238 replies to this topic

[JRPomazon]

Perhaps /v/ should have gotten to write ME3:

Shit, is that what this game is about? I should have jumped on this train years ago . . .

[SL the Pyro]

New theory spreading throughout the interbutts - based on in-game observations - that the ending(s) are actually one giant headfuck. It doesn't make the endings any better or remotely acceptable, but it does bring a lot of interesting stuff to the table.

Spoiler

The theory is that, all through the game, the Reapers are indoctrinating Shepard in the same way that they attempted to indoctrinate Saren -- by making Shepard think that a compromise must be made in order to ensure the survival of the galaxy's civilizations. And by slowly cutting away at Shepard's sense of hope against adversity. Everything after the run to the beam in the final level is an indoctrination-induced hallucination. Arguments and observations:

* Shepard's prolonged exposure to the Reapers throughout the game means that she's constantly within range of their indoctrination signals.

* And even when she's not around them, the Reapers technically uploaded a virus to the Normandy in ME2. EDI locked it down for the rest of the game, but there's also no proof that it was completely eradicated, and its full effects are not explained, meaning that the Normandy itself could be serving as a tool of indoctrination even when Shepard is away from the Reapers.

* Vega mentions there being a "hum" on the Normandy -- which was a trait of indoctrination tech.

* The child is meant to be a representation of all Shepard's guilt over not being able to save everyone, eating away at her confidence, sanity, and sense of hope. The child is merely a hallucination, right from the very beginning. Thus the unnatural, ominous, "you can't save me," line and the abrupt disappearance from the vent shaft, complete with no noise associated with the child running away in a vent.

* The dreams, therefore, are manifestations of the indoctrination. The final dream, showing Shepard being consumed with the child, has two possible meanings. The first meaning is that it's Shepard's final descent into lack of hope -- and she assumes that she'll join her dead crewmates in the afterlife even if she's victorious. The second meaning is that it's Shepard's subconscious rebelling against indoctrination, offering a warning that going with the child will result in doom.

* During the run to the Citadel beam, your squadmates do not run with you. They stay in place behind you, unmoving, regardless of what orders you give them.

This is where the game's real events stop. Shepard lies in the rubble unconscious in front of the beam and descends into an indoctrinated hallucination.

* If you have a low war asset score, your team is seen dead near the beam, far ahead of where you were. Shouldn't be there if they stayed back. The image of your dead team is a deliberately heavy-handed demoralizing scene -- pointing out the futility of trying to resist.

* Shepard has a totally different sidearm after being struck by Harbinger, and it has infinite ammunition. You also switch over to having ruined N7 armor, regardless of which armor you were actually wearing.

* Shepard goes through the beam, but Anderson - despite not even being in the immediate area - also goes through. BEFORE Shepard.

* Only human remains are piled up along the Citadel corridor and in an unnatural fashion. Anderson (Shepard's subconscious at this point) likens it to the Collector base.

* Anderson describes the Citadel walls as "moving, realigning, reshaping themselves." This is the same sentiment expressed by the indoctrinated workers who were on board the Derelict Reaper in ME2.

* The Illusive Man is inexplicably there already too. Anderson and the Illusive Man are manifestations of Shepard's mental war -- the devil and angel on her shoulders.

* The ensuing argument involves a lot of black lines warping over the screen -- and a robotic growl every time Shepard starts to gain clarity. Another symptom of indoctrination according to game lore. Reapers growl when they feel their subjects aren't listening to them.

* It's never made clear who is controlling Anderson and Shepard at the end - TIM or the Reapers. The Illusive Man is not subject to it, but he also makes no gestures of being the one pulling the puppet strings. The Illusive Man is what the Reapers want. They want someone to be stupid enough to try and control them, only to dominate/incinerate him at the end. Anderson only wants to blow them up, and so he must die/suffer for his resistance. And so will Shepard, if she doesn't know what's good for her.

* Upon ascending to the final chamber, Shepard is in EXPOSED SPACE with no helmet.

* The Catalyst takes the form of the child to continue manipulating Shepard. It insists that synthetics will always rebel, but the geth and quarians are now proof that they can get along. The Catalyst is an unreliable narrator trying to convince Shepard that the Control/Synthesis choices are the only way to resolve the conflict peacefully, and that Destroy will involve wiping out EDI and the geth. There's no proof of that, though, and why should you obey an AI associated with the Reapers? Unless you're indoctrinated and believe whatever it's telling you.

* Control not only kills Shepard, but there's no guarantee Shepard can actually control them once "assimilated." Synthesis makes everyone partly synthetic, which still leaves the Reapers at the top of the food chain, and it's easier for the Reapers to take control of synthetics (geth) than organics. In these two endings, the Reapers theoretically win because Shepard tried to compromise with the devil in the same way Saren did.

* The Destroy ending is the only ending the AI seems to warn against, and it's the only one where he really lays on the guilt. Meaning that's the one the Reaper AI doesn't want you to pick. Saying that again - it's the one that the Reaper. AI. doesn't. want. you. to. pick.

* The Destroy option is also painted in "renegade red," but shows that it's Anderson's choice. The Control option is "paragon blue," but it's the one that the Illusive Man wants. We've completely swapped roles at the drop of a hat -- deliberately misleading.

* The "full" ending exists only with the Destroy option. It shows Shepard -- still in armor -- waking up in rubble. Earth's rubble. Not the Citadel's. Indicating that Shepard either got beamed back down without explanation, or that Shepard had gotten knocked out by Harbinger's deathray and was just now waking back up after the hallucination.

* Shepard, then, effectively wakes up from indoctrination, whereas the other two endings promote Shepard giving up. It implies that Shepard will finish the mission, even if we don't get to see the "real" ending.

* The final "battle," then, is the player deciding whether to give into indoctrination and follow the AI blindly, or recognizing that stuff is royally messed up and something is wrong. And part of the battle is recognizing the signs of indoctrination that have been described throughout the series.

That's... actually a really good theory. The ME series is usually good about sticking to realism-ish aspects - or at least as much as it can in an aliens-are-everywhere-with-cosmic-horrors-everywhere setting - so the ending sequence(s) really rubbed me the wrong way. If this actually turns out to be true, good on Bioware for the beautifully-masked true ending.

That's not to say I'm expecting that level of cleverness from Bioware though.

Perhaps /v/ should have gotten to write ME3:

The mental image of Shepard and Harbinger one-on-one in a basketball court, with Harbinger dribbling the basketball - hey, he's on offense after all - is immensely hilarious.

Edited by SL the Pyro, 12 March 2012 - 02:04 AM.

[Showsni]

Perhaps /v/ should have gotten to write ME3:

Warning: this game is canon.

[DarkJuno]

Still not done and still not looking at spoilers, but with all the hubbub I wonder if the ending will end up being...

Spoilers in case I accidentally stumbled into it

Spoiler

-The Crucible ends up not being a weapon but a device that transcends everyone into a higher plae of existence, "saving" them, though not in the way they figured.

-All the Crucible does is send Shepard back in time to the moment s/he touched the Prothean device in the first game, with the reveal this wasn't the first time this happend and Shepard keeps remembering more and more, but not enough, and is doomed to keep doing this until s/he finally remembers.

-All this took place in Shepard's head and s/he just wakes up from touching the device.

-Reapers already won and the last few games was some kind of forced delusion or some other technology induced dream.

-This is all a vision from a Prothean way, way back when and it's up to him to transcribe all this and put it in a time capsule so when the time period actually comes around they'll know better.

-The Crucible does NOT save them, and only gathers up the combined resources and energy from the fleet,s toring it so the next cycle can use it.

...and one I'll leave out because it's too damn silly to possibly be true, the world of Dragon Age, Thedas, is actually in the far, far, far distant reaches of the galaxy - or maybe even a galaxy other then the Milky Way, and DAIII will be a Mass Effect/Dragon Age crossover.



...don't tell me if I'm even remotely close, btw. <.<

[Selena]

Dammit, DJ! You caught onto the Dragon Age/ME crossover! You've spoiled it for everyone now!


Concerning the actual endings, though, something is going on. Bioware employees are getting really, really, really teasing on their Twitter accounts that there's more to this than gamers are realizing. There's more evidence gathering for the theory I spoiler'd up there, with Bioware folk playing into it. They're still not disclosing anything, since the game gets released in Japan tomorrow and they "want people to play through it first" before giving anything away. They're all on non-disclosure agreements for the time being, but they're dropping hints. There's this really weird vibe going around.

The PC install folder has "missing" gigs of data -- the actual install was significantly less than what the game said you needed. The 360 version also has missing gigs.

Since Bioware, or at least the Mass Effect development team, was having a serious problem with ending leaks, the building idea is that they've withheld the actual ending to prevent a leak, and plan on releasing it after the game has been released in all regions. The whole team is adamantly saying that you need to hold onto your save files and not give into gut reactions. And even if that isn't the case, and they don't release an extra ending, then there's still a strong (but wishful) chance that they'll acknowledge the theory that's going around.

Or it will be the best April Fools ever.

More elaboration on that theory in spoiler tags:

Spoiler

* The child never existed. He starts off in a garden area. He ends up on that balcony during the attack, but there are no stairs or ladders or any other way to actually get up there. He runs inside a building that gets explodiated by a Reaper. He hides in a vent that has an electrocution warning in it. Anderson doesn't seem him or react at all, even during the run there. He makes no noise when he "escapes" in the vent, just vanishes.

* When Shepard's attention in torn away from the child, there's a sharp growl. It is not background noise, as it is never heard at any other time during that scene. It's specifically when Shepard looks away. Fitting with how the Reapers "growl" at a subject they are having trouble interrogating.

* When you run toward the Citadel beam at the end of the game, the terrain is barren. When you get back up after Harbinger's attack -- in your indoctrinated hallucination -- the terrain is suddenly full of MOUNTAINS of bodies. Except all the bodies are Kaidan and Ashley. In their armor from ME1. No other bodies present. Few people noticed due to the chaos of that scene. A lot of bodies up on the Citadel are in Ashley and Kaidan's armor as well, but they have mannequin faces. Specially rendered, as they just used generic bodies throughout the rest of the game, and none of them are like that. The Kaidans and Ashleys outside, above all else, is almost impossible to explain if it's not an indoctrinated hallucination.

* In the Control and Synthesis endings, Shepard turns into a husk with Illusive Man eyes.

* "Control" is what The Illusive Man wanted. "Synthesis" is what Saren/Sovereign wanted. Re-watch Saren's final speech for proof of that.

* Harbinger obsessively wanted Shepard alive.

* Adrenaline facilitates indoctrination, and you just nearly got hit (but it never actually shows it!) with an alien deathray. Adrenaline is pumping.

* All your trippy indoctrination dreams - complete with ghostly images, whispers, and oily shadows (see the codex on indoctrination!) - take place after a direct encounter with a Reaper.

[Egann]

Since Bioware, or at least the Mass Effect development team, was having a serious problem with ending leaks, the building idea is that they've withheld the actual ending to prevent a leak, and plan on releasing it after the game has been released in all regions. The whole team is adamantly saying that you need to hold onto your save files and not give into gut reactions. And even if that isn't the case, and they don't release an extra ending, then there's still a strong (but wishful) chance that they'll acknowledge the theory that's going around.

Or it will be the best April Fools ever.

Wait Wait Wait. So because you have a problem with leaks BEFORE launch, they completely removed the ending AT launch.

That makes about as much sense as picking your nose with a shotgun. Technically the booger is gone, but so is your nose.

Regardless, today is launch day in Japan.

[Selena]

Well, it makes no sense, but it makes more sense than the actual endings. o__o

[Ninja]

I think it would be freaking hilarious if they released the actual endings on april Fools. That would be awesome.

Then again, I'm really hard to disappoint, given that my expectations for the ending are along the lines of, "Shepherd dies, the Reapers win". I haven't hit the end of ME3 quite yet, but I'm betting they will at least beat my low expectations. Or rather, my high ones. I've always thought that would be an awesome ending, because it's one that people would never forget. I think it's more important that the ending makes a person feel something, even if that something is rage. There isn't always a happy ending, and it would be kinda cool if Bioware decided to pull that in a game. It's interesting to read all the hate the current endings have generated though. I haven't looked at any spoilers, but now I'm starting to get really curious. I promised Celesta that I'd wait to play until I visit her, so I have no clue what happens yet.

Anywho..... multiplayer anyone? Still trolling for gaming buddies for multi. I just promoted all my level 20's last night, so I'm starting on bronze challenges again if anyone wants to work through those with me. Origin ID of Delamern for my account.

[Selena]

Not a fan of multiplayer, sorry!

And it's not so much that the endings are sad, it's that, well..... they make no sense and abruptly "end." It's kinda like having really good sex and then your partner stops and leaves the room right before the grand finale. You just end up frustrated and lonely and confused.

[SOAP]

I'm noticing parallels between the ME series and Battlestar Galactica. Is that intentional? Kinda makes me sad I didn't get into the series from the getgo.

[Selena]

Only Tricia Helfer and the debate over whether synthetics count as "life."


And the badly written endings.

Except my reaction to Battlestar's ending was more like this:




And my reaction to Mass Effect involved more blank staring at the screen, followed by rage, followed by depression, followed by conspiracy theories to make me feel better.

[Veteran]

I've sort of looked into the spoilers, figuring if I do get this game it'll be six months from now and waiting under a rock would be hard, so I really, really hope there's more to the endings than meets the eye. It would restore my faith in episodic fiction for someone to actually deliver complete satisfaction.

[Chukchi Husky]

Maybe they wanted to go for Stephen King style endings, which just leave everyone disappointed.

Edited by Chukchi Husky, 15 March 2012 - 04:31 PM.

[DarkJuno]

Naw, not enough missions take place in an area of Maine characterized as being mind numbingly dull against crazed zealots.

[SOAP]

And the badly written endings.

Why I oughtta....

I'm gonna let that one slide only because you're completely right.

[Selena]

You know it to be true.

Start of BSG: "We're establishing a gritty, realistic world that pulls no punches and is willing to show off the dark side of human emotions! Suspense!"
End of BSG: "God did it. SPAAAAAAAACE MAAAAAAAAGIC."



Also, a behind-the-scenes thing came out for ME3 showing that they made part of a proper ending, then scrapped it entirely. A planning paper wanted to end everything on "lots of speculation!" One thing was cut because it was "too video game-y." Yeah, process that one.

I've been lurking on the Bioware forums since this fiasco began. Part of the ME3 forums got outright shut down for a while due to the fan reaction. Which was total fury. Bioware's gonna have to do some kind of statement soon, or it's probably going to get worse. On the plus side, the protestor charity for Child's Play reached the $50k mark.


edit: Relevant

[SOAP]

So is it worth it for me to get into the series if it all ends badly? Because I like what I hear about the games, specfically ME3 but I'm not liking what I haer about ME3's ending. Kinda makes me wander if I would have given BSG a chance if I knew how it would all end from the getgo. Being spoiled is one thing, but knowing it will turn out bad... hmmm. Maybe it will let me enjoy the games more because I won't be going in with high expectations.

[Selena]

Well, unless you spoil yourself, then you won't see it coming, and can enjoy the buildup. Because it's all fairly good until the last five minutes. 100 good hours vs. 5 shitacular minutes is a fairly good ratio. There are lots of great moments in there. The games have a great sense of humor. You can probably find ME1 and 2 on the cheaper side now, and the cost of used ME3 games is... er.... plummeting. Even Vet might be able to get it soon.

Admittedly, though, I have trouble wanting to play through it again.

[SOAP]

Hmm, I guess cheaper prices is the good thing about waiting this long. I might be able to afford the first two and get 3 later. I don't know how spoiled I am. What spoilers I did read are from this thread and I don't know enough about the series to understand the implications of them. I'd probably forget anything I read here by the time I actually paly the games.

[DarkJuno]

Back to playing, couple more days in my vacation so hopefully I can power through and finish. If you have an iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad and haven't already done so, get the ME3 datapad, as it's free - this is not the same as the mediocre not at all free game Infiltration. It's mostly just a silly little app that has characters in the game send you e-mails as you progress (cute but mostly just fluff), allows you to listen to and read the codex entries at your leisure without the game on (kinda neat) and you can use it to boost your Galactic Readiness rating via time based minigame. It's not very efficient, but if you already have it with you anyway it's nice enough.

...and damn I really wish I never found out Liara's actress is Lightning from FFXIII. Now I can't hear her voice without thinking of Light, though a lot....nicer.

Edited by DarkJuno, 20 March 2012 - 01:50 AM.

[Egann]

...and damn I really wish I never found out Liara's actress is Lightning from FFXIII. Now I can't hear her voice without thinking of Light, though a lot....nicer.

Imagine my cognitive dissonance when I realized the same for Starcraft II. I liked her as Light. Starcraft? Ariel Hansen had some real cringeworthy delivery in several key places. "You've got to let me in, Jim."

No. Just. No.

In other news, my sister is dying many times trying on the online multiplayer to get her preparedness high enough to see the "good" ending. Personally, I think she'll never see it, though.

[Fin]

there is no good ending.

[Veteran]

And even the Beeb has heard the collective 'aww' of disappointment.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-17444719

[DarkJuno]

Still not done (I know, I know...) but I can't help but look at all this hubbub over the ending without comparing it to all the anger at Fallout 3's ending...

Spoiler

Again, still haven't finished ME3, but in Fallout, after all is said and done and you're at the end of your quest, you....die. Whether it be in a sacrificial for the good of mankind route or in a nihilistic screw you way, you die fixing/sabotaging Project Purity. ensuring that hope will live on/is forever extinguished in the Capitol Wasteland. Fans got annoyed and hated it, and Bethesda ultimately released Broken Steel that gave the main game a new ending and kind of a coda with some smaller action beats and plot prgression. While the uproar over ME3 is much, much greater, this is pretty much the same situation - Bethesda/Bioware made an ending that they liked and the fans hated, and both backpedeled and made a new ending (if you haven't already read).

On one hand, the big difference is that you can very easily see that the Fallout ending was very fitting and works given the nature of the narrative throughout the whole game, whereas everyone tells me that the ME3 ending is completely out of the blue and not even remotely hinted at. Still, I don't know if it's such a good thing that stories that people have written can be overriden due to the mob being angry, because artistically, that's not a road we ever want to slip down. In the case of FO3, yeah, it was nice having further adventures as the Lone Wanderer taking in more sights and the DLC for that game was pretty fun, but it totally undercuts the climax of the main game, and it ultimately ends up feeling like a movie or novel that's dragging on way longer then it should, long after momentum has ceased. There's a case to be made that, in real life, life goes on even after big events and the point where the credits start to roll, and I agree that not everything should end on a tidy little bow that solves everything, but still, without and endpoint, we end up with something like Skyrim. Awesome, excellent game, but defeating Alduin ends up feeling really anti-climactic, and other then a token "Hey, good job bro" from random guards, there's no celebration or party or any sort of closure to the main story. It's a tricky situation that games as a genre still need to figure out, I suppose.

Still, already I see people belly aching about how "Oh, Bioware intentionally left stuff out so they could make us pay $10.00 for the real ending, boohoohoo!" I think it's pretty obvious that From Ashes proves that that is absolutely not the case - Javik and his story are only tenuously connected to the main plot and outright feel tacked on and after the fact, not at all the integral part of the story all the whiners say it is. At best, they had an extra room in the ship where they figured they could have a future DLC character hang out, but that's it - need I point out that you can still access the Life Support room on the Normandy for no real reason other then future proofing. Really, I actually almost wish tha the Prothean stuff really WAS stuff cut out of the main game, since in that case it would undeniably be much more fleshed out and interesting then the paper thin content we got that was very obviously done after the fact.

Also, what the ffffff.....!?

[Selena]

Yeah, the game was better without the Prothean DLC, so it's a good thing it was just an option. It destroyed the mysticism surrounding their culture. You did get a nice assault rifle as part of the pack, but I'm a vanguard, so I never really use it - just good fire support from my squadmates. But the actual Prothean content is sort of like the midichlorians from Star Wars.

As for the Mass Effect 3 "new" ending, they didn't necessarily say they were making new endings, though I'm hoping they will -- even if it's just giving us more options than what they originally had. Regardless of how they handle it, I highly doubt that they'll leave things open like they would in Fallout or Skyrim.

Most of the anger surrounding the endings is not that it's "sad" or that there might be character sacrifices. Most of it simply comes from the fact that it's really, really, really poorly written. It reuses a lot of sci-fi tropes that are insanely overdone and have no real place in the franchise after all you've learned from the three games. And the plot holes are so frickin' big that yo' momma might even be able to walk through them.

I had hope that Bioware was going to do some big twist, given clues that were throughout the game. But - much like the dark energy in ME2 - it was an idea that was scrapped and never used again. Just vestigial remnants of a good idea they decided not to execute. Bioware's recent statements indicate that they felt very strongly about the current endings and think that they're "art." And attempt to push diehard fans of the series under the rug by saying that "the core fans" are a "minority" and "look at how good our professional review scores are at IGN!"

Yeeeeah.

It's not really fair to criticize the entire game based on the endings, but I'll be frank and say I've got next to no desire to replay any of the games now. Maybe in time.

[TheAvengerLever]

I don't have a link, but Bioware is releasing a new ending for Mass Effect 3.

[Egann]

And attempt to push diehard fans of the series under the rug by saying that "the core fans" are a "minority" and "look at how good our professional review scores are at IGN!"

Yeeeeah.

It's not really fair to criticize the entire game based on the endings, but I'll be frank and say I've got next to no desire to replay any of the games now. Maybe in time.

Bioware, FIRE YOUR ENTIRE P. R. DEPARTMENT RIGHT NOW. YOU NEVER, EVER QUESTION YOUR CONSUMER BASE FOR ANY REASON.

(*goes and gets spoiled, as usual*)

Really, it's too late to fix ME3; even if a new ending is released, everyone will remember the false one. The damage to the franchise is done.

And really, after an ending like that, the franchise should be toast. Battlestar's ending was disappointing, but let's be honest; it couldn't have ended any other way. Find "our" Earth and move into 20th century Manhattan? Hardly fulfilling. Give up on Earth and unite with the Cylons in space? You just dropped a massive plot thread since the Miniseries.

Becoming a prequel to civilization on Earth was the only meaningful ending. It's a "hero takes a journey" story, and those only end when the hero arrives home. Earth was the only possible home, so the question was chronology, not content. I kind of sensed this as soon as "Earth" turned out to be a cylon ghost-town. The writers *had* to force an out-of-character ending at the end so it was really the best that could be done.

ME? You could have literally ended any way you wanted. ME is "A Stranger comes to town" formula, which can literally end any way the author wants. Bioware had choice--legitimate alternatives and formulaic freedom to explore other options--and chose that?!

[Veteran]

Has it come up in discussions at all about how the tidy focussed story of the first game under Microsoft Studios (exclusive) contrasts with the convoluted variety of the other two under EA (cross-platform)?

That may have no significance - it could be because the lead writer for the first game was not involved with the others.

[Selena]

I've wondered how much of it is EA and how much of it is Bioware. It's hard to say. I think it's primarily Bioware with a dash of EA imposing strict development deadlines that limited how much time they had to do things. Because, for the most part, Bioware listened to fans about what they wanted in ME3 (apart from the endings) and delivered what can only be considered plenty of fan-service. It just felt rushed (photoshopping stock images, the terrible endings, the limited dialogue options, etc.0.

A lot of the original members of the team left for other projects or companies after ME1 or during ME2, and the lead writer was reassigned to work on The Old Republic. Which makes no sense, since you would think the lead writer for Mass Effect would be better suited to working on the finale of a story-driven single player game than working on an MMO where most people won't be paying much attention to dialogue anyway.



And, as a correction, no "alternate endings" have actually been announced. Just new content, which could be anything from endings to whatever DLC content they had planned out before release - heavily implied in the game itself that there will be an Omega DLC mission with Aria. They'll be saving proper announcements for PAX East coming up in a few weeks.

[TheAvengerLever]

Well, I was referring to this article. http://www.nydailyne...ksEnabled=false