238 replies to this topic

[Selena]

Yes, I've read the full statement it's quoting from. It implies alternate/extended endings, but doesn't actually state that that's what the "content initiatives" are. A different statement by Hudson leaned more toward pre-ending DLC. Have to wait until PAX to get confirmation on anything. Bioware's been doing heavy teasing for a lot of things that ended up being false hopes, and they're still in PR damage control mode, so I'm not believing anything until a proper statement.

Though, given how apathetic I feel now that it's all over, I'll probably just watch a Let's Play of any DLC on youtube rather than get it myself. Or at least wait until it's reviewed. :\

[SOAP]

Just curious: Has a video game company ever changed their product's ending for any reason, let alone fan outrage? Heck has anything from any form of media changed the ending after the fact?

[Selena]

Yes, Fallout 3. Specifically because of outrage. Bethesda's very good about working with their fans, though.

As for movies, maybe not specifically for fan outrage, but director's cuts tend to hold up a lot better than theatrical cuts. Mostly because the director now has the time and resources to do what he wants without the production company imposing limits. Blade Runner is an example of one that was improved a bunch. With ME3, I think it might have been a similar situation. It sounded like they had a lot of interesting plans on their development notes, couldn't get around to doing it, so we ended up with... er... this.

Plenty of instances of other things being changed though either due to fan outrage or potential fan outrage. Sherlock Holmes was originally supposed to have died! Han Solo, too. Movies get test screenings, and things are changed before final release. Games don't usually have that.


Thus why ME3 is technically broken from the very start of the game. The face importer is broken for those who didn't make any changes to their ME1 character when importing into ME2. You'd have thought someone would have caught that.

At least Elder Scroll glitches are funny.

[SOAP]

Interesting. It just seems like something that could be done (especially with DLC's and all) but at the same time, something that I don't see most video game companys being willing to do (for whatever reason). Not that it will bother me much personally. I just want ME3 to get some man-on-man action.... I'm incorrigible, I know.

[DarkJuno]

Technically, with the way it's worded, all Bioware has to do without having lied is release something like the Metal Gear Document that came out after MGS4 that explains all the little itty bitty nit picky plot points and/or corrects/backpedals all the bits that conflict with past games. Sorta how technically they didn't lie about being able to get the "best" ending playing solo only - you just have to have imported straight from ME1 with the maximum amount of credits and minerals and made the exact right choices and a handful of other combinations that were...unlikely at best, plus the inevitable pre-ending DLC. As it is, here I am mssing around with the datapad sending out fleets to get my readiness at 100% because even if the ending isn't great, I still have that completionists' tic to get the "best" one. I still think a lot of this anger is misaimed, even if it's somewhat justified. Still, looking at Bioware itself, there's some kind of precedent of them changing/forcing canon no matter what the palyers' done - not to spoil, but the Shadow Broker is exactly who that individual is even if you never played that DLC, and over in Dragon Age, even if one particular character flat out dies in Awakenings, this one person still shows up in DAII regardless. If they're willing to force canonical changes on the player even if it flies in the face of the outright choice they've made, they may be willing to do this, though again I'm not holding my breath.

And let's be honest, as final as the ending might be, we all know EA will slap Bioware around until a Mass Effect 4 (and 5 and 6...) fall out of them. They could turn out fine, but it's something to tread lightly on.

[Egann]

It's there, SOAP. ME3 has a gay romance option.


Really, even if they release a new ending (or even a new game) the damage is done. Fans will remember the "actual ending," so even if Bioware pulls a "we were planning this all along" move, the best they can manage is to splinter their fanbase. My understanding of the ending is that the entire final climax needs to be re-written, so this is...for all intents and purposes, unrecoverable.

I'd say that a writer quit and went on to write novels, but that's Dragon Age. Mass Effect's got nothing.

Edited by Egann, 22 March 2012 - 10:17 PM.

[SOAP]

It's there, SOAP. ME3 has a gay romance option.

Oh I'm well aware of that. It's why I'm stoked about ME3 and not at all bothered by the bad news about the ending. I just don't want that to be my only reason so I'm gonna have to play the first two. Once I get the money to buy any games.... D:

[Fin]

to be honest, i think the ending is the result of casey hudson and the others getting an ego and thinking they're a bunch of artistes. and like many hack self-proclaimed artists, they confused stupid and arbitrary with deep and meaningful.

Spoiler

has anyone seen this? i would have loved something like that. in general, i felt like mass effect 3 kind of let me down on the whole choice angle. aside from the fact that shepard speaks on her own without giving me an option to select anything for most of the main story, there's also the paring down of the choices to a simple paragon/renegade option (whatever happened to the neutral option?), and how some of the major choices at the end of the first two games didn't matter. udina is always the human councillor, cerberus always salvage reaper tech from the collector base, etc. what the hell, bioware?

Edited by finbarr, 22 March 2012 - 11:29 PM.

[SOAP]

That sounds like a similar issue I had with the Fable series. Loved the first two games but the third game, as cool as it was, stripped down all the player choice to good or evil, which wouldn't be as bad if the good choices weren't also extremely stupid as well. Ontop of that, the game scolds you for picking the evil options even though a lot of them make more sense. There was little to no neutral choices and I don't know why they did away with the four way Good/Evil/Pure/Currupt scale from the second game. where I could play as a brooding-badass-with a heart-of-gold-but-he'll-kill-you-in-a-heart-beat-if-you-tell-anyone-and-ruin-his-street-cred type hero.

Maybe it's a case of sequels paling in comparison to their predecessors.

[Fin]

okay, just promoted my understanding of the ending from spoiled-it-for-myself to played-it-for-myself.

my thoughts can be summed up in one phrase: haha what.

i was looking forward to playing through the trilogy again with a new shepard. not sure if i'm bothered now. maybe in a few months.

[Selena]

Alternate endings no longer needed, we have this (no real spoilers for those who've yet to finish):

[Fin]

i lost it at the jacob one. good stuff.

[SteveT]

The Wrex portion of that was my favorite. It gets even better when you picture Wrex serving up waffles to an elderly couple.

I finished the game earlier tonight. I'd say that the ending wasn't good, but was hardly the travesty that the internet made it out to be.

Thoughts in spoilers:

Spoiler

- The indoctrination hypothesis is appealing. Very appealing. Another bit of evidence is that in the synthesis ending, after Joker and EDI get out of the Normandy, I saw Liara wander outside, too. But she was on Earth with me--she was specifically in my party, in fact, but your entire crew (except maybe Vega--I didn't see him, and I didn't look too hard) was hanging out waiting to give you a hug before the end. How did she get from Earth to Normandy that fast? And for that matter, how did the Normandy both run away from AND land on Earth?

-...But the indoctrination hypothesis is probably wrong. It looks like synthesis is canon, given that you have to earn it.

- So the kid was some kind of ancient VI? Is that what they're saying. It's a little disturbing that Bioware wants us to take advice from a guy whose "solution" to the conflict between synthetics and organics is KILL ALL HUMANS. How, exactly, is that supposed to be an enlightened attitude?

Repear intern:"Oh, so we were at war with the organics for like 500 years. But then we thought, what if we kill all the organics? That'd end the war. And if we, like, take a nap for 50,000 years, there will be whole new civilizations to kill off, and then we can take any good technology and do it again. Oh, and if we just melt down everybody and turn them into sentient space-ships, it's like we didn't destroy their civilization at all!"

Reaper President: "Someone promote this kid."

It's especially jarring that we're supposed to take this crap seriously, because about 5 hours earlier, I had made peace between the Quarians and Geth. Way before that, I had made friends with my space-ship in a mutually respectful fashion. I proved that the war between synthetics and organics isn't necessary and inevitable. Now, if the geth and EDI maybe joined the Reaper's side at the very end, that'd be thematically consistent. Otherwise, the writers broke their own theme, and...oh dear, typing this out is making me understand the rage. It's just bad writing.

- I would kind of like to see a sequel about all the races suddenly sharing a single planet. Or a sitcom.

- After the credits, they advertise DLC, then kick you back to before you assault the Cerberus base. They also strip you of all the XP and items you acquired after attacking Cerberus. Dick move, Bioware. Dick move.

Edited by SteveT, 25 March 2012 - 09:40 PM.

[DarkJuno]

All right, I lost track of time and ended up beating it just now and......wait, really? That's the ending that got everyone all riled up? Certainly, it's completely and utterly unsatisfying, but.....that?

Spoiler

Of all the games and movies with bullshit endings, it's this one about attaining balance in a clumsily written, straw grasping cliche between organics and synthetics that inspires rage? Damn internet, I kinda wish the ending was one of my deranged ideas from earlier in the thread since that would've really had people losing their minds if they lost it over this. Granted, as already pointed out it's a total betrayal of a lot of the points the game itself manages to make about the debate and and it feels really tacked on, but honestly, had someone taken a pass on it and fixed the dialogue and fleshed it out to be more then a flash-in-the-pan quickie ending, it might've actually been satisfying. As it is, I like the post credits bit about "The Shepard," but the way the ending stands, it doesn't deserve a tidy little bow like that.

Ultimately, I stiull don't think it's worth the rage at all. It's not an artsy ending that people "just don't get" but it's not that awful either. Just incredibly disappointing.

I'm still glad I got the CE and the two games were well worth the time and investment, and honestly I probably will buy any DLC that comes out, but yeah, I probably won't bother replaying it anytime soon - I'll just Youtube the two slightly different endings. I'll write more tomorrow - erm later, for now, bed.

EDIT: All right, so after digesting it....you know, while still being disappointed and thinking it was clumsily handled to say the least, I actually don't have much of a problem with the ending.

Spoiler

The Indoctrination theory is nice and I'm certain the bits and pieces here and there are intentional, I still think it's people grasping for straws. While I defintiely agree that the child was just a hallucination and Shepard was not all right in the head after Harbinger's blast, I think it's more his/her own slowly fracturing psychological state then flat out indoctrination. Half the stuff on the evidence list has an easier, more obvious explanation, like how whenever there's a "growl," there's usually a Reaper RIGHT THERE in close proximity in the middle of a fight, or the weapon switches being something that always happend throughout the game - Shepard always ends up with an Avenger in most cutscenes despite my never actually using that particular rifle and so on. More then anything, the "artsy" ending was mostly to get people talking and arguing over what it meant, though they kinda bungled how to do it, due in no small part to all their talking beforhand seemingly not meshing with what was presented.

Synthesis actually works as an ending, and while there are plot holes, it thematically does work. It's actually pretty fitting that the ending where s/he survives ends with the genocide of all synthetics, while the sacrifical ones are the ones that give the "happy" endings. "Green" rewrites the fabric of life itself across all of existence, and maybe it's because I've read way too much sci-fi that my mind automatically made sense of random DNA sacrificing that comes out of nowhere, though having to have it be an assumption rather then something stated probably wasn't the best call. This does fall into the same trap that the mdoern BSG did - that is, going from reasonably hard sci-fi into magical space pixie dust from out of nowhere. It's not so much the ending itself that bothers me now, as much as the implication this was all crazy mystical mumbo jumbo - just a few lines stating some kind of science behind it or even suggesting that there's always been an unknown quantity in the world despite all the research and logic put out by advancement would've helped.

Also pretty sure that magic space god boy doesn't actually look like that so much as The Catalyst was specifically using something in Shepard's mind to make itself easier to acknowledge for a feeble mind. An explanation, even a vague one, to exactly what the being is would have defintiely been preferable though. Doing so would've made everyone randomly waking up on that jungle planet despite being on Earth prior to the blast easier to take in as a side effect of reality being rewritten, something that's not at all new to sci-fi stories. Hell, friggin' Transformers used it at the end of Beast Machines where everyone awoke on a newly reformatted Cybertron bespite having been scattered in completely different locations prior to the trigger point (First example I could think of, but there's other more legitimate ones out there).

I think a little more clarity on the nature of reality and the state of whether or not there's something out there beyond logic and science would have gone a long way in making the ending easier to swallow. Ultimately, I think Bioware will pull what Konami did with Sons of Liberty and do a little document release giving details to the ending, or outright adding it into the ending itself. Maybe a coda that takes place years later, but before "The Shepard" portion where people have started to rebuild and cope with the new world. Who knows.

Oh, and old guy in the post credits scene? Buzz Aldrin. That is undeniably a cool little cameo role.

So yeah. I really don't get the rage. I understand people not liking it and not being happy with it - I myself am not really satisfied - but all the rage and anger is ridiculous. Though I'd rather the series ends right here and right now - I really don't want to play an ME4 about Shepard...

Spoiler

...and Liara's blue kid, since they DO share thoughts and feelings regardless of your romance choice, after all...

...fighting some random new bad guy that makes no sense at all, or a multiplayer only game and doubt I ever will want it.

Ah well. Now I can go play Final Fantasy XIII-2 and get another ending that's made everyone go insane with anger!



......



....on second thought I'll just play Tales of Graces f instead. <.<

Edited by DarkJuno, 26 March 2012 - 01:47 PM.

[Veteran]

I got the impression the rage wasn't against the endings in what they show, more that the decisions you've made over three games matters very little.

Save the rachni queen? Very nice of you but doesn't matter. Let Wrex live? Whoop de doo, doesn't matter. All your squad from ME2 survived? Collector's Base destroyed? Here's two shits, try caring with them.

And the biggest one I think from a non-plot stance: paragon or renegade? Doesn't matter. I never play a bad guy character, but how there isn't a bad guy ending is beyond me.

[Selena]

I think most ME fans on LA have beaten it now, so I'm just gonna forgo spoiler tags and just give a GENERAL SPOILER WARNING LIKE OMG.

Agreed, the outright rage some fans have is obnoxious. I'm not furious, but I'm... very disappointed. It was a definite Wallbanger ending, as far as tvtropes goes. And you hit with significantly more force because of how generally good the series was until the last part. It was sort of an insult to the intelligence they assumed we had. I do sincerely believe that they hit a deadline and just said "throw whatever we have up there and call it good." In that respect, I wish they hadn't bothered with Kinect functionality (probably a marketing "suggestion" made by Microsoft via EA) or multiplayer. The latter is nice, but this was not a multiplayer series.

With the endings, it seemed as if they were deliberately trying to make it a no-win situation to amp up the "gritty angst." There's no real reason why all synthetics have to die if you pick Destroy. Mass relays and all Reaper tech, sure, but not all synthetics. There's no real reason why Shepard has to die in order to control the Reapers (ruling as galactic emperor with an army of Reapers would have been cool!). And Synthesis? On the surface, the ultimate paragon sacrifice, but the "good" morality path of the game is geared toward embracing diversity. Synthesis basically gives diversity the middle finger and makes everyone the same whether they want it or not. And there's still nothing to stop them from making more "pure" synthetic slave races, and, given that mother nature is inevitably more powerful than even Reaper tech, "pure" life is likely to return at some point.

And, like Vet said, your choices ultimately don't matter, because it all boils down to a number. If you lose support from one faction, you can gain it back with another. And the war assets only really give you tiny little alterations in an otherwise static ending. It's one of those things where, the more you think about it and the more plotholes you find, the more ticked off you get. But, rather than flame all over the internet, it's better to just close the book and lament the wasted potential of the series.

....And then rejoice in all the memes that have come up mocking the bad writing!
















Hitler's rather succinct!

[Veteran]

If the internet in it's current form existed when Phantom Menace came out, the reaction would be the same. The ME endings are the new Jar Jar.

[DarkJuno]

Yeah yeah, same thing, spoilers, woooo.

You know, the whole "Synthetics to kill organics so organics can't make synthetics that kill organics" is a little overblown. The Reapers killed the most advanced organics while leaving the piddly little living things alone to evolve and grow. The Catalyst in its "logic" thinks that this is the only solution to avoid having synthetics rebel and then try to kill all organic life from civilizations down to rats and insects. It's incredibly flawed for an allegedly all wise ascended being, at least without any sort of its logic to back it up, but that's that. For good or ill the ending really suffers because it really feels like they had this big grand crazy ending in mind, but ran out of time and rushed through it - which is kind of scary given how they had to delay the game from last Fall to polish it, so who knows how bad it was original going to come across. THe impression I got with Synthesis wasn't that i made everyone the same, it just made everyone a techno-organic being rather then just being one or the other. I mean, Turians, Krogans, Humans, Asari are all organics but they're all wildly diverse, and on the flipside, Reapers, Geth, and even AI borne from Reaper tech like EDI despite all being synthetic are also all different from one another. What I need now is clarification of whether or not the Green light just turned everyone into a hybrid or out and out rewrote reality itself so nature and existence itself is now techno organic, so even Nature itself is synthesis even with whatever evoles from now on.


Son of a bitch I sound like I'm defending it. <.<


Ah well, in the end I do agree about it being a slap in the face, not so much because it's so odd but because it's so poorly done and implemented. As for choices not mattering into the end, that's probably just Bioware wording things badly. I'm not willing to bend over backwards far enough to say the entire game is "The End" and in that regard those choices all do figure into it, but that seems to be where they put their feet into their collectiove mouths. But yeah, I'm not really all that bothered by it, it's just disappointing. I'd say I'll look forward to other Bioware games, but Dragon Age has its own set of bad choices and problems and it seems like The Old Republic is going to stay in MMO land.

Hope for Jade Empire 2.....maybe.....?

[Egann]

After thinking about it, I think I know what happened to ME's ending.


Really, even if you are going to slap an ending on the conflict, the logical choices are 1)throw at the Reapers everything you've got and hope and pray your rating is enough to handle the invasion (various good and bad endings depending on who's with you), 2) set off the mass relays to kill the reapers as well as every other life form in the galaxy (synthetic or not) so that the next creatures to evolve won't have reapers hanging over them, or 3) Combine Unobtanium and Technobable to create a few possible solutions out of side-missions no one did in the first game, thus forcing everyone to replay your entire game series to get the proper good ending.

That's the *obvious* three choices I cooked up in four minutes. We only have loose variations of #2 here, where the writer gets the message "mass relays blow up" and misses the memo about why anybody would do that to begin with. And coloring effects I can do in Jython separate the endings. Hmm. This smells like executive involvement from EA; we tweak the ending with tools we have here, Bioware takes the PR blame, the fans get mad and (hopefully) demand more Mass Effect, thereby ratcheting up sales. If not, Bioware just takes the blame.

[Fin]

my ideal ending: the story during the final level branches in several ways depending on who you've made alliances with (something like the loyalty system in mass effect 2), the illusive man is an obstacle you overcome on the way to harbinger, who is the real final boss, and after beating the game you get a similar scene to the ones at the end of the first two games where shepard is asked to make big decisions regarding the state of the post-reaper galaxy. because you know what? despite the fact that me3 basically ignored my decisions at the end of the first two games, i still think they were worth making for their own sake, because those scenes basically allowed me to decide what the meaning of the story was. i think one of the biggest mistakes made in mass effect 3 was that bioware tried to take ownership of shepard and her story out of the player's hands in order to tell their own version. i mean, the final scene only really makes sense if shepard was a noble figure who sacrificed herself to save the galaxy. 'daddy, daddy, tell me the story of how shepard sold out her friends! daddy, tell me the story of how shepard doomed the quarians to extinction!'

[Selena]

Okay. Opinions on the game after it's been allowed to settle in my system. My initial "OMG ME3 IS FINALLY HERE" euphoria has subsided, and my ending-rage has cooled down to apathy, so I'm trying to be as unbiased as possible.


The Good:

* The scope and pacing of the game. It was successful in making ME1 feel small, and that's quite an accomplishment. The main quest is suitably tense to keep you hooked on missions - mostly to find out what happens next.

* Likewise, sidequests are meatier. More substance, more cinematics.

* Gun customization, carrying weight and its effect on power recharge time, and the final "evolutions" of biotic/tech powers. Lifting shockwave was good fun. Biotics in general were pretty fun in this game.

* A nice marriage of ME2's combat and ME1's emphasis on story.

* Characters come full-circle and you can really sense how they've matured and progressed through the series. Especially characters like Tali, who began very low-key and innocent, then turned into a powerful leader.

* The biggest pull of the game comes from the fact that it's the third and final installment in an established franchise. You know the characters, you know the story, and you're driving forward to see how it all comes together.

The Bad:

* The only true RPG element to this game is pretty much skill leveling. All other RPG elements have effectively been stripped away, and only superficial remnants have been left behind to create the "illusion" of it still being an RPG. You no longer truly interact with NPCs to learn about quests - you merely eavesdrop on conversations and fetch quests are added to your (nerfed) journal automatically. Shepard butting into NPC debates and taking a side by just selecting one person and pressing a button. Tons of auto-dialogue, even with your crew. Sometimes saying things that "your" Shepard would never say.

* The biggest loss to the RPG element is your ability to free-roam. ME1 funneled into a linear plot near the end, but you were awarded the freedom to do the first half (at least) in whatever order you saw fit. They gave you a bunch of assignments and said "have at it." ME2 turned this up a notch by briefing you on a ton of big missions - as in 80% of the game - and letting you do them in whatever order you pleased, with the occasional mandatory Illusive Man mission in between. ME3 is incredibly linear. Your only free-roaming is deviating from the main quest to do sidequests. There is only one place (The Citadel) to hang out. No real exploration at all, whether on foot or in a Mako-replacement. When you land on a planet, you are in a fixed location - practically on rails - and you fight your way to the end.

* While the combat system is fine, missions are less impressive. There seems to be a lot of "survival wave" situations, where you just stand your ground against a horde of enemies until an invisible timer runs out. While a lot of the baddies (like the Banshee) are impressive, there's no real surprises or creativity in how they get used. Especially in sidequests.

* On that subject, while the sidequests are meatier in terms of story, there are also fewer of them. As in just a handful. Most of them involving cameos of your otherwise unused ME2 crew. The remaining "sidequests" just involve flying to half the planets in the galaxy and scanning them for random items to help with the war effort. No involvement other than pushing a button.

* The lack of "suicide mission" complexity in the ending stage is not only a story fault, but also a gameplay fault. Even ME1 felt more complicated and well-rounded than ME3's final level. Run through London. Defend a missile battery from a giant horde of mooks (yet another survival wave situation). Proceed to ending cutscenes and final choice. You never really get to see the army you forged in action, save for a nice cutscene of the space battle with an optional quarian cutscene spliced in. You've built up the galaxy's biggest fighting force, and you've built up your own personal crew of hardened veterans, and you never get to see things play out like you did in ME2's final stage. Which I had always assumed was a "training run" - from a developer AND player perspective - for the ultimate showdown in ME3.

* I don't mind that we lack a final boss, but, after building up Harbinger as the ultimate Reaper bad guy, it would have been nice to see him for more than a few seconds. And with no dialogue.

* As the story was the driving force behind the game, there's little replay value. Especially since decisions in previous games get wrestled into creating specific, fixed outcomes for this game. As a more minor gripe, there's also many instances of game-lore retcons. Samara's daughters were supposed to be the only ardat-yakshi in the galaxy, for example, and there are sure more than three Banshee in the game.

The Ugly:

* The endings, but not simply because "they were sad" or because "they weren't what I wanted." The plot holes and people being completely out-of-character are lesser (but still potent) offenses to dedicated fans. The breaking of the themes established throughout the entire series is a more major offense. They could have ended it with Anderson's death and called it good, whether nor not Shepard when with him. I think there'd have been significantly less shit hitting the fans had they done that. Or went full-tilt into the indoctrination theory, which would have been a pleasant mindfuck had they not pulled out at the last minute.



So, in summary, most of the game's pull came from it being the conclusion to a series. Once the story was said and done with, I've found little desire to go back and play it again. The game itself isn't nearly as solid or amusing without the mystery there. ME2 remains the best "go back and play just for shits and giggles" game in the series. ME1 is good too, but now feels a little clunky in comparison. And I think it's more than fair to say that Bioware dropped the "RPG" aspects of their RPG series, only keeping the label to appease older fans, and turned it into a full-fledged third person shooter.

ME2 was a game I didn't like at first, then it grew on me after a while. ME3's sort of the opposite so far - getting a little worse with age.

[SteveT]

"Lifting shockwave was good fun."

Oh, my yes. I was playing Vangaurd and didn't even bother with pull after I unlocked liftwave. The main problem was not enough buttons. My usual loadout was Charge, Shockwave, and Energy Drain, so Lift and Nova got no love.

I pretty much agree with your assessment, especially how the Earth assault should have felt more like the suicide mission. The suicide mission in ME2 was one a brilliant sequence, and really rewarded you for investing in and learning about your party. It was a terrible decision not to do the same, only on a galactic scale. Do you want the Turians in the sky or on the ground? Do you regret choosing the quarians over the geth? Can Jack's team hold together in a battle of this scale, or should you let Grunt handle it? So much lost potential for meaningful decisions.And of course I agree with you about the ending. My biggest fear (and this is partially based on Bioware's response) is that they think people are upset that the Reapers didn't turn into ice cream cones while Krogans baked you a cake*. People who play Mass Effect knew that a purely happy ending wasn't likely. All we asked for was a well-written ending that was respectful of everything that came before it. Supposedly, they're announcing some kind of fix in early April. It's probably too late to fix this PR sh*tstorm they've been dealing with lately.

Edited for WTF is my post invisible?
*Image courtesy of Penny Arcade

Edited by SteveT, 31 March 2012 - 11:37 PM.

[Fin]

i absolutely agree with everything you just said lena. i think it really says a lot about this game that the things listed under 'the good' are mostly superficial elements. i've been playing throughing me2 again (my first vanguard -- my god, i've been missing out) and absolutely loving it. i tried playing through me3 with a new character and it's amazing how shallow the experience is by comparison. particularly how i'd already established my vanguard shepard as a totally different character to my original shep after only a handful of cutscenes in me2, whereas in me3 i can never escape bioware's vision of shepard.

Edited by fluttershep, 05 April 2012 - 03:03 PM.

[Fin]

double post because bioware are releasing extended ending dlc. lol 'artistic integrity'

and an edit to include dan hemmens' hilarious predictions of the new ending scenes.

Edited by fluttershep, 05 April 2012 - 03:10 PM.

[Selena]

So, no changes to the endings, which is expected and... fair enough. Just will include the missing transition scenes that really, really needed to be there for anything to make a lick of sense. Rather than BAM BOOM BANG CRASH ~fin~. Doubt the indoctrination theory, which remains my favorite way to cope with the game, will play any part in it. Interested in seeing it, and honestly a little surprised they caved (to an extent).

[Fin]

i'm mildly curious, but not enough to actually set up xbox live and get the endings. i'm not surprised they're sticking by their original vision either, though i honestly didn't expect them to do this, and i find it mildly amusing that they seem deadset on missing the point of most people's complaints. in any case, to really address my problems with the handling of the story they'd need to fix everything from the ground up, so meh. obviously that's not gonna happen.

[SteveT]

I'll have to download this. It's more than I really expected, but it doesn't sound like they'll fix the major issues. I'm sure they'll close a few plot holes and at least tell us whether galactic civilization crumbled while Earth was destroyed by every fleet in the galaxy settling on it.

I hate the "artistic integrity" defense by the way. Any ending so disconnected from the themes and events of the story before it has none to defend.

Also annoyed that Bioware keeps getting the wrong message from fans. Closure is nice. Clarification will only go so far to fix plot holes. People can handle a downer ending. But "Yo I hear you hate being killed by synthetics, so I created synthetics to kill you so you wont' be killed by synthetics. Now destroy civilization for me. I can't reach the button on account of I'm a stupid little hologram" just does not fly.

Edited by SteveT, 05 April 2012 - 06:40 PM.

[Ninja]

One of my friends claims that the true secret ultimate ending is only available if you chose not to romance anybody the entire series. He says that since nobody would ever play the game without romance, this ending will remain undiscovered until the ends of time.

Ugh. Bioware..... that ending was so bad.... and now they say they aren't going to fix it, instead just releasing more cutscene to try to explain what just happened? I think they just missed the point of the complaints. Explaining an ending that nobody likes isn't going to make them like it more. It'll just give them more fodder to feed the complaint cannon. What they really needed to do was revise what they already had. Take the three endings, fill in the plot holes, and possibly add a fourth choice where you get to argue with the supposed all knowing possible figment of your imagination. That things arguments were full of more holes than a sieve, and in a normal conversation anywhere else in the game Shepherd would have been all over those. This ending, however, Shepherd appears to take the unknowns words at face value, not questioning why it gets to decide what Shepherd can/cannot do. I think that was what pissed me off most about the ending. It didn't feel like I was making a choice, I felt like I was just doing as the creepy little mind rape creature was telling me to do. Why should I trust anything from the mouth of a creature that has obviously read my mind to take it's current form? Meh.

Btw, I totally want a Garrus body pillow now.

[DarkJuno]

I want this to be the final scene of the game freezing, then panning out to reveal its on a projector screen, at which point Mordin walks in from the side and procedes to spend 45 minutes talking down to the player as he explains each and every little detail - doesn't even have to make sense, as long as its condescending. I'm not defending the ending by any means, but I'm so sick of the insane raging belly achers who are latching onto the actual well thought out critiques to the ending that I want them to get smacked down and get even angrier.

[TheAvengerLever]

That would actually be the greatest ending ever, except it should only be 10 seconds and it should go something like this:


"Basically what happens is that shut the fuck up."

I mistakenly went through six pages of that link that fluttershep posted earlier and I kid you not, I loaded a gun and was prepared to shoot








the computer screen.

But has anyone noticed a growing trend of people complaining about various bullshitty things? First Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Deathly Hallows, Mass Effect, even movie directors people once hailed are being dashed to the ground by the internet mob. It's getting quite annoying.