Mark Darrah clarified the endings:
To put it another way, it's much the same way if you consider all the possible endings in DA:O
Unique Endings: Very small number, 1) You Die, 2) the Other guy Dies, 3) Sex with Morrigan
Major Variations on these endings: A lot based on your major choices during the game. Balehn or Harrowmount? Mages or Templars? Elves or Werewolves? Etc.
Minor variations: A great many, most of which don't matter much. ex. NPC #139 dies/lived and no one cared.
I'd like it if you could get an incredibly happy sunshine and lollipops ending, but doing so was devilishly hard. Other endings would range from 'you have doomed the world and are now a thrall of the evil you've fought' to 'you sacrificed yourself and saved the world, but things are still crappy' to 'you saved the world and things are okay, but you lost some of your friends along the way.'
I would even like a secret 'ultimate' ending that could only be gotten by Correct Import from Keep + Perfect Play through, or Previously finished DA:I + Perfect Play through.
All of this would be fantastic. Especially the last idea. That's like a super-ultra-secret easter egg, especially the DAI new game + variant. That would truly incentivize repeat runs, even more than the game already does.
I care MUCH more about the characters (including my PC) than the world. In real life of course you would prioritize the safety of the earth over the safety of one person or a small group but in games it's that small group we come to intimately know and care for. Being forced into a sacrifice like in ME3 is not satisfying to me on any level. What have I gained from it? It doesn't make me happy, it doesn't make sense, it doesn't inspire me, it frustrated me, and has made it so that I can't play ME1 or 2 again even though I loved them. What's the point?
I like both happy and tragic endings but they have to be well done, fit, and make sense. It would have been retarded if in the end of let's say The Walking Dead season 1 (game) Lee finds Clementine not in a hotel kidnapped by some guy, but in a candy factory free from zombies and they discover that the cure for zombie-ism is watermelon candy so they cure everyone and everyone lives happily ever after. That would be utterly retarded. It would make no sense and not match the tone of the rest of the game/series/comic. The ME3 ending was retarded, extreme, and unfitting in the other direction. You take a series who's tone is similar to that of Star Wars or Firefly and who's theme is coming together and setting aside differences to overcome adversity and give it a random, hopeless, nonsensical, and poorly thought out ending ripped off from Gurren Lagan and Deus Ex: Human Revolution and of course a lot of people aren't going to like it.
I want a range of endings (even if it's only 2 or 3) from happy where everyone or most people live to tragic. I feel like forcing a tragic/sacrifice ending in a game that's about choice, roleplaying, and making YOUR character is not a good idea. Sacrifice means nothing if it's not a choice. Having the choice to get yourself out alive makes the choice to sacrifice yourself actually mean something.
I agree that the ability to have a happy ending is absolutely the top priority, but I too really like the idea of having to earn it. It feels a great deal better to win when you know there was a way to fail, and you overcame that. I think ME2 remains the model for what I like, everyone can be saved, or tons of people can die, and it's all a result of your choices. That's what I want in DAI, I want my choices to result in saving whoever I want saved, so long as I make the right ones. I want it to be tough, but very possible, to have an extremely happy ending.
Yeah, I liked ME2's approach where, if you took the time to upgrade the Normandy to maximum and did all the loyalty missions, the game paid you back in a tangible way. You got to see Joker pull off all those nutso maneuvers to get to the Collector Base and the Normandy holds together, which ties gameplay into the reward of upgrading the Normandy beyond just completing the 'quest' to do it.
And then, in the suicide mission (and then later in ME3, to boot), if your squad was all loyalty'd up, odds were they'd stay alive. So you had those moments of near-escapes and you knew that if you hadn't done those loyalty missions, your friends would have been torn apart. Perfect blend of visceral gameplay satisfaction and long-term delayed gratification via an overarching questline.
Hey if your into the Hero dying style endings that's fine but I am not and would like there to be one where you die for the people who want that and one where you live for the people like me who prefer there Hero lives. , You could say i'm a crappy/selfish hero , I want to live , get the girl and live to tell the tale , and retire where ever and bask in the glory , sacrificing myself isn't in the game plan.
Yeah, I liked ME2's approach where, if you took the time to upgrade the Normandy to maximum and did all the loyalty missions, the game paid you back in a tangible way. You got to see Joker pull off all those nutso maneuvers to get to the Collector Base and the Normandy holds together, which ties gameplay into the reward of upgrading the Normandy beyond just completing the 'quest' to do it.
And then, in the suicide mission (and then later in ME3, to boot), if your squad was all loyalty'd up, odds were they'd stay alive. So you had those moments of near-escapes and you knew that if you hadn't done those loyalty missions, your friends would have been torn apart. Perfect blend of visceral gameplay satisfaction and long-term delayed gratification via an overarching questline.
Yeah, but it required SO LITTLE EFFORT. And it was all common sense - there was nothing morally challenging, or hard to achieve (save perhaps full Paragon or Renegade to prevent Miranda/Jack throwing a bitchfit).
Yeah, but it required SO LITTLE EFFORT. And it was all common sense - there was nothing morally challenging, or hard to achieve (save perhaps full Paragon or Renegade to prevent Miranda/Jack throwing a bitchfit).
Oh, yeah. I wasn't arguing the merits of the difficulty, more just the concept itself. It was pretty easy, absolutely. A lot of the satisfaction for me came from seeing everyone make it, not so much that getting to that point had been as difficult as, say, some of the fights in DAO were.
Just give me a well written and engaging ending, be it happy or bittersweet doesn't matter as long as the choices I've made throughout the series will amount to something that will leave me satisfied and highly entertained.
I care MUCH more about the characters (including my PC) than the world. In real life of course you would prioritize the safety of the earth over the safety of one person or a small group....
Pfft, the world can suck it as far as I'm concerned.
Pfft, the world can suck it as far as I'm concerned.
Leliana must live, screw errybody else! 
Leliana must live, screw errybody else!
If they would just announce the last to LI I would! (ZING!) 
If they would just announce the last to LI I would! (ZING!)
Romance bang all the things! Well the end of the world is nigh, can't judge you for this.
But theres enough troubles in the world theres enough horrible endings games are there to provide a fantasy to escape that and be who you want to be. I personally like happy endings.I never care as much about the hero as I do the world. In the end you're saving everyone except your hero.
Plus "Hero sacrifices himself to save the world cliche. " is hardly overdone imo, most games you somehow magically defeat some incredibly powerful foes and manage to survive. The hero actually dying gives a lot more taste to the story, it's why I loved my Mass Effect ending.
Guest_Morrigan_*
Honestly, I don't really care if the Inquisitor dies ... I'm more concerned about Morrigan. 
My spidey senses tell me that she will be treated like a sacrifical goat in Inquisition. Just hope I'm wrong about that.
I agree with the OP that dark endings are getting a bit cliche at this point.
Honestly, I don't really care if the Inquisitor dies ... I'm more concerned about Morrigan.
Now that's what I call dedication.
Honestly, I don't really care if the Inquisitor dies ... I'm more concerned about Morrigan.
*Raises hand and agrees with this* but replace Morrigan with Leliana for me.
I got over Shep dying in ME, I can do it again if I have to with the Inquisitor and hell the Inquisitor's possible death wouldn't sting as bad for me, Shep was with us for 3 games! I'd be more bummed out if my old favs got the chop in DAI which seems likely as not everybody will make it out alive in this game.
Honestly, I don't really care if the Inquisitor dies ... I'm more concerned about Morrigan.
My spidey senses tell me that she will be treated like a sacrifical goat in Inquisition. Just hope I'm wrong about that.
If she buys the farm, I will rage with the heat of a thousand supernovae.
Morrigan is not going to die in DA I.
Her death is just as unlikely as me passing up the opportunity to use "supernovae" in a sentence.
In other words, I concur most strenuously.
saving the world would be a happy enough ending for me
Guest_Morrigan_*
I'm content with three or four unique endings that really show the consequences of the decisions which you made throughout the course of the game.
I think Dishonored did a pretty good job offering up both a super bleak and very positive epilogue:
SWEET. I never heard this! Thank you so much!
But in mass effect 3 shepard died and you may play after earth battle^^
Yeah, I'm with you. I'm slightly over the bad/sad endings that seem to plague most of the video games I play lately. I'd love a chance for a happy ending, especially in a game that revolves around choices and consequences. I'm all for having a bad ending as a possible outcome, in fact that'd be fantastic, but I'd also love an ending that has a little bit less doom and gloom.
Bittersweet can be pretty compelling too, but that has to be done well and feel justified. Take ME3 for example, the way it was done didn't feel justified and just felt like a bit of a cop out. I've also never understood people complaining that had it been happier it would have been unrealistic, people were dying and sacrificing themselves left and right throughout the rest of the game, so its not like its been a walk in the park, let us have something at the end lol...that would be more bittersweet, instead of just plain bitter.
Anyway, yeah a variety of endings is best imo (like DA:O) and a possible happier ending, even if it's hard to get.
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