having a series of tough choices to make about what to do with Harbinger?  Do we kill him or not?  If we don't kill him, do we cripple him and use him for research?  If we don't cripple him, do we keep him free but disable his weaponry and only use him as an information asset?  Or do we take the plunge, destroy the Machine Conciousness, and give Harbinger over fully to the control of the Creators within him?

---  Say what you will about the Starboy (And I'll say it too, only angrier and with more curse words) he isn't necessarily an irredemable plot device.  He COULD have been integrated well  had they just made him a villian, and let us have an entire game about killing him in a 4th ME game.  Freeing/shacking/lobotomizing/destroying Harbinger could have been the big win scene in ME3 and played into the series' blatant and obvious "Freedom.  Redemption.  Victory over the odds at any cost." message.  It could even lead to a scenario in Mass Effect 4 where we'd not only be destroying Reaper Fleets, but also have the option to free/destroy/whatever OTHER sentient Reapers, who Harbinger knows might be redeemable.

Of course, not all of them would be redeemable.  Some may be lying.  Some, if freed, might turn on you at a crucial moment.  There would be clues, of course, if you do all the optional things.  But if you **** up, you might lose a planet, and millions of lives.  It would all culminate in destroying the Starboy in one of, we'll say, 6 different spectacular ways, ranging from actually blowing some kind of Starboy Station in dark-space to dust, to actually convincing the Reapers to reject him and his ways, and without a collective consensus, th4e Starboy would just slowly (and painfully) dissolve into nothingness.  With various ways in between, with varying violence.

Would all of this been artistic?  I don't know.  I'm not an art critic.  I'm just a VIDEO GAME PLAYER.

[chevyguy87]

Regardless of what is said about the Crucible, it will not change the fact that it was just a last minute easy out option that took the place of good storytelling
Now my next bid, the phrase "We cannot defeat them conventionally".
I pulled this from the Sovereign page of the ME Wiki.

"Upon the destruction of it's avatar, the signal that linked to Sovereign became corrupted and caused Soveriegn's shields to shut down. Under constant bombardment by a full armada of Systems Alliance starships, Sovereign was finally destroyed by a fatal shot fired from the Normandy"

Now after reviewing that scene from the end of ME1 I think that Bioware done goofed again. Since Sovereign was destroyed with "conventional" starships firing "conventional" weapons and finally blown to hell "conventionally" after being blasted by the Normandy, why in ME3 are they all of a sudden invincible? I understand the fact the Sovereign was just one of the Reaper fleet, but in ME3 we united the whole galaxy and it's fleets. Now this brings to mind my next bid, shields, this is where I can give Bioware some wiggle room, since we cannot penetrate a Reaper's shields by simply shooting at it, unconventional means would be needed. But once its shields are no more, regular weapons would work. So I find that the Reapers are not so God Like, they just have a layer of protection that would need to be cracked in order to get to the soft chewy center.

Continuing on, I highlighted the word signal for a reason, and I follow with this question. Why would killing a Reaper's avatar and breaking it's broadcast signal, cause the Reaper to drop it's shields?, how are the two connected? My only thought would be that when the Reaper sends out this signal, it is also sending a bit of itself out along encrypted in the signal. It's shielding must also operate on the same frequency. Eureka, when the signal is broken, transmitting stops and interrupts the frequency of it's shields and distorts them enough to where they shut down.

So my next question, since Mr. Lite Brite, claims he is the defacto overseer of the Reapers, wouldn't he be considered the avatar for the whole fleet? Since he says that he is the Reapers, ergo he would be considered the collective mind of the fleet. So what would happen if Shepard had the option to disable him? Would doing so in turn break the broadcasting frequency to each Reaper therefore disabling all of their shielding? Or would doing so have no effects what so ever, since the Reaper has to take control of somebody to establish that link. But what if Glow Stick is that link? What if he is the one that gives each Reaper that kind of power. Would killing him cut the head off the snake? Would the Reapers still be able to function as a fighting force?

I found that to be rather interesting because it seems like it would be too easy to kill a Reaper, all you would have to do is find the source of the signal and diasble it, that in turn would disable the Reapers protection and leave it open to conventional fire. So what about Harbinger? Wasn't the Collector General his avatar? Didn't Harbinger directly control it like Sovereign did with the reanimated Saren? We killed the General so wouldn't that of left ol Harby vulnerable? But wait theres a twist, when fighting the Destroyer on Rannoch, we discovered a weak spot, but why did this one not have the protective shielding like the Capital ships? 

And since the Destroyer is just a scaled down version of a Capital ship, could that same weak spot be used on it's big brothers once their defenses have been brought down? 

With all of this said what was the point of the Crucible in the first place. Since all our Allied forces would have to do is bring down the Shields and aim for that weak spot and presto, dead Reapers. I personally would have preferred that instead of a big "easy button" so to speak. 

I think the phrase I opened this topic with can be labled null and void if we look at it closely like this. They can be defeated conventionally through the use of sly tactics.The Crucible to me just doesn't work. Since the end of ME1 and the times we fought the Destoryers on Tuchanka and Rannoch, proves that they are not invincilbe and they can be defeated with perserverance and strategic moves. Instead we now have a magic switch that has the ability to simply turn them off. In ME3 the Reapers just lost their luster plain and simple. They took a backseat to Cerberus.

[3DandBeyond]

chevyguy87 wrote...

AlexMBrennan wrote...

axe the Crucible

Sorry, can't do it. You need the crucible, or a plot device very much like it:

ME1: stop Saren because the Reapers pose a threat so great that fighting simply isn't an option
ME3: Reapers invade anyway, but magically we can win this time. With fewer forces than what we had at the 1st battle of citadel, having lost and not yet replaced a bunch of ships.

Ther is nothing wrong with the Cruible in principle, and I doubt that fans would have complained quite this much if it had been a simple prothean design (rather than iterativly handed down - they built a mass relay, after all, so this is hardly difficult to believe) that killed the Reapers (rather than summoning godchild). So yeah, execution was flawed, but it's really the best you could have done with the mess that is ME2; for a real fix, you should probably start by rewriting *that* from scratch (having the heroes figure out how to stop the Reapers rather than wasting time on a non-threat like the Collectors - who wouldn't have gotten anywhere before the full scale invasion - would be a good start)

We need the Crucible as much as we need Herp Derp Diana Allers. The Crucible is just a lousy plot device that drags the story along giving us some sort of goal to work towards. I would not have cared much if it was mentioned or hinted at or foreshadowed earlier in the series or something, but in ME3 all of a sudden we now have a way to kill Reapers. Execution = flawed, Delivery = flawed, Concept = flawed, it just opens up a whole new range of questions that never get answered, so it fails miserably as a plot device. 

@Postman78, I know that Bioware will never go near ME3 again, I should have renamed that brief list to "Things that Bioware should have done"

@AlexMBrennan,

The Crucible is totally unnecessary and is a crutch.  It raises many unanswered questions.  It is plot filler.  It is considered by book publishers to be lazy writing.  It is a MacGuffin.  It's a substitute for actually writing and describing solutions.  Consider how much more difficult it is to write about a bunch of characters that build a boat to get off a deserted island.  A MacGuffin would be written in-these people would run around trying to find some boat someone had made and use that to get off the island.  No real explanation there-the MacGuffin saves the day and replaces huge parts of the story.  Just as the Deus ex Machina is used to replace parts of the story and is there to save the day.  The difference between the 2 is the Deus ex shows up, but the protagonist searches for or actively pursues the MacGuffin that will save all.  They are both contrived and not totally logical always, and certainly aren't in ME3.

There were many ways to tie together ME2 and 3 and I cannot conceive of intelligent people being unable to think of one.  The crucible does nothing to tie them together or to fix anything from ME2 if it even needed fixing.  The collectors had been sent by the reapers-what's so hard to figure out about that and what's so hard to work with there?  The collectors were working to obtain Shepard's body, to find human mutations, and to collect humans.  Actually many great stories reference and show the main foe bit by bit, but in the end the foe you have been chasing finally comes to the table and wants to fight.  The reapers should have shown up at the end.  The problem isn't that reapers were not an overwhelming presence in ME1 and 2, because we knew they were on the way.  They sent vanguards, just like any foe would do-scouts, advanced forces.  In ME3, they arrived and then disappeared.  That is where the blame lies.

Modifié par 3DandBeyond, 14 juillet 2012 - 12:57 .

[3DandBeyond]

Arsenic Touch wrote...

3DandBeyond wrote...

Arsenic Touch wrote...

AresKeith wrote...


the Refuse Option was the perfect chance to make our War Assets and our past choices mean something, but nope

Correct me if I'm wrong, the refuse is when you shoot at the star child, right? discovered that by accident (dog hopped on ,my lap and spun the camera around and my finger hit the mouse) and when nothing happened and it skipped to the next scene, I was more disappointed than I was than with the original ending.

Bioware had a lot of opportunities to shine and they just decided to half ass it. I can't see how anyone can be content with the war assets not mattering at all.

Refuse can happen 2 ways:  Shoot the kid or tell him basically no to each of his choices.  The choice you'd pick to get it is always something like, "I can't do that" on the right side at the bottom of the dialogue wheel.

The difference isn't too much but there is a bit more that's better if you actively make a choice in dialogue to reject him.  However, results are the same.  It's not a serious attempt at reject and really not what people ever talked about as being what happened if you resisted the choices.  It's kind of meant to say to players, "you don't like our awesome endings?  Game over."  What the devs have said about it is they can't understand why people don't like it (sooo innocent), it was what they wanted.  No, what people wanted was to reject the kid and try to have a real fight with the real enemies in the game-it was a way to say the kid's logic was flawed, that put Shepard's spine back in, and that might allow for some "real" ending.

Figured as much. Wasted opportunities and people say we should thank them? ha. Why did they even bother adding that part? 

They added refuse so they can now say they listened to fans and they have done just that when people complained about it and asked about it.  Whichever dev it was that answered was able to act innocently and say it was what fans wanted.  But it would not have taken a genius to figure out instant death wasn't what people wanted along with it.  It's a middle finger to fans.

[AresKeith]

3DandBeyond wrote...

Arsenic Touch wrote...

3DandBeyond wrote...

Arsenic Touch wrote...

AresKeith wrote...


the Refuse Option was the perfect chance to make our War Assets and our past choices mean something, but nope

Correct me if I'm wrong, the refuse is when you shoot at the star child, right? discovered that by accident (dog hopped on ,my lap and spun the camera around and my finger hit the mouse) and when nothing happened and it skipped to the next scene, I was more disappointed than I was than with the original ending.

Bioware had a lot of opportunities to shine and they just decided to half ass it. I can't see how anyone can be content with the war assets not mattering at all.

Refuse can happen 2 ways:  Shoot the kid or tell him basically no to each of his choices.  The choice you'd pick to get it is always something like, "I can't do that" on the right side at the bottom of the dialogue wheel.

The difference isn't too much but there is a bit more that's better if you actively make a choice in dialogue to reject him.  However, results are the same.  It's not a serious attempt at reject and really not what people ever talked about as being what happened if you resisted the choices.  It's kind of meant to say to players, "you don't like our awesome endings?  Game over."  What the devs have said about it is they can't understand why people don't like it (sooo innocent), it was what they wanted.  No, what people wanted was to reject the kid and try to have a real fight with the real enemies in the game-it was a way to say the kid's logic was flawed, that put Shepard's spine back in, and that might allow for some "real" ending.

Figured as much. Wasted opportunities and people say we should thank them? ha. Why did they even bother adding that part? 

They added refuse so they can now say they listened to fans and they have done just that when people complained about it and asked about it.  Whichever dev it was that answered was able to act innocently and say it was what fans wanted.  But it would not have taken a genius to figure out instant death wasn't what people wanted along with it.  It's a middle finger to fans.

yep, but nooo they wanted artistic intergity and their crucible

[BlueStorm83]

3DandBeyond wrote...

Arsenic Touch wrote...

3DandBeyond wrote...

Arsenic Touch wrote...

AresKeith wrote...


the Refuse Option was the perfect chance to make our War Assets and our past choices mean something, but nope

Correct me if I'm wrong, the refuse is when you shoot at the star child, right? discovered that by accident (dog hopped on ,my lap and spun the camera around and my finger hit the mouse) and when nothing happened and it skipped to the next scene, I was more disappointed than I was than with the original ending.

Bioware had a lot of opportunities to shine and they just decided to half ass it. I can't see how anyone can be content with the war assets not mattering at all.

Refuse can happen 2 ways:  Shoot the kid or tell him basically no to each of his choices.  The choice you'd pick to get it is always something like, "I can't do that" on the right side at the bottom of the dialogue wheel.

The difference isn't too much but there is a bit more that's better if you actively make a choice in dialogue to reject him.  However, results are the same.  It's not a serious attempt at reject and really not what people ever talked about as being what happened if you resisted the choices.  It's kind of meant to say to players, "you don't like our awesome endings?  Game over."  What the devs have said about it is they can't understand why people don't like it (sooo innocent), it was what they wanted.  No, what people wanted was to reject the kid and try to have a real fight with the real enemies in the game-it was a way to say the kid's logic was flawed, that put Shepard's spine back in, and that might allow for some "real" ending.

Figured as much. Wasted opportunities and people say we should thank them? ha. Why did they even bother adding that part? 

They added refuse so they can now say they listened to fans and they have done just that when people complained about it and asked about it.  Whichever dev it was that answered was able to act innocently and say it was what fans wanted.  But it would not have taken a genius to figure out instant death wasn't what people wanted along with it.  It's a middle finger to fans.

Actually, Refusal is pretty much exactly what I asked for.  It lets me tell BioWare that I'd Rather FAIL than "succeed" in what THEY consider success.  I consider my actually CHOOSING Refusal, even knowing the consequence, to be a bigger middle finger to them than the one they gave us by making refusal what it is.

[3DandBeyond]

PuppiesOfDeath2 wrote...

I understand that people have wasted their time on an animated prequel relating to James Vega, a character one reviewer accurately described as "that guy who hung out in the cargo bay and that you didn't take on any missions." Too bad they didn't spend their energy on a better ending.

Yes it is called Paragon and its Anime as I understand it.  Soon all games will be fleshed out in cartoons, comics, and best of all, Twitter.

Personally, prior to the endings I did like some of the graphic novels, but anything added now just won't really have any meaning.