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[drayfish]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

drayfish wrote...

In contrast, Mass Effect 3, in my opinion, communicated none of those things.  By turning the player into an advocate for a hate crime upon his/her own allies, embracing the enemy's racist, hopeless belief that different (groups) really can't get along unless you impose your arrogant will upon them, and that the only way to end war is by being willing to inflict a hate crime upon innocents in order to remake the universe as you design, the game stepped over any line of narrative 'melancholy', and straight into the most lazy, narcissistic, irresponsible nonsense it could possibly espouse.

Some people really do believe that, though, and honestly – looking at the history of Earth – can you truly be certain that they're wrong?

Have you ever read von Clausewitz?  He calls war "an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will".  I believe that even here on Earth some group's wills really are implacably opposed to our own (to achieve life, freedom and prosperity) and that such wills need to be broken, by violence and war when necessary.

The synthetic/organic conflict is truly interesting to me because it does speak of implacably opposed wills – the synthetic will to improve itself versus the organic will to remain in control of its own future.  To me that suggests that war is in fact inevitable.  That's why I enjoyed the ending and thought it was thought-provoking.

As you said in your post: some people believe that.

Some.

Choosing the final five minutes to turn a series that purported to be a valid reflection of the players own ethical code and their singular mediations upon complex and intractable social issues* into a moral relativity generator in which they are forced - no matter what they might select - to embrace the belief that such conflict and violation of personal freedoms is hopelessly inevitable, that inclusivity and diversity are a lie, and that the only way to achieve peace is through acts of domination and imposition, is not a valid reflection of any ideological diversity.

At best it is an awkward misstep by Bioware (although the fact that they have refused to alter that message seems to disprove that), at worst it is a cynical attempt  to compel people, at the very end of their experience, to embrace such a nihilistic viewpoint.  It doesn't matter what you strove to achieve in the past, how your Shepard defined him/herself, and the beliefs that they cherished, because in the end you have to suck it up and just accept that all your faith in unity, and the innate goodness of diversity, is a foolish, impossible lie.

Some may like to embrace such a message, but until those five minutes, not everyone had to.


* Or as near as can be wrangled given the limitations of the programming)

Modifié par drayfish, 12 mars 2013 - 12:38 .

[Ieldra]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

GiarcYekrub wrote...
Heres a classic examples of 2 and 3's
2.Headcanon:The catalyst is a God
3.Reason to get angry:There are no Gods in Mass Effect

Nobody's said that. I have said that the presentation surrounds it with the trappings of divinity, in order to make people subconsciously react to that.....and trust it. In other words, it's another case of "feel, don't think."

Ieldra, in the past lots of other people on the forums have said they think the Catalyst literally is a god.  (I think they themselves got confused by the trappings.) 

There may also be a little confusion about the terms used here. I have described the Catalyst as an "AI god", but that's just shorthand for "hyper-advanced post-singularity AI with access to galaxy-shattering powers through sufficiently advanced technology." Nothing supernatural, and nothing of the moral authority we usually ascribe to gods was ever implied, just power, and I think some of the others meant it the same way. 

My main criticism of the ending is that BioWare expected too much of the audience, who in many cases are young people or actual children and therefore shouldn't be expected to have accumulated as much knowledge as adults.  They should have been more explicit about what was going on.  I understood the ending because I'd read separately about the singularity, not because anything in the Mass Effect story prepared me for it.

Absolutely. In their attempt to stay mysterious, they sowed only confusion. Think of the cut explanation of the Reaperization process in ME2. That made sense. The cut Codex entry about the singularity. If anything can still get me into a rage about the ending, it's this deliberate cut of science fictional rationalization in favor of explanations reminiscent of mysticism, vitalism etc..

Modifié par Ieldra2, 12 mars 2013 - 12:45 .

[CaptainZaysh]

AdmiralCheez wrote...

Not only that, but Shepard does it alone.  The squad winds up isolated on Planet WTF.  Each of the three (four) choices causes changes that are unfair to the people Shepard leaves behind.

I was ready to let go of Shepard, my LI, or even Earth.  I was ready to put it all on the line for the people and the galaxy I fell in love with.  That same galaxy doesn't exist post-ending anymore (and that cute little slideshow they threw in post-release doesn't do enough to change that).  I have no guarantee that I did the people I left behind a favor.  It was a pointless sacrifice, and a nonsensical, contrived one at that.

I thought that approach was actually a comment about death.  I thought the whole Planet WTF thing was awesome because it was showing me that these people had a new challenge to face, and they were going to have to do it without me.  (But I loved and believed in them so much I had little doubt they'd figure it out – I saw it as an uplifting message rather than the bleak and hopeless one that the Herd The Line crowd insisted it was.)

It was a break from the usual way character death (or finishing the game for the last time, which is a metaphorical death) is handled in an RPG, where the actual consequences of your life, down to minute details of people you had chance encounters with, are described to you through a PowerPoint presentation.  In many ways this approach comforts the audience similarly to the way belief in an afterlife comforts the religious.  We are led to believe that after our existence in this world ends, we'll be able to watch over our loved ones and see omnisciently how much they loved us and exactly the impact we had upon them.

What the ending portrayed to me was a different interpretation of death.  You leave the world behind - you don't get to see how all your relationships and schemes and grand plans play out.  You and I might never forge an alliance between nations or end a galactic war but we have accomplishments and designs of our own, and the bitterly unfair thing about dying is that we won't get to see how everything plays out once we leave the party.

So basically I think lots of people here got really angry at BioWare because one message of the ending is There is no Heaven.

Modifié par CaptainZaysh, 12 mars 2013 - 12:54 .

[CaptainZaysh]

drayfish wrote...

Some may like to embrace such a message, but until those five minutes, not everyone had to.

Yeah.  I'm conscious that I got lucky in that my ideology was presented in that scene (for, I think, only the second time in the trilogy*) as the "correct" one, and I can see how being told by the writers that you are on the "wrong" side of the debate could feel infuriating.

I think maybe the writers felt that Synthesis was the path that represented your ideology that we can all get along.  How do you feel about that?

* but admittedly the most important one

Modifié par CaptainZaysh, 12 mars 2013 - 12:48 .

[Obadiah]

The problem with the endings is they are too open to interpretation, and somewhat goofy when you try to analyze or over-analyze them.

Ex: galactic dark age from the original. As far as I can tell that's still in there, the EC just focused on the positive rebuilding aspect. Think of it as the boost to the economy as all that construction jobs were created and contracts handed out, while forgetting all the people living in mass refugee camps, probably for years.

Ex: Death of all Synthetics in high EMS Destroy. Somewhat implied, then not even mentioned in the EC.

Ex: Synthesis. What just happened? Really, I like speculating and such, but I couldn't put that Decision Chamber scene where Shep picks Synthesis into prose as it is depicted in game and have it make sense. It is clearly missing some kind of brain dump of evidence or something that would cause Shep to consider it a real option.

Ieldra2 wrote...
...
I have described the Catalyst as an "AI god", but that's just shorthand for "hyper-advanced post-singularity AI with access to galaxy-shattering powers through sufficiently advanced technology." Nothing supernatural, and nothing of the moral authority we usually ascribe to gods was ever implied, just power, and think some of the others meant it the same way.
...

Yup, that was pretty much my interpretation. Uncaring, emotionless, demi-god. It's judgement is the kind of weird-ass decision making I would expect when dealing with a truely alien intelligence. And I totally get its perspective - Warden of Sanctuary/Preserve. Life in this cycle is, like, deer rioting because of the seasonal hunt. Shep was just an interesting deer one of the hunters, Harbinger, was interested in. Shep is Harby's Moby Dick.

Modifié par Obadiah, 12 mars 2013 - 01:04 .

[CaptainZaysh]

Obadiah wrote...

Uncaring, emotionless, demi-god. It's judgement is the kind of weird-ass decision making I would expect when dealing with a truely alien intelligence. 

This doesn't get said enough.  The Catalyst is a truly alien alien.

[drayfish]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

drayfish wrote...

Some may like to embrace such a message, but until those five minutes, not everyone had to.

Yeah.  I'm conscious that I got lucky in that my ideology was presented in that scene (for, I think, only the second time in the trilogy*) as the "correct" one, and I can see how being told by the writers that you are on the "wrong" side of the debate could feel infuriating.

I think maybe the writers felt that Synthesis was the path that represented your ideology that we can all get along.  How do you feel about that?

* but admittedly the most important one

I definitely appreciate your point; and I think you're right, Synthesis was meant for the tree-hugging hippies like me.

The only thing is, Bioware fundamentally, profoundly, mind-numbingly missed the whole point of offering such an evolutionary leap...

You can't just force it on everyone. 

You can't just arrogantly decide that you know better, that everyone else and all their silly little elemental beliefs in the sanctity of their own autonomy can just be overwritten (literally) because you say so.

There is a poetry, a beauty, to the idea of Synthesis.  Were it a choice, one that Shepard, as the advocate for such profound change, could offer freely to those who wanted to accept it; were it an offering that - simply by virtue of its truly being a better path forward for all life in the universe - would be willingly accepted by all sentient species willing to continue to grow forward in fellowship with one another; then yes, that would be a statement on that diversity and hope that someone like myself would like to see represented, somehow, in game.

But by turning it into a mutation that is inflicted upon all life without their consent; by delivering it as a necessary imposed eugenic step towards preventing war because only creatures with the same DNA can avoid mutual destruction; is not only patently idiotic, it contradicts and undermines the very purpose of such an offering in the first place.

It is proclaimed as an advancement, but administered like the castration of the Krogan Gennophage.  I do not see how the two can satisfactorily resolve.

Modifié par drayfish, 12 mars 2013 - 01:07 .

[RainbowDazed]

Maverick827 wrote...

That's what everyone was so upset over?  Because it was "sad"?  Really?

When the game came out, I saw the negative comments on Gamespot, Metacritic, the BSN, and the Off Topic forums of literally every other game forum that I frequent.  I was convinced the ending was a deus ex machina.  Some galactic, omniscient space god teleports to Earth at the last second and saves the day.  Or maybe a hyper-advanced species from another galaxy swoops in at the last second.  Surely it had to be something that insulting to evoke such an outburst that still exists to this day.

But no.  It was sad.  It wasn't a perfect, fairy tale ending.  That all there was to it.  Do these people watch nothing but cartoons?  Have they never encountered a sad ending before?  Have these people never read Shakespeare?  Victor Hugo?  How about The Great Gatsby, for a more contemporary example?

I understand wanting a happy ending (heh), and I wasn't personally one to complain when a tough decision in Dragon Age: Origins had an "easy out" (and then everyone complained about that; I guess BioWare can't win?).  I would welcome a fifth option not unlike the MEHEM mod to officially be included.  But to complain this much about what is a legitimate literary ending to a narrative, not a plot hole, not a deus ex machina...I just don't understand.  

I didn't think I could have less respect for the people who bash BioWare and EA (on their own forums, no less), but somehow I do now.

I'm just glad I can stop worrying about the endings being bad and know now how amazing they are.

I admit, I was a total crybaby about the ending. I was upset because I did not get it, not because it wasn't happy. I like sad stuff. I can humbly admit that I did not get the ending and I would have needed more handholding. I needed more elaboration on why the ending was as it was, more closure for the people I had come to know and less expectations. Based on the PR hype I went in expecting an ending unlike Lost and BS-Galactica with no A/B/C stuff included and I got an ending similiar to Lost/Galactica with A/B/C/(D) ending. Mind you, I love the endings for both Lost and Galactica. I guess that after the PR talk I was just expecting more of a traditional ending for this trilogy and was caught off-guard.

Now after a year and after all the DLC I get the ending and I think it's great. I actually like the original ending more than the EC, but I think the EC is fine aswell. It made a few compromises I did not like, though. They should've kept the galactic dark age with destroy for instance.

But at the time when I finished the game and the ending first hit me, it with me without any warnings. I pre-ordered the game and went into total news-silence for the while it took me to finish the game. When I had finished it I was confused. I did not understand what just happened. Questions I had: 

- What happened to those were running to the beam with me.
- Why is Andersson here. Where did Illusive Man come from
- Why does catalyst look like the child from earth?
- Why are Joker, EDI and Javik on an alien planet?
- Why did they escape?
- Why is the stargazer talking like space-travel hasn't been invented? 
- Why the hell am I encouraged to buy more DLC as a final goodbye after the credits? 
- What the hell just happened??!?!!?!??!!??!?!?!?!? 
- And much more.

After fnishing the game I went online and found out that I was not the only one confused. Most of the people posting online were upset for some reason or another. I think the Bioware-team handled the feedback they got very professionally and took the blow with grace. And now afterwards after getting the ending I do feel silly about my emotional reaction to the ending. I hope that this experience has helped me mature and next time around I will act differently.

[Ieldra]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

AdmiralCheez wrote...

Not only that, but Shepard does it alone.  The squad winds up isolated on Planet WTF.  Each of the three (four) choices causes changes that are unfair to the people Shepard leaves behind.

I was ready to let go of Shepard, my LI, or even Earth.  I was ready to put it all on the line for the people and the galaxy I fell in love with.  That same galaxy doesn't exist post-ending anymore (and that cute little slideshow they threw in post-release doesn't do enough to change that).  I have no guarantee that I did the people I left behind a favor.  It was a pointless sacrifice, and a nonsensical, contrived one at that.

I thought that approach was actually a comment about death.  I thought the whole Planet WTF thing was awesome because it was showing me that these people had a new challenge to face, and they were going to have to do it without me.  (But I loved and believed in them so much I had little doubt they'd figure it out – I saw it as an uplifting message rather than the bleak and hopeless one that the Herd The Line crowd insisted it was.)

I interpreted it as a message carrying a luddite back-to-nature Romanticism and trying to sell it to me as good. This was about the most insulting message imaginable to my personal ideology. The EC rectified that, and that's the main reason why I'm ok with the EC endings. drayfish's point about Synthesis still stands, though. I can make it work for me, and I like my hyper-advanced future, but the way it is enacted nullifies much of the positive content of the message that we must embrace (!) change in order to survive. Much better to make Shepard its avatar, and imply that those who don't want to change will be left behind - but it's still their choice. I think this was accidental, and Bioware refused to retcon it because they wanted the sacrifice theme, but I think this is not good storytelling - if that was the intended message.

BTW, you said the EC ending was compatible with your personal ideology. I'm curious. Would you mind telling which one and why?

It was a break from the usual way character death (or finishing the game for the last time, which is a metaphorical death) is handled in an RPG, where the actual consequences of your life, down to minute details of people you had chance encounters with, are described to you through a PowerPoint presentation.  In many ways this approach comforts the audience similarly to the way belief in an afterlife comforts the religious.  We are led to believe that after our existence in this world ends, we'll be able to watch over our loved ones and see omnisciently how much they loved us and exactly the impact we had upon them.

What the ending portrayed to me was a different interpretation of death.  You leave the world behind - you don't get to see how all your relationships and schemes and grand plans play out.  You and I might never forge an alliance between nations or end a galactic war but we have accomplishments and designs of our own, and the bitterly unfair thing about dying is that we won't get to see how everything plays out once we leave the party.

So basically I think lots of people here got really angry at BioWare because one message of the ending is There is no Heaven.

And yet, the Control ending enables a state of existence you might as well call a cybernetic afterlife, which was already pretty clear in the original ending if you cared to look closely. That runs somewhat counter to your interpretation.

BTW, may I say that it's refreshing to talk about ending interpretations rather than about why they're bad or good.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 12 mars 2013 - 01:23 .

[GiarcYekrub]

drayfish wrote...

CaptainZaysh wrote...

drayfish wrote...

Some may like to embrace such a message, but until those five minutes, not everyone had to.

Yeah.  I'm conscious that I got lucky in that my ideology was presented in that scene (for, I think, only the second time in the trilogy*) as the "correct" one, and I can see how being told by the writers that you are on the "wrong" side of the debate could feel infuriating.

I think maybe the writers felt that Synthesis was the path that represented your ideology that we can all get along.  How do you feel about that?

* but admittedly the most important one

I definitely appreciate your point; and I think you're right, Synthesis was meant for the tree-hugging hippies like me.

The only thing is, Bioware fundamentally, profoundly, mind-numbingly missed the whole point of offering such an evolutionary leap...

You can't just force it on everyone. 

You can't just arrogantly decide that you know better, that everyone else and all their silly little elemental beliefs in the sanctity of their own autonomy can just be overwritten (literally) because you say so.

There is a poetry, a beauty to the idea of Synthesis.  Were it a choice, that Shepard, as the advocate for such change, could offer freely to those who wanted to accept it; were it an offering that - simply by virtue of its truly being a better path forward for all life in the universe - would be willingly accepted by all sentient species willing to continue to grow forward in fellowship with one another; then yes, that would be a statement on that diversity and hope that someone like myself would like to see represented, somehow, in game.

But by turning it into a mutation that is inflicted upon all life without their consent; by delivering it as a necessary imposed eugenic step towards preventing war because only creatures with the same DNA can avoid mutual destruction; is not only patently idiotic, it contradicts and undermines the very purpose of such an offering in the first place.

It is proclaimed as an advancement, but administered like the castration of the Krogan Gennophage.  I do not see how the two can satisfactorily resolve.

Curing the genophage involved forcing a mutation upon the the entire population of Tuchanka, If the change is positive I don't have a problem doing it.

[MattFini]

Maverick827 wrote...

That's what everyone was so upset over?  Because it was "sad"?  Really?

Stopped here. 

[Obadiah]

Ieldra2 wrote...
...
BTW, may I say that it's refreshing to talk about ending interpretations rather than about why they're bad or good.

Indeed.

[christrek1982]

It doesn't stay true to the theme It doesn't fit star brat has no place in the game.

space magic well yeh what else is synthesis?

sacrifice well to be honest it's more FORCED sacrifice in a game about choice "we are all about player agency. now we demand that you kill your shapard mwhahaha".

the EC is better at the closure thing well in all ending but high EMS Destroy

choices don't matter is unfair as most the player choices are in there and are well done a few big ones are overlooked but its the forced nature of the ending that makes it all feel so pointless.

[Iucounou]

The problems I had (still have) with the endings:

1. StarCasper came out of nowhere. There was no hint of his existence, no foreshadowing (forget the DLC)
2. The Synthesis/Control endings made about as much sense as the Midichlorians in Star Wars
3. Absolutely none of the decisions you made during the previous 3 games mattered at the end.

Sadness and sacrifice I have no problem with. The more the better. However, as noted above, eleventh hour reveals, space magic and taking control away from the player I do have issues with. That just says sloppy writing to me.

[crimzontearz]

GiarcYekrub wrote...

drayfish wrote...

CaptainZaysh wrote...

drayfish wrote...

Some may like to embrace such a message, but until those five minutes, not everyone had to.

Yeah.  I'm conscious that I got lucky in that my ideology was presented in that scene (for, I think, only the second time in the trilogy*) as the "correct" one, and I can see how being told by the writers that you are on the "wrong" side of the debate could feel infuriating.

I think maybe the writers felt that Synthesis was the path that represented your ideology that we can all get along.  How do you feel about that?

* but admittedly the most important one

I definitely appreciate your point; and I think you're right, Synthesis was meant for the tree-hugging hippies like me.

The only thing is, Bioware fundamentally, profoundly, mind-numbingly missed the whole point of offering such an evolutionary leap...

You can't just force it on everyone. 

You can't just arrogantly decide that you know better, that everyone else and all their silly little elemental beliefs in the sanctity of their own autonomy can just be overwritten (literally) because you say so.

There is a poetry, a beauty to the idea of Synthesis.  Were it a choice, that Shepard, as the advocate for such change, could offer freely to those who wanted to accept it; were it an offering that - simply by virtue of its truly being a better path forward for all life in the universe - would be willingly accepted by all sentient species willing to continue to grow forward in fellowship with one another; then yes, that would be a statement on that diversity and hope that someone like myself would like to see represented, somehow, in game.

But by turning it into a mutation that is inflicted upon all life without their consent; by delivering it as a necessary imposed eugenic step towards preventing war because only creatures with the same DNA can avoid mutual destruction; is not only patently idiotic, it contradicts and undermines the very purpose of such an offering in the first place.

It is proclaimed as an advancement, but administered like the castration of the Krogan Gennophage.  I do not see how the two can satisfactorily resolve.

Curing the genophage involved forcing a mutation upon the the entire population of Tuchanka, If the change is positive I don't have a problem doing it.

not even remotely appropriate as an analogy

[ruggly]

GiarcYekrub wrote...
Curing the genophage involved forcing a mutation upon the the entire population of Tuchanka, If the change is positive I don't have a problem doing it.

But that's one race out of how many.  And the Krogan wanted the cure.  As for synthesis, sure it paints a very pretty picture, but it still doesn't change the fact that it was forced on every single being.  It could do some major damage to some societies, not that we'll ever know now, however.

If synthesis was something like the others have mentioned.  Shepard is the avatar, Shepard floats on down from the heavens above and offers it as a choice, then I would have a lot less problems with it.

As it stands for me, synthesis sends a pretty bad message, that we're going to forcibly get rid of these differences so that you get along.  It may not be the intended one, but that's what I got out of it.

Edit: I don't mean to turn this into another synthesis bashing topic.  As for the endings in general? Read what everyone else has said, I don't think I need to reiterate.

Modifié par ruggly, 12 mars 2013 - 01:53 .

[Burnham1]

GiarcYekrub wrote...
Curing the genophage involved forcing a mutation upon the the entire population of Tuchanka, If the change is positive I don't have a problem doing it.

It wasn't forcing anything. It was giving them what they wanted. In all three games we never met one single Krogan who was happy about the genophage. Instead we met Krogan who were sacrificing their lives in order to find ways to cure it, and one of our friends (Wrex) wanting desperatly for the genophage to be cured.

That leads the player to believe that a cure for the genophage is something the vast majority of Krogan are in favor of and they would happily accept a cure on a mass scale like the one given.

No where in the game did we have a scenario indicating that the majority of sentient races wanted an evolutionary mutation to turn them into a partly organic, partly synthetic life form, no matter how positive it is believed the effect will be.

You are comparing apples to oranges.

[Atherus]

@AdmiralCheez

I don´t even think you can call what Shepard did a sacrifice, because sacrifice would mean, he choose his death on his own free will, which he didn´t really, because there was no easy way for out for in which he could have lived.
In all outcomes Shepard dies (from a non meta-gaming perspective).
- If he chooses Destroy he dies because the citadel explodes.
- If he chooses Control he gets disintegrated and his memories are getting digitalized.
- If he chooses Synthesis he jumps in a Beam and gets disintegrated so his DNA can spread through the galaxy.
- In refusal (which wasn´t part of the original ending) Shepard knows that he will die, because the reapers just wipe out all races.

So for me it´s more like a forced death than a real sacrifice. The act itself has no deeper meaning because you have no other options.

Even the original ending of Fallout 3 had more of a sacrifice feeling, because you could choose, that another one could take your place.

Or in DA:O, you could choose to either sacrifice yourself, Alistair or cheat death by letting lose a maybe bigger threat to the world in the future. Depending on your take of the story and what you did, the sacrifice could have been the better option in some of your playthroughs.

[Obadiah]

Burnham1 wrote...

GiarcYekrub wrote...
Curing the genophage involved forcing a mutation upon the the entire population of Tuchanka, If the change is positive I don't have a problem doing it.

It wasn't forcing anything. It was giving them what they wanted. In all three games we never met one single Krogan who was happy about the genophage. Instead we met Krogan who were sacrificing their lives in order to find ways to cure it, and one of our friends (Wrex) wanting desperatly for the genophage to be cured.

That leads the player to believe that a cure for the genophage is something the vast majority of Krogan are in favor of and they would happily accept a cure on a mass scale like the one given.

No where in the game did we have a scenario indicating that the majority of sentient races wanted an evolutionary mutation to turn them into a partly organic, partly synthetic life form, no matter how positive it is believed the effect will be.

You are comparing apples to oranges.

To me, this is the big difference between Synthesis and curing the Genophage.

For my Shep to select Synthesis and force the change on all life, he'd have to believe in the annihalation scenario that the Catalyst described, believe that there is no other recourse, and that it would fundamentally benefit all life. The conversation with the Catalyst is just so light on detail, I find it hard to pick.

I think I get what the devs were going for, a tech-magic spell that empowers everyone and brings us all closer together (even our enemies) so we don't fight or work against each other as much. Something that would naturally happen anyway if only we stopped getting in each other's way. It's just that in a sci-fi setting, that kind of imposition is difficult to execute plausibly.

[ZombifiedJake]

The futility of it all was what sucked. I wasn't expecting all of my decisions to matter, or even a fraction of them, but building up useless war assets and then realising the writers (should probably say the two guys who wrote it alone) had no idea what they were doing just infuriated me.

[ShaggyWolf]

I'm going to be mentioning CD Projekt for a moment, but before you judge me as some blind witcher fanboy, bear with me. Those guys did an interview recently where they discussed their plans for the endings of Witcher 3. Basically, they said the different endings will be representative of your views on the world, and will be influenced by your choices. If the game ends a certain way, it's because you made choices that made it so.

Whether that's true or not remains to be seen, but that's the philosophy I would've expected from the endings to ME3. They told us from day 1 that Mass Effect was going to be about your choices and your story. ME3 was nothing to me except a massive cop out. Almost everything that happened in the story, and Shepard's ridiculous ammount of character-breaking autodialogue served to contradict those basic points of the series.

In Mass Effect 1, you're presented with the scene that is galactic politics. They never tell you that the council or the Alliance is good, they never tell you the they're bad. The game challenges you to form your own opinion about the state of galactic politics, and you're offered a variety of dialogue choices in many conversations throughout the game to express that opinion. Is galactic cooperation good? Would you prefer humanity walks its own path? Or do you favor some sort of compromise? Change, but a positive one for all parties? The final choice of ME1, whether or not to save the council, allows the player to express their view which the whole game served to influence.

Mass Effect 2 was very much the same. In ME2, they presented Cerberus, and got into a lot of detail about what this faction does. The game never tells you they're bad guys, and they never tell you they're good guys either. Same with the Illusive Man. The player is left to form their own opinion, and again, there's many conversations throughout the game where you can make pro or anti Cerberus dialogue options. The final choice of ME2, whether or not to save the Collector base, allows the player to express not only their morality, but their view of Cerberus and galactic politics. Destroying the base might seem to some to be the morally correct thing to do, and it denies Humanity an arguably unfair advantage, favoring compromise and cooperation. Keeping the base is the practical thing to do, but it gives Cerberus an exceptionally powerful resource and of course, they *will* use it to its maximum potential. Which do you feel better about?

In Mass Effect 3, *everything* I just established is rendered invalid. For the first time in the series, the game tells you that the Council and the Alliance are the good guys, Cerberus are the bad guys, and you have no choice in the matter. Furthermore, Shepard gets forced into a role where it's in his or her best interest to make everyone cooperate and get along, elevating and strengthening many alien species in the process. Obviously the Reapers are a serious threat, and no one can defeat them alone, but the narrative obliterates most of the more renegade viewpoints that one can establish in the previous 2 games, especially when it concludes with an ending which twists the Reapers into something they obviously weren't, forces the player into 3 endings where everyone ends up on equal footing (supporting a very pro-cooperation viewpoint), and finally forces Shepard into a messianic sacrifice, despite the player's ability to play Shepard as the kind of anti-hero that would NEVER DO THAT in the previous 2 games.

From my point of view, I had lost the pro-human battle I had been waging in the last 2 games. I was forced to destroy Cerberus and be happy about it, and I was forced to sacrfice myself in order to save everyone else. Furthermore, I was forced to submit to this ridiculous Synthetics vs Organics story which was not involved in the series' narrative until the last 10 minutes of story telling.

That's why I hate the ending. It's the cherry on top of the cake that is Mass Effect 3, which contradicted the whole point of the series and completely broke my story, imo.

Modifié par Valadras21, 12 mars 2013 - 02:55 .

[Commander Wookie]

Just recently finished my first series play through with EC loaded (never experienced the vanilla ending yet) and I would have to say it being a sad ending was not the problem I had with the game's ending.

I actually enjoy sad depressing endings. It brings a sense of real emotions for what really goes on in the world.

ME3's ending fell flat to me for many of the other reasons found on this forum, definitely not because it was a sad depressing ending and didn't have a happy ending.

[Legbiter]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Congrats on playing with the EC, bro.

Yep.

I'm fine with the ending after the EC.

[Giantdeathrobot]

Oh boy, here we go again...

Look, OP, this discussion has been had a thousand times. It's not because it's sad. It's because it's badly written, arbitrary, morally abhorent (for Synthesis), goes against the serie's main themes, comes completely out of left field, and generally makes very little sense even with the Extended Cut (it was even worse before).