101 réponses à ce sujet

[Collider]

An ending where the reapers win due to the player's action is fine, so long as it is foreseeable as ME2 was.

[Rayhaana]

I understand where people come from with the whole "wanting to see the bad guys win for a change" attitude, it's something I've thought about a lot also.

But, how difficult must that be for a game like ME3 to do. Like how would bioware make an ending like that feasible? I guess generally you'd think "well just have shephard die epically before stopping the reapers", but would such an ending be as impacting on you? I donno for me it wouldn't. Should ME3 be all happy though? Hell no, Shephard needs to kick the reaper's butts, but there needs to be a cost that galaxy must pay for such a victory.

For me, this is why my ME2 endings where a few squadmates or my crew dies are really the most impacting to mean. The mission was completed, we stopped the collectors, but it didn't come for nothing....people died.

[Adon 9]

The thing is that ME isn't just a story, it's a game.  The player isn't a passive observer, they're in the role of protagonist.  And people generally don't play games if there isn't a chance of winning, coming out on top or what have you.  Frankly, the writers declaring that all the player's efforts were for nothing, no matter how hard they try they cannot stop the Reapers... would turn it into a wallbanger.

Of course, the beauty of games like this is that the ending isn't etched in stone.  So chances are there will be at least ONE ending where the Reapers do what appears likely and destroy all life.  But if that was the only ending possible?  No.  Do not want.

[Nozybidaj]

Headcount wrote...

ME3 should and must have multiple endings (Good, Bad and Yikes!) and be determined by the player through his choices and actions over the course of the three games. .

This.  Can't say much more than that.  Forcing everyone into a "lose no matter what" ending is just as cliche as the "good guys always win" ending. The ending you receive should be entirely dependent on the player's choices with multiple good, bad, and "omfg" endings.

[Ramikadyc]

In Mass Effect 2, it was actually challenging to figure out how to play the game through and get yourself killed, and likewise it wasn't hard to make sure you survived, even if just one of your squad survived with you.



In Mass Effect 3, I want to see that completely reversed.



Yeah, I know it's more complicated than that, and I'm just laying that out there very generally, but I want people to actually have to work their asses off to save the galaxy instead of it being handed to them as long as they shoot everything, pick all of the red/blue dialogue options they can, and carry the M-920 Cain.



Basically, I want the "saving the galaxy" ending to be the ending that most people will have to replay the game to see. That's just me.

[Forest03]

Many writers have turned entire worlds and galaxies upside down and torn them inside-out and still maintained a good measure of popularity and success. Now, I doubt that BioWare will shell out for writers as good as, say, Margaret Weis (who killed off pretty much every beloved character and handed their planet over to a dark goddess), but I think they can pull it off.



In any case, I can see a dark ending being implemented in ME3. Just as there was a chance of your team members, and even the main character, dying in ME2, there could just as easily be a "Critical Mission Failure" of epic proportions in ME3. I would probably even fail on purpose just to see how BioWare's writers deal with several plot elements.



As long as we get a better narrative out of it than the hogwash we were given in ME2, I'll be happy.

[AngryFrozenWater]

I am in favor of an ending in which the reapers are defeated. Being part of defeating the reapers after millions of years is unique. It would be good for the series. A fourth title against the reapers? I would not buy ME4 in which you had to recruit yet another team and fight against the reapers again. Now that would be horrible and cliché.

[Collider]

Ramikadyc wrote...

In Mass Effect 2, it was actually challenging to figure out how to play the game through and get yourself killed, and likewise it wasn't hard to make sure you survived, even if just one of your squad survived with you.

In Mass Effect 3, I want to see that completely reversed.

Yeah, I know it's more complicated than that, and I'm just laying that out there very generally, but I want people to actually have to work their asses off to save the galaxy instead of it being handed to them as long as they shoot everything, pick all of the red/blue dialogue options they can, and carry the M-920 Cain.

Basically, I want the "saving the galaxy" ending to be the ending that most people will have to replay the game to see. That's just me.

I have to disagree with you. That's just a slap in the face to the fans. The fans want the good ending without having to metagame or look it up in strategy guides. I'm fine with having to work for it, but if the bad ending comes at total surprise to the player, something is wrong.

[Talogrungi]

I could see the ending going four ways.

Hollywood Cliché: The good guys win, the Reapers are obliterated and Shepard has a wholesome (heterosexual) kiss at the end with his (human) LI, then goes home to Earth to pay his taxes and volunteer at a support group for traumatised orphans and/or puppies. Who may or may not be traumatised. Hard to tell with puppies.

MMO Ready: The good guys win, the Reapers are obliterated, but the entire team dies in the process; leaving us with a rich, recognisable IP with multiple factions and no protagonists to feel second-fiddle to. Perfect for an MMORPG with space and TPS ground combat. Tabula Rasa/EVE Online hybrid, anyone?

ME4 time?: The good guys and the bad guys hit a stalemate; the Reapers are beaten back but not destroyed (Shepard may or may not die in doing so), and the galactic races suffer sufficient losses to prevent them from pressing the attack, leaving the door open for another sequel in which a new protagonist takes over the reins. Perhaps Liara changes her surname to Croft and goes to raid Prothean tombs?

Adaptive: This is mah favourite. Your past choices shape the ending. I don't know how feasible it is, given that Bioware have stated that the ME universe will not end with ME3 .. but it would be nice if consequences really mattered and had an effect on the universe once the final credits roll.

[Beholderess]

I don't mind it being a possibility, as long as there is a possibility for a happy ending too.



Seriosly, what's the matter with *True Art is Angsty* today? (sigh)

If there can't be a happy ending, what's the point of playing at all? All the actions in 3 games might as well be meaningless?

[Ramikadyc]

Collider wrote...

Ramikadyc wrote...

In Mass Effect 2, it was actually challenging to figure out how to play the game through and get yourself killed, and likewise it wasn't hard to make sure you survived, even if just one of your squad survived with you.

In Mass Effect 3, I want to see that completely reversed.

Yeah, I know it's more complicated than that, and I'm just laying that out there very generally, but I want people to actually have to work their asses off to save the galaxy instead of it being handed to them as long as they shoot everything, pick all of the red/blue dialogue options they can, and carry the M-920 Cain.

Basically, I want the "saving the galaxy" ending to be the ending that most people will have to replay the game to see. That's just me.

I have to disagree with you. That's just a slap in the face to the fans. The fans want the good ending without having to metagame or look it up in strategy guides. I'm fine with having to work for it, but if the bad ending comes at total surprise to the player, something is wrong.

You play Mass Effect 3 and you make the decisions you think are right all the way through, some decisions based on other decisions made in previous installments. Being Mass Effect, of course, the decisions are very rarely black and white. Then at the end, the galaxy is either turned to ruin, or something else happens that is also bad. Of course, when that happens, you get hints as to what you might have done wrong.

Of course, it would still be very much possible to get the good ending on the first playthrough, you would just have to make all, or at least most, of the right decisions. Example: in Mass Effect 2, there were tons of very good gamers who loved Mass Effect who didn't beat the game with all of their squad surviving just because they made one bad choice during the Suicide Mission--maybe they sent Jacob or Mordin through the vents, maybe they made Grunt or Jack the fireteam leader, or maybe they picked Thane or Miranda to be the biotic specialist. Those choices are not perfectly clear at the time without prior knowledge--you don't know that you only have a few options to choose from if you want them all to live. Of course, there were also just as many gamers of equal skill and interest who made every right decision the first time, myself included. It's choices like that which should define the ending of Mass Effect 3. That's fine if you disagree with me, and maybe I am being pretty hardcore about it, but I would at least like to see that direction taken to some degree, but definitely moreso than it was in Mass Effect 2. Don't be so quick to call it a slap in the face to all fans, and don't assume all the fans want a happy ending (case in point: this thread), because I haven't met a bigger fan of this trilogy than me, and I want to see a ballsy finale to it.

Modifié par Ramikadyc, 20 février 2010 - 08:46 .

[Lyrandori]

Wow, lots of replies, and very good opinions. I for one thought about this for some time now and yes, like many others said, having multiple endings would be awesome, well at least two, similar to KOTOR like someone specifically mentioned, depending on our actions and/or our "alignment" (or both). I'll have to convince the guy at work that BioWare probably can't just make one single "canon" ending for whatever your character had done in the past two games, there's already some sort of different endings in ME2, it's like a test-bed for ME3's ending system, it's not completely different but in ME2's ending we can have different teammates combinations of death and survival via direct choices during game-play, so BioWare only needs to expend on that for ME3's actual ending regarding the Reapers and the galaxy instead of "just" the teammates' fate.

Modifié par Lyrandori, 20 février 2010 - 11:39 .

[Nimander]

Beholderess wrote...
I don't mind it being a possibility, as long as there is a possibility for a happy ending too.
Seriosly, what's the matter with *True Art is Angsty* today? (sigh)
If there can't be a happy ending, what's the point of playing at all? All the actions in 3 games might as well be meaningless?

Agreed.  I don't mind if there's a losing end condition.  But I don't agree with wanting the default ending that you have to shoot for be loss or 'a last bastion of humanity lingers on a planet like Ilos' or some such.  Dark endings are no more interesting than good endings -- it just depends on how it's written.

Reminds me of the other thing people do -- 'x has been done before, so it sucks'.  They don't realize that pretty much everything has been done before.  It's just how it's packaged.  Is it interesting, or not?

[Stinkface27]

It's my theory that the ultimate Renegade ending to ME3 will be for Shepard to end up working with the Reapers, a la Saren. Remember Saren thinking he was doing the galaxy a huge favor by working with them? Yeah.



And if that ending is a possibility, that's cool. There should be an alternative though.

[DarthCaine]

I think that in one ending the reapers will win, but in all the others (knowing BioWare) the good guys win

[Madecologist]

The problem is, they may have a sad ending (depending how open ended the game is), but will it be a sad ending in general no. I know you question is who would I react. But it is hard to imagine if my brain just doesn't accept it. Bioware has made it almost clear if you play Paragon the game will have a sort of "Heroic ending of epic awesome" and pure Renegade "the birth of the Human Empire" feel to it. So much that it is clear where they are going.

They can have plot twists and even sad moments or scenes, which I do hope they do. Very good for a narrative, but giving us a sad ending... nah. It might contain a sad scene though for sure. I do wish ME did have a little bit more of tragic elements. Even if they do not want to kill off a certain character there is plenty of ways to make someone go... "NOOO!"

[Super_Fr33k]

I'd be totally cool with very dark/tragic endings for ME3, provided there are also awesome, "the good guys stomped your asses" endings. Like other people have said, I think there have been so many decisions that have built alliances that it'd be stupid for success to be *impossible*. I mean, a paragon Shepard that got everyone through the suicide mission would easily be able to build alliances with krogan, quarians, and damn near everyone else, including the geth. However, I think a perfect happy ending should be one of the most difficult endings to achieve, requiring the correct choices to be made in the preceding games.



However, I do not think the Reapers simply winning and commiting galactic genocide is the most gutwrenching ending. Here are a few other nasty ending ideas:



1. Shepard and the Illusive Man defeat the Reapers in a way that preserves their technology and allow humans to have exclusive ownership of it. They use this technology to rapidly dominate other species, and humanity ultimately becomes a new incarnation of the Reapers. A hero failing is tragic-- a hero becoming what he hates is more tragic. I think this ending would help fully realize the racial undercurrents running throughout the series, and demonstrate that, whether the Illusive Man realizes it or not, humanity's "ascension" requires the degradation of other species.



2. The Reapers narrowly defeat Shepard, and, out of respect and spite, assimilate him into a larval Reaper. Imagine the creepy, Picard-turned-into-Borg like cut scenes they could do. ("We are your salvation through your destruction...")



3. The Reapers foresee their defeat, and destroy the Citadel and the mass relays, plunging the galaxy into a relative "dark age," Shepard is villified as having ushered in an era of scarcity and war. Bioware might want to bring back Thane's quotation of Hobbes at this point-- "every man securing his needs through war or death," or however it went.



4. (This one's stretching a little, but I think it would be cool.) The Reapers again foresee their defeat, except for one. Recall that the human Council member (whether Anderson or Udina) says very little of Sovereign was recovered after it was destroyed. This is because Reapers cannot be destroyed so easily, and the Reaper fragments integrated into the Citadel (perhaps with the keepers' help). Since the Citadel is Reaper technology, Sovereign soon re-establishes itself as a "Reaper of Reapers," and actually facilitates the defeat of the other Reapers, because it considers itself a perfect being and is no longer interested in continuing a tedious cycle of galactic genocide. Shepard faces a terrifying choice: try to fight the Citadel-turned Reaper (whose indoctrination powers can quickly dominate entire worlds), or help Sovereign acquire enough resources to leave the galaxy forever. The catch being, Sovereign demands to keep everyone on the Citadel as a slave for eternity.



In short, the Reapers winning is just the tip of the evil, awful iceberg.

[BrotherArdis]

I support the "reapers win" ending as one possibilities. Well, actually I wouldn't fret even if it were to be the main, canon, ending. It would make sense. For tens or hundreds of millions, perhaps even billions of years the reapers could not be defeated. Not just by Protheans, but by races many times more powerful than them (the ones who took out the reaper in Hawking Eta for example; bet there were many more). Why would the current set of organic (or not even necessarily that, vide Geth) civilizations be able to do that? Their technology can't match that of the Protheans, not to mention races that came before them (ok, they have an advantage in the shape of Shepard, whose badassness conquers all : P, but that's about that). They aren't even united in their purpose and whatnot. The Protheans failed because their government and high command were lost in an instant with the fall of Citadel. Now the reapers wouldn't even have to make the effort, current races are doing their job for them.

To defeat the reapers, Shepard will have to do something pretty magnificent. And usually an attempt to do such an epic ending results in a disappointing, distasteful, epic fail. So like I said, I'm for the "reapers win" ending. An opportunity to trash them instead is mandatory of course, but I'd like it only as one of several alternatives.

[Gill Kaiser]

Mass Effect is a space opera. Space operas demand relatively happy endings.

[Alamar2078]

I posted a few days ago that if you make BAD decisions that the "Reapers win and now you're the new Protheans" would actually be a good and deserved ending.



Granted I would prefer to see a "we win" type of ending also but ME is the sort of trilogy that deserves a lot of potential endings [at least 3-4]

[bjdbwea]

Lyrandori wrote...

How would YOU react to a "sad" ending in ME3? I'm just curious, I'd like to read about your thoughts on this.

Wouldn't mind it if it were ONE possible ending and a classic happy end were possible too. If a bad ending would be the ONLY ending, I wouldn't buy ME 3. Simple as that.

[Skilled Seeker]

You can still have a bad ending that is ignored by canon like how Shepard dying in ME2 is not canon. So I see no problem with the Reapers winning in some endings and it BETTER be possible for them to do so considering the threat they pose.

[Skilled Seeker]

Ramikadyc wrote...

In Mass Effect 2, it was actually challenging to figure out how to play the game through and get yourself killed, and likewise it wasn't hard to make sure you survived, even if just one of your squad survived with you.

In Mass Effect 3, I want to see that completely reversed.

Yeah, I know it's more complicated than that, and I'm just laying that out there very generally, but I want people to actually have to work their asses off to save the galaxy instead of it being handed to them as long as they shoot everything, pick all of the red/blue dialogue options they can, and carry the M-920 Cain.

Basically, I want the "saving the galaxy" ending to be the ending that most people will have to replay the game to see. That's just me.

I agree that would be great. I've always said ending up with a dead Shepard in ME2 is worthy of an achievement as its harder than getting your entire crew out alive.

[Tooneyman]

I'm going to make this clear for you and everyone. ME 2 has a good and a bad ending. You may also have the extinction of the human race in ME 3. It all depends on your desicions. They say in the very first trail of mass effect 1 You will decide the fate of the galaxy. Either it will be safed or it will be doomed. There is no good or bad ending in biowares games. There is only the desicions you make and the out come of them. Trust me bioware knows what they are doing. Trust them.