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[rossler]

Read this and this

 

They intended the ending to be ambiguous where people could talk about it. The ending is not cut and dry they stated. They didn't mean for it to end like Return of the King which gives you closure on absolutely everything.

 

What do people want? A cut and dry ending by the looks of it.

 

Even Drew K's ending of Mass Effect isn't as open and shut as you might think. He said there was a lot of loose ends and stuff to talk about, much like this ending. He even approves of the current ME3 ending. Says it's similar to his original intended ending, but slightly tweaked. So yeah, working as intended.

 

What we do know is that Shepard survives and he destroyed the Reapers and thus the central conflict was resolved. The fate of everything else (before the Extended Cut) was left open. Even after the Extended Cut, there's still more open stuff.

 

It's like I said earlier.

[Iakus]

No it isn't.It's so wrong to think that just because the masses claim something it is automatically correct!There is a classic Ibsen play called "Public Enemy" that deals with the exact same problem.I suggest you give it a read.

So everyone who says the endings are bad are wrong?  Everyone who questions how it fits with the rest of the trilogy should just shut up?  Everyone who thinks the logic is nonsensical just don't get it?  "Your opinion is wrong, my opinion is right"?

[Iakus]

If there was as many people as you claim having these problems Iakus you'd have a new ending that made sense by now. Which you don't. So....Maybe it's an isolated incident that they can't reproduce. Hmm? Hmm?

Were you even around when the Shepard Incident came about?  The whole thing should be held up as a cautionary tale regarding fan feedback and customer service.  Plus properly peer-reviewing material. 

 

I can only hope this was an incident they can't or won't reproduce.   

[Iakus]

 

In any case, I think the breath scene was a really bad idea simply because this was (and was always stated to be) the end of Shepard's story. I could have totally accepted the scene at the end of ME2 or if they said that they might do another Shepard game after ME3 or even if they said that they were going to maybe, just maybe do something with the character in the future. Some inkling that this was going to go somewhere. But no, this was always and with 100% certainty intended to be the ultimate end of Shepard.

 

And the thing is, the Bhaalspawn, the Spirit Monk, and nay number of other characters have had "ultimate ends" to their story without forcing a Space Viking Funeral.

 

And that's aside from the other consequences to the Polychromatic Doom which to me are the greater problem anyway.

[oddball_bg]

So everyone who says the endings are bad are wrong?  Everyone who questions how it fits with the rest of the trilogy should just shut up?  Everyone who thinks the logic is nonsensical just don't get it?  "Your opinion is wrong, my opinion is right"?

No,of course!I am talking in general.When we are talking about opinions there is no right or wrong.I am saying that this thing with the masses cannot be an argument,especially when we talk about opinions.

[MrFob]

Read this and this
 
They intended the ending to be ambiguous where people could talk about it. The ending is not cut and dry they stated. They didn't mean for it to end like Return of the King which gives you closure on absolutely everything.
 
What do people want? A cut and dry ending by the looks of it.
 
Even Drew K's ending of Mass Effect isn't as open and shut as you might think. He said there was a lot of loose ends and stuff to talk about, much like this ending.
 
What we do know is that Shepard survives and he destroyed the Reapers and thus the central conflict was resolved. The fate of everything else (before the Extended Cut) was left open. Even after the Extended Cut, there's still more open stuff.
 
It's like I said earlier.

 
Oh, I don't mind letting people use their imagination. For example, I love the end of, say, Inception.
 
But there are ways to do it and ME3 was not a good way, mainly for two reasons (that were actually already discussed here but let's state them again):
1. It's a death or alive situation. This should be resolved. Doing endings where the state of a character is unclear (such as Inception or to use an even more extravagant examples like 2001, Space Odyssey) is perfectly fine and you are right, it's great when people can discuss it. However here, we have a classic cliff hanger, where the discussion has to boil down to "I believe the character is dead" vs. "I believe the character is alive". This is neither interesting nor stimulating but it just provokes an unresolvable and diametrical conflict among those who try to interpret the scene (here, the fans on these boards).  In fact, you might as well have shown Shepard hanging from a cliff, fingers slipping, it would have had the exact same result for the discussion here on the boards.
 
2. Not only the outcome of the scene is unresolved, even the scene itself is dubious and doesn't really fit within the plot at this point very well (or at least it's origins are dubious). Look at what even defenders of the breath scene have to say:
 

You don't know for sure where Shepard might be, you don't know if there was nobody near Shepard. The only thing we know is that Shepard wakes up, and that says he/she lives.

 

So we don't know how Shepard could possibly not be disintegrated by that huge explosion 3 scenes earlier, we don't know where s/he is or how s/he got there, we don't even know when it takes place (with all the jumps in time earlier during the ending), we don't know how the entire scene fits into the framework of the game or the ending.

 

Now, I am all for imagining things for myself in the future, after the end of the story as it is told but a good story teller will provide an ending with enough coherence and connection to the previous events so that the audience has a tangible idea of how things may fit together and to extrapolate from there. As it is, since we don't know the context of the scene whatsoever, speculation as to it's continuation is extremely arbitrary. Again, you could as well have shown Shepard somehow hanging from a cliff somewhere, it would have made just as much sense.

 

 

So, honestly, given that this is the very final moment, we will ever see of Shepard and given that the writers had the complete freedom to do anything they wanted as a final scene, do you really think it was a great place to leave the character in forever?

[Iakus]

No,of course!I am talking in general.When we are talking about opinions there is no right or wrong.I am saying that this thing with the masses cannot be an argument,especially when we talk about opinions.

 

Actually, it can be.  because if enough people say "this is poor quality" then it's a good idea to actually take a look at what they're talking about (rather than just assuming they're dumb and need to be told what's what in smaller words).  Because a p*ssed off audience is not going to be disposed towards buying more of your product.

 

You see the grumbling about DAI that's going on?  The stuff about boring side quests, gripes about the villain, the DLC, and such?  That's nothing compared to the backlash ME3 received.  People were (and in many cases still are) incredibly resentful towards Bioware both for the ending and their attitude towards those who didn't like it.

[rossler]

Some characters are left to die on some planet a million miles from home. That's their fate as the writers intended. Shepard was meant to live and take a breath in the rubble, but that's it. They don't show him reuniting with crew, or anything like that. Why? Because it's the end of his story.

 

It's not a cliffhanger by any means, because if it was, there would be more stories with Shepard, but there isn't.

 

I know where the breath scene takes place. He's beside some rubble in London. You can hear the wind blowing in the background. Suggesting everything between the time you got knocked out by Harbinger and the time you wake up again was all in Shepard's head.

 

I'm sure if you ask them they might sell you a DLC that explains all this, but it's not really necessary.

 

The real problem is that the fans' completely reject the way the writers had intended the game to end and unless it ends exactly to their own specifications, they're not happy. They were warned before installing the game though.

[oddball_bg]

Actually, it can be.  because if enough people say "this is poor quality" then it's a good idea to actually take a look at what they're talking about (rather than just assuming they're dumb and need to be told what's what in smaller words).  Because a p*ssed off audience is not going to be disposed towards buying more of your product.

 

You see the grumbling about DAI that's going on?  The stuff about boring side quests, gripes about the villain, the DLC, and such?  That's nothing compared to the backlash ME3 received.  People were (and in many cases still are) incredibly resentful towards Bioware both for the ending and their attitude towards those who didn't like it.

I am sorry but you are absolutely wrong!It cannot be!If it was as you say we would still think Earth is flat!

 

You see,most of the time mass opinion forms itself very prosaically,and even randomly to an extend.And,believe me,it always starts by a single person or a small group.In the case of ME3 I think most of the people just went with the flow of a group of hardcore pissed fans or something,and the whole thing escalated.People like to exaggerate and be part of groups,and many times groups are formed just for the sake of forming a group.In many cases when something is popular it means it's simple,easy to comprehend,and something that doesn't require critical thinking.I'll give you an example,recently where I live there were many protests and people were gathering to protest for different things.When a reporter approached some random people and asked them what exactly are they protesting against and what they want they didn't know what to say.They went with the inertia.

[Andrew Lucas]

So we don't know how Shepard could possibly not be disintegrated by that huge explosion 3 scenes earlier, we don't know where s/he is or how s/he got there, we don't even know when it takes place (with all the jumps in time earlier during the ending), we don't know how the entire scene fits into the framework of the game or the ending.

Now, I am all for imagining things for myself in the future, after the end of the story as it is told but a good story teller will provide an ending with enough coherence and connection to the previous events so that the audience has a tangible idea of how things may fit together and to extrapolate from there. As it is, since we don't know the context of the scene whatsoever, speculation as to it's continuation is extremely arbitrary. Again, you could as well have shown Shepard somehow hanging from a cliff somewhere, it would have made just as much sense.


So, honestly, given that this is the very final moment, we will ever see of Shepard and given that the writers had the complete freedom to do anything they wanted as a final scene, do you really think it was a great place to leave the character in forever?

Did I ever said it was? I don't know where you are getting such notions. I'm not talking about whether or not that scene sucked, if it was good, or anything else, but only that Shepard lives if we take the word of the people who actually crafted the game.

It's funny how you are quick to judge, labeling people as this or that, when you fail to understand the whole point. You don't even asked me if like that scene or not, and I am suddenly a defender of that.

By your logic, you're a hater, even when you give me no reasons to think of that regarding you.

Chill the **** out.

[MrFob]

Some characters are left to die on some planet a million miles from home. That's their fate as the writers intended. Shepard was meant to live and take a breath in the rubble, but that's it. They don't show him reuniting with crew, or anything like that. Why? Because it's the end of his story.
 
It's not a cliffhanger by any means, because if it was, there would be more stories with Shepard, but there isn't.
 
I know where the breath scene takes place. He's beside some rubble in London. You can hear the wind blowing in the background. Suggesting everything between the time you got knocked out by Harbinger and the time you wake up again was all in Shepard's head.
 
I'm sure if you ask them they might sell you a DLC that explains all this, but it's not really necessary.
 
The real problem is that the fans' completely reject the way the writers had intended the game to end and unless it ends exactly to their own specifications, they're not happy. They were warned before installing the game though.

 
If you are choosing to go with some form of IT, that's great for you and I am happy that you found an interpretation of the ending that agrees with you.
 
However, this does not make the ending - or the breath scene in particular - into good story telling. Even if I go along with your interpretation, I'd have to say that it was in fact abyssal story telling because the story isn't told at all in this case (and the breath scene is nonsensical in most cases)
Not to mention that in your interpretation, not even the reaper conflict is resolved by the end of ME3.
 

@Andrew Lucas: Oh, I am sorry, I must have misinterpreted your staunch defense of one particular interpretation of the scene as just as staunchly a defense of the scene itself and apparently I was wrong. My apologies, no personal offense intended. Still, my point that the context of the scene is arbitrary stands.

[AlanC9]

They could have had multiple endings that do either one or the other, according to EMS or your final decision or both and I'd have been ecstatic.

Note that the leaked outline does this. it's never been clear how the outline's "Shepard survives" ended up being implemented as the breath clip.

It's conceivable that they were intending to execute a precommitment strategy at some point -- something like Roj Blake's death -- though I'd think they would have wanted to explicitly kill Destroy Shepards if that was the plan.

[AlanC9]

The real problem is that the fans' completely reject the way the writers had intended the game to end and unless it ends exactly to their own specifications, they're not happy. They were warned before installing the game though.

Actually, the real problem is that the writers never intended this.

[SofaJockey]

... They intended the ending to be ambiguous where people could talk about it. ...

 

On that basis it was successful beyond its wildest dreams...

[themikefest]

I know where the breath scene takes place. He's beside some rubble in London. You can hear the wind blowing in the background. Suggesting everything between the time you got knocked out by Harbinger and the time you wake up again was all in Shepard's head.

Really? Why would Mike Gamble tweet Citadel?

 

Scott Matherne ‏@SkyN7et 2 Jul 2013

@GambleMike @BioEvilChris Simple question-Is Shepard laying in London or Citadel rubble post end breath scene? Jessica hasnt answered me yet

 

 

 

Michael Gamble ‏@GambleMike

@SkyN7et @BioEvilChris Citadel

 

https://twitter.com/...187404377001987

[Vanilka]

It is the Citadel, indeed. When the camera's slowly panning to where Shepard's lying, you can see the shiny, metal construction of the Citadel. Especially at the beginning of the breath scene. I'd be worried about Shepard if she, in addition to everything, found herself back on Earth somehow. Implications unpleasant.

[rossler]

My advice to you Mr Fob and anyone else still mad about the ending is that if you do not like the way things were wrapped up is to not purchase any future products from Bioware.

 

You know, I didn't get good service at a car dealership, so I'm not going to do business with them anymore. I'll go somewhere else. You guys will supposedly get bad service, but continue to deal with the company and give them your money who you didn't get good service from. That to me doesn't make any sense.

 

You're just going to have to accept that the story didn't end the way you wanted it to, in a way that was satisfying to your own personal tastes.

 

I mean what I may think is a good ending, you might think is bad storytelling. And what you may think is good storytelling and a satisfying conclusion I might disagree with.

 

I don't personally subscribe to the official IT interpretation, so for me, the story ended, and came to a conclusion. There's more than one side to that coin too.

[MrFob]

My advice to you Mr Fob and anyone else still mad about the ending is that if you do not like the way things were wrapped up is to not purchase any future products from Bioware.

You know, I didn't get good service at a car dealership, so I'm not going to do business with them anymore. I'll go somewhere else. You guys will supposedly get bad service, but continue to deal with the company and give them your money who you didn't get good service from. That to me doesn't make any sense.

You're just going to have to accept that the story didn't end the way you wanted it to, in a way that was satisfying to your own personal tastes.

I mean what I may think is a good ending, you might think is bad storytelling. And what you may think is good storytelling and a satisfying conclusion I might disagree with.

I don't personally subscribe to the official IT interpretation, so for me, the story ended, and came to a conclusion. There's more than one side to that coin too.

That's all fair enough, although I think you overestimate my emotional aversion to the ending. I am not mad about it, at least not anymore for a long time now, I just enjoy analyzing why I was mad at it when I first saw it. I am still very fond of the franchise and also BW (I thought Inquisition was pretty good despite it's shortcomings in some specific areas) and I will probably get Andromeda if I hear good things about it after release. If your favorite writer messes up the ending of a book, just because you criticize him harshly for it and discuss it vigorously doesn't mean that you cannot buy any future book that he writes, no?
 
My posts were not so much intended to convince anyone that the ending is bad but rather to illustrate and explain why I consider it bad. Of course, it all comes down to opinion in the end and as I have stated many times before, I am happy for anyone who can get enjoyment out of it. However, often I do not quite understand the reasons why people like the endings. Sometimes I do, for example, with fraggle, I had a very interesting and enlightening conversation about the subject and I now get where s/he is coming from. I am afraid, I still do not quite understand how in it's current state the interpretation that Shepard wakes up in London can make for a satisfying end to the story. Not that I have to, I just find it curious and an interesting topic of discussion until I get the chain of thought that leads to this opinion.
 
Off topic:

Spoiler

Oh and by the way, as I also have often said, I don't consider MEHEM to be particularly good story telling either. There is a limit to what can feasibly be done with mods and in this particular case, the "story" was more of a filler to stitch together something that started more as a technical experiment than anything else.

[rossler]

Well one article I read from another guy states he liked the end because it doesn't end with the hero pumping his fist and having a true victory feeling. Rather, he liked it because it required him to think and have a lot of cool things to talk about.

 

I cut out the parts about the "happy ending", but I agree with the rest of it.

 

*snip*

 

Mass Effect does not end with Shepard winning the day and riding off with his lady love (or man love depending) into the sunset. Bioware takes the notion of total war very seriously, and the story is as grim as it is engaging. Victory is possible, but not without heavy loss and the total alteration of the status quo. The game can end in several ways, depending on how you play. Even the best victory scenario comes at a price, resulting in the death of friends and allies. In Mass Effect, as in life, you cannot always get what you want and you have to make the best with the options you have, even when those options are not good.

 

The end also is not straight forward, no matter what scenario plays out. The entire end of the game appears to be an exploration of the human mind. Bioware has taken a page, it seems, from Inception, making it unclear what exactly is “real” what and isn’t. It’s surreal, unsettling, and makes you THINK about what is happening and why. It makes you consider every choice you have made up to this point in the series (one of the clever aspects of the series is that Bioware allows you to import your Shepard from one game to the next, coming with all the choices you have made, good, bad and ugly. Shepard always has baggage.) It makes you question your own assumptions and motives on several fronts, and how you deal with that impacts your final choices.

 

You do not come away from the end feeling happy. It is, regardless of what you do, a visceral punch to the gut, punctuated with the smallest ray of hope – a ray that is only there if you made particular choices through the series.

 

Some rabid fans of the game do not like this. They have started web petitions, written blogs, made Youtube videos all about how the end of ME3 “sucks”. There is not typical, flashy, shoot out with a final enemy to win the day. There is no triumphant hero pumping his fist in the air in victory. There is no simplistic, action movie, final moments. You are left instead, to think long and hard about what just happened and why

 

What Bioware has done is craft an ending one has to deeply consider and interpret, a very rare feat in a medium that is still maturing into a full blown art form: Did Shepard really defeat the Reapers? If so, how much of what we saw was “real” and not just in his head?  The end offers up more questions and it does answers.

 

Rather than change the ending, my hope is that Bioware will do what it has always done – offer up downloaded additions to the game that expand the universe and lead us in new direction. But change the ending because some players have an over the top, fanboy meltdowns over it? No. We shouldn’t be asking to be spoon fed base pap. There is a legion of sitcoms and awful science fiction programing and lunk headed fighting games for one to delve into if you want that. What Bioware has created is something unique, that should be allowed to stand and players should learn that it is ok to have to think. The low common denominator they appear to ask for isn’t worth it.

[SlottsMachine]

I don't mind the the EC endings (well other than Synthesis), but there are a few moments still that just make you shake your head and laugh. The original ending was quite possibly the worst I've ever seen in a videogame, certainly when you factor in that Mass Effect is a lot more immersive. Sure the ending to AC3 sucked but really who cares about Desmond. 

[MrFob]

Well one article I read from another guy states he liked the end because it doesn't end with the hero pumping his fist and having a true victory feeling. Rather, he liked it because it required him to think and have a lot of cool things to talk about.

 

I cut out the parts about the "happy ending", but I agree with the rest of it.

 

*snip*snip*

 

Well, yea, this is a point I can definitely understand and one has to admit that the endings did spawn discussions aplenty.

So if this was a really important aspect that had to be the central point of the ending, I get why one would consider it good.

 

In my opinion - especially given that a dark and discussion-inspiring ending is a rather vague requirement that can be implemented in any number of forms - it doesn't really balance out the horrible execution of it all but I guess than it really just comes down to a matter of taste and priorities.

 

Although, given that you said Shep is waking up in London, I still am not quite sure how the story even is concluded in that scenario at all (unless you finish it yourself via headcanon and are contempt with it).

[Dantriges]

Assuming and knowing are two different things. No one knew Anderson was on the Citadel.

Ok. Theoretically it could be that they never bothered with som comm chatter about  "Oh Anderson is up there, too," because we already know at that point, but that´s pure speculation.
 

 

Most likely someone found the body of Anderson, and I would guess that same person(s) found Shepard's body.

So you think Shep´s dead and we witnessed his/her last breath?
 

There's an idea. Throw the memorial scene in the garbage.

Agree.

[rossler]

The story is concluded because the Reapers were dealt with in one way or another. Controlled, merged with, or destroyed. They were the central conflict of the entire trilogy. 

 

Of course, there are some people who played Mass Effect 3 only for the characters or as a "romance simulator". So they completely ignore the Reaper story, and when the ending originally came, there was no closure for them. Those people don't believe the Reapers are the central point of the story, but rather the characters and their own personal conflicts which weren't resolved at the end initially.

 

As in they didn't tell you what happened to everyone after the game, but they tell you enough during the game to give you that sense of closure. Jacob says he's going to be a father, have a kid named Shepard. That's just one example. 

 

The game that they were sold was a galactic war against the Reapers. Not as a dating simulator or story which solely revolves around character interactions. It does wrap up the Reaper story as promised though. 

[themikefest]

Ok. Theoretically it could be that they never bothered with "Oh Anderson is up there, too," because we already know, but that´s pure speculation.

There is nothing to suggest that Anderson is on the Citadel. There was a way to know that Anderson was on the Citadel, but that would call for getting rid of the what-the-crap evac scene

Like I said, its possible someone found his body as well as Shepards, forward a message to Hackett who relayed it to the Normandy for them to put up Andersons name. Yes its speculation on my part, but I would like to hear from Bioware how the Normandy found out he was dead. Maybe they have a better explanation then mine.
 

So you think Shep´s dead and we only witnessed his/her last breath?

I don't believe I've ever said Shepard is dead in any of my posts if ems is above 3100 and destroy was chosen. The only time I've said Shepard is dead is if ems is below 3100

[Tim van Beek]

Mass Effect does not end with Shepard winning the day and riding off with his lady love (or man love depending) into the sunset...

 

Some rabid fans of the game do not like this. ... There is not typical, flashy, shoot out with a final enemy to win the day. 

Yes, some people didn't like the ending because it was not a happy ending. Yes, some people didn't like the ending because there wasn't a big boss fight against Harbinger.

Then there are people like Mr. Fob, who have a whole bunch of other reasons to not like the ending (he linked to an extensive explanation). What about those?

 

What Bioware has done is craft an ending one has to deeply consider and interpret, a very rare feat in a medium that is still maturing into a full blown art form: Did Shepard really defeat the Reapers? If so, how much of what we saw was “real” and not just in his head?  The end offers up more questions and it does answers.

It may be "rare" in the sense that most games available on steam don't do that, but it certainly is not daring or original; see, well, for example F.E.A.R. 3 or Bioshock Infinite. Both did this without breaking their narrative cohesion. 

And yes, stories should encourage their audience to discuss interesting questions. The question "what happened?" isn't that interesting, IMHO. The question "in what scene did Walter loose your sympathy?" from "Breaking Bad" is an example of an interesting one.

The ME:3 ending actually does pose interesting questions (or, in my opinion, more acurately "could have posed"), like "are the Reapers evil?", which unfortunately got buried under...everybody knows what.