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[TMA LIVE]

Drew Karpyshyn is interviewed in this podcast at 21 minutes. And at 42, he goes into details on the Dark Energy Ending that was never used.

 

https://soundcloud.c...3-round-up-and/

 

Based on the interview, it sounds like it was dropped before ME2 came out, and was never the original ending but more of "a" possible ending they had ideas for, and simply dropped. He even mentioned how "Control" was actually a possibly reason for how Shepard is brought back in ME2.

 

"Some of the ideas were a little bit wacky and a little bit crazy. At one point we thought that maybe Shepard could be an alien but didn't know it. But we then thought that might be a little too close to [Knights of the Old Republic character] Revan."

 

"There was some ideas that maybe Shepard gets his essence transferred into some kind of machine, becoming a cyborg and becoming a bridge between synthetics and organics - which is a theme that does play up in the game," Karpyshyn concluded. "At one point we thought, maybe that's how he survives into Mass Effect 2."

 

"Dark Energy was something that only organics could access because of various techno-science magic reasons we hadn't decided on yet," Karpyshyn said. "Maybe using this Dark Energy was having a ripple effect on the space-time continuum.

"Maybe the Reapers kept wiping out organic life because organics keep evolving to the state where they would use biotics and dark energy and that caused an entropic effect that would hasten the end of the universe. Being immortal beings, that's something they wouldn't want to see.

"Then we thought, let's take it to the next level. Maybe the Reapers are looking at a way to stop this. Maybe there's an inevitable descent into the opposite of the Big Bang (the Big Crunch) and the Reapers realise that the only way they can stop it is by using biotics, but since they can't use biotics they have to keep rebuilding society - as they try and find the perfect group to use biotics for this purpose. The Asari were close but they weren't quite right, the Protheans were close as well.

"Again it's very vague and not fleshed out, it was something we considered but we ended up going in a different direction."

 

"I find it funny that fans end up hearing a couple things they like about it and in their minds they add in all the details they specifically want," he explained. "It's like vapourware - vapourware is always perfect, anytime someone talks about the new greatest game. It's perfect until it comes out. I'm a little weary about going into too much detail because, whatever we came up with, it probably wouldn't be what people want it to be."

[Alamar2078]

In general I would prefer a well constructed story to one that was pulled from someone's nether regions but some of the ideas listed above look just plain crappy.  As funny as it sounds the ending we got sounds better to me than the whole "human biotics to save the universe" sort of thing.

 

IMHO the biggest problem to be addressed is the arrogance of devs thinking that a trilogy can be developed seat-of-your-pants style.  Until that's taken care of, or at least handled better, I doubt we'll get anything more than "good games that don't necessarily produce a satisfying whole".

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

The problem was that the lesson hadn't been learned yet: we wanted to kick the reapers in the daddy bags.

 

In Dragon Age Inquisition, Bioware redeemed themselves for the Mass Effect 3 ending.

[Alamar2078]

Honestly I want to see how BW handles themselves with the next AAA "RPG trilogy".  If they stop flying by the seat of their pants I'd be willing to bet we'd get a LOT better, at least more coherent, series as a whole.

 

Note:  I haven't played DA:I but from what I hear they made a step in the right direction with that game so there may be hope.

[CrutchCricket]

The problem was that the lesson hadn't been learned yet: we wanted to kick the reapers in the daddy bags.

 

In Dragon Age Inquisition, Bioware redeemed themselves for the Mass Effect 3 ending.

 

Unless every copy of the game came with a promised firstborn and a free hooker, I kinda doubt that.

 

Otherwise I would amend that to: we wanted to do what we've always done- use a combination of guns and balls to succeed where many others would fail and have our previous guns/balls results properly accounted for. It didn't have to be perfect. It could even use some asspulls. But ultimately let's finish as we began- big damn heroes.

 

And yeah dark energy was never much more than brainstorming. But people latched on to it because literally anything is better than what we got, and I think because it would've been at least something different or not usually seen. Robot uprisings are a dime a dozen in fiction these days.

[cap and gown]

You would think an author would know how his story ends before he begins writing.

[CrutchCricket]

You would think an author would know how his story ends before he begins writing.

 

Not always. Mass Effect was notorious for having almost zero planning (hence why they wrote themselves into a corner on so many things). But some writers prefer to just go, and see where the story takes them.

 

That approach is obviously not appropriate in this kind of setting where you provide and have to account for player choices. It's also a poor choice when trying to build a world that future stories can be set in. But for a single contained story it can work

[cap and gown]

Not always. Mass Effect was notorious for having almost zero planning (hence why they wrote themselves into a corner on so many things). But some writers prefer to just go, and see where the story takes them.

 

That approach is obviously not appropriate in this kind of setting where you provide and have to account for player choices. It's also a poor choice when trying to build a world that future stories can be set in. But for a single contained story it can work

 

The author should at least have an idea about his characters' motivations. How can a story go anywhere if the author doesn't even know what the protagonists want? Going for a "feeling" (Chthulu) rather a motivation was the original sin. Power. Money. Respect. Something. Anything. Instead we get "we are beyond your (meaning DK's) comprehension."

[CrutchCricket]

The author should at least have an idea about his characters' motivations. How can a story go anywhere if the author doesn't even know what the protagonists want? Going for a "feeling" (Chthulu) rather a motivation was the original sin. Power. Money. Respect. Something. Anything. Instead we get "we are beyond your (meaning DK's) comprehension."

 

The writing process is dynamic. Even if you do plan everything you can surprise yourself by just veering off in a different direction and finding you like it better than what you initially planned. Some people then just don't bother with the planning. Like I said, it works sometimes but probably not in a variable work of such complexity.

 

And I disagree. The "feeling" of the Reapers was perfectly valid until the organic/synthetic nonsense. They're practically eternal aggregate consciousnesses with processing power we can't calculate on a scale we have trouble picturing. Giving them human perspectives and motivations would be the bigger crime.

 

They wrote themselves into a corner because they made the power difference between us and them too great and they piddled around for the middle entry of the series which is when the path to victory (whatever that turned out to be) should've been discovered.

[Alamar2078]

It's funny that in isolation ME2 is a lot of people's favorite game of the series but from an overall story perspective it seems to have also been the biggest letdown.  YMMV.

[Rasande]

In general I would prefer a well constructed story to one that was pulled from someone's nether regions but some of the ideas listed above look just plain crappy.  As funny as it sounds the ending we got sounds better to me than the whole "human biotics to save the universe" sort of thing.

 

IMHO the biggest problem to be addressed is the arrogance of devs thinking that a trilogy can be developed seat-of-your-pants style.  Until that's taken care of, or at least handled better, I doubt we'll get anything more than "good games that don't necessarily produce a satisfying whole".

 

As much as i dislike the whole "yay go team human" cliché, i still find it more interesting, mostly beacuse i think the "yo dawg, organics are gonna create synthetics to derstroy organics so we'll create some synthetics to destroy organics before they create synthetics that'll destroy organics" thing is so dumb,

 

Though i really agree with your second paragraph except that i don't think it was arrogance. They were most likely pressed for time and couldn't decide on anything specific.

Who knows if how much better it would've been, but if they did it the story across the trilogy would've atleast been abit more cohesive.

[Alamar2078]

I agree with you that in ME3 they were rushed.  In addition [as was pointed out to me by others] that games simply aren't produced with the resources in mind that I think would be needed to construct a satisfying whole.

 

Even with ME2 not holding up its end of the bargain I think if given more time, consideration, and had an environment that lent itself to "getting it right" that ME3 would have turned out better and that the ending would have been better supported by events in game.

 

While I don't necessarily like the "human biotics for the win" thing I wonder how much the apparent change in direction hurt the overall story.

[Valmar]

 i still find it more interesting, mostly beacuse i think the "yo dawg, organics are gonna create synthetics to derstroy organics so we'll create some synthetics to destroy organics before they create synthetics that'll destroy organics" thing is so dumb,

 

Agreed. It's a good thing that isn't true and just hyperbole propaganda and in no way representative of the real motives. It's a nice example of how the ending could had been worst, amazingly enough.

[SwobyJ]

They're right - we really can't comprehend.

[InterrogationBear]

The writer's approach (making one game at time) is actually quite common in modern media. All serialized TV-shows have a rough outline that usually get tossed out after a few episodes. Sometimes it's shocking how little planning there actually is.

 

Shows like Battlestar Galactica and Breaking Bad had no planned finale. The writers went into every season without knowing how it would end.

The writers of the TNG-episode "The Best of Both Worlds" wrote the first part and went on a 3 month summer break not knowing what part 2 would be. Same with DS9. The identity of the founders wasn't revealed during the finale of season 2 "The Jem'Hadar" because nobody thought about making Odo's people the leaders of Dominion until the had to write the premier of season 3 several month later.

 

I wonder if it's actually possible to plan far ahead when you write a book/TV/game series. You never know which character or storylines will be popular.

[Vazgen]

That's quite old news really. Here is Eurogamer article from June 2013: Link

Also, statement on Drew Karpysyn's official website: Link

 

Writing a RPG story is quite a complex process with its unique problems. For example, the writer does not know the personality of the main protagonist. It's something that is unique for every player. And that creates problems when writing antagonists as well. There is also the problem of the game's commercial success. If ME1 failed we would not have seen ME2 and ME3, despite having them planned IMO.

[JamesFaith]

You would think an author would know how his story ends before he begins writing.

 

There are basically three types of authors.

 

1) Authors who are able to spend two weeks by writing detailed outline and stick with it whole time.

2) Authors who have vague outline, using it just as hints and alter big part of it during writing.

3) Authors who have minimal outline, mostly just one or two fleshed character or basic setting and then they write directly from head to paper.

 

All three methods have their pro and cons, all three methods can work great, all three methods can fail epic. There is no universal and superior approach, even when some lecturers claim opposite and support only one of them, mostly number 1.

[Rasande]

Agreed. It's a good thing that isn't true and just hyperbole propaganda and in no way representative of the real motives. It's a nice example of how the ending could had been worst, amazingly enough.

Propaganda? What? It's a joke, lighten up

[Valmar]

Propaganda? What? It's a joke, lighten up

 

In this case perhaps. You'd likely be surprised at how many people actually believe it and don't realize its just a joke, though.

[Iakus]

This is why I say it's unfair to compare the Dark Energy ending to what we got.

 

I mean, yeah ME3's explanation for the Reapers is so bad just about anything else would likely have been an improvement.  But Dark Energy doesn't sound like it got past an initial brainstorming stage.  There's still a lot of gaps in it.It may have been better, worse, or equally bad as what we got.

 

Basically comparing the two would be like comparing a bad, but complete novel with the incomplete outline of a different story.

[TMA LIVE]

If there's one thing I regret them dumping the concept, is that they did nothing with the Dark Energy setup. I'm ok if they ended up not using it as the ending to ME3,  but if you're gotta setup something, at least do something with it. And problem is, they didn't.

 

Because what Drew was talking about make's sense for why the Reapers were interested in learning about human biotics at grissom academy in the 3rd novel. Why they made a Human Reaper in the first place (and why Harb says "We'll fine another way"), why they consider themselves our salvation (for reals). Maybe the not "You can't comprehend this" part, but hey, maybe Sov was just being a condescending dick.

 

But like I said, I don't mind it being gone. I just wish something was done with the setup.

[Iakus]

Lack of setup was a major flaw for the entire trilogy, yes.

[Linkenski]

You would think an author would know how his story ends before he begins writing.

Even acclaimed writers such as J.K. Rowling had their fair share of contrivances. I hardly think the twist with Prof. Snape was planned out when she wrote her first Harry Potter novel.

 

The catastrophe of Mass Effect was the switchup in writers and core staff* between Mass Effect 2 and 3.

 

Sure Mass Effect 2 didn't do as well as it should've even though it had most of the ME1 staff on board, but ME3 changed up writers for so many characters and Mac Walters' Lead Writer takeover job resulted in a ******-poor introduction and along with Casey's clueless tampering the biggest trainwreck of an ending I have ever seen to a story which wasn't completely bad beforehand.

 

I agree with Iakus. it's unfair to compare the current ending with Drew Karpyshyn's idea -- in fact, it's unfair to compare the current ME3 we have to the ME3 we would've gotten if Drew Karpyshyn as well as Chris L'Etoile and Lukas Kristjanson had still been on board.

 

*I reckon the loss of Armando Troisi (who wanted to work with 343i on Halo 4 instead) was a big factor in why there were so many cutscene glitches, derp eyes and lack of dialogue options. In his presentation during ME2's development he hammered down the fact that player agency was important and his expertise was in cinematography during cutscenes and such.

 

**Furthermore the lack of Jack Wall also contributed to the alienating feel of Mass Effect 3.