2761

Synthesis is the only meaning that made sense given accepting the Reaper star child argument at face value, and given the conflicts throughout the game series. And I think it’s defensible in some hand wavy sci fi way. It doesn’t make sense that they waited for Shepeard to make that choice for them when they could have just tossed some random guy in the beam and not spent millions of years killing organics to prevent them from being killed, you know. It’s melodrama of the Serenity variety. Not taking the Reapers at face value at the end is wishful overthinking; the game isn’t that sophisticated and making multiple layers of meaning at the end isn’t going to be their intent, so no, it’s not all indoctrination or whatever.

In other words, Joker and Edi smiling together watching a sunrise to closing music is the “point”, no less and no more. That might not work for you if you want a more military victory.

2762

I vaguely remember wishing Harbinger’s line was the theme (with Shepard able to transcend it) but the ending dropped the ball on it. Now I can’t remember how because I haven’t thought about this in a long time.

So I’m saying I wish you were correct!

2763

The line comes at the very end but is vague enough the producers of 3 can point to it as continuity with 2. At the very least they forth the that Reapers are made out of organics so asking why they did this is a legitimate question 3 needed to answer. Making them robot-zombies might have been the standard space antagonist way or easier to do, but Bioware was at least aiming at something more interesting.

An interesting and probably very relevant comparison could blade with Star Control 2 and 3. SC3s basic premise that the unknown Precursers had purposefully devolved themselves out of sentience was an interesting take on a point of back fiction not elaborated on or anticipated in 2. But puritans decried the game as a bastardized sell out of the “pure” and canonical game of the original founders of Toys for Bob.

2764

Huh? Chances are if someone doesn’t like the ending it’s for the above reasons, so for you to say that it’s fine for someone to not like the ending, but it’s not okay to complain about why is pretty strange. Hell, if people didn’t think it was all of those things they probably would have liked the ending, thus killing the argument before it started. Basically, someone saying that they disliked it because it’s nonsensical, lacks quality, or is bad is no different than you claiming you liked it and that it made sense and was good writing. You’re basically trying to make your position the only correct one by making those of an opposing view into unreasonable cowards or “chickenshit” for having an opinion differing from yours.

I think the ending sucked, for all the reasons you think I’m not supposed to dare complain about, and it makes zero sense to me that you think the ending to ME3 is above reproach when it comes to these things. You’ve never seen a movie, read a book, or watched a television show that you though had poor writing, or was nonsensical, that others liked? If so what makes that different than this instance, other than you are on the other side of the fence this time?

2765

Ah, there’s the problem.

2766

Like I said, I think you have to accept it. Is it… unexpected? Yea, but not completely unanticipated in 3, but not pehaps the focus if the whole series. But there were many set pieces that needed answering, and this explaination answered them ( why a Citadel, why the mass effect relays, ect). This is also why it’s ok for all of the infrastructure made by the Reapers to go boom when you end the game, since it was built and exists to benefit the Reapers and their goals, only a “fresh start” will truly free the galaxy, ect and so on.

2767

I have no idea how you managed to arrive at the exact opposite point I was making, but what the hell, I’ll try restating. Many people are posting at length about how the end of the game is shitty writing, that is was badly mishandled, that people who think otherwise apparently don’t know how stories are told. That, right there, strikes me as chickenshit. I don’t care if you liked the game or not. That’s completely your affair. But it made cohesive sense to me and worked as an ending, so I tell you that the ending was not badly written. At no point did I say anything was above reproach. Join in the grousing about the ending at your leisure, you’re in good company.

2768

Why do I have to accept it? What makes the Catalyst the undisputed arbiter of what’s best? He was created by the same entities that created the reapers, and we saw how their ultimate solution turned out. I’d say if anything, the Catalyst has earned skepticism at best.

2769

Anyone else played through with Leviathan, Ashes, and Extended cut? They don’t just add isolated locations, they add stuff everywhere including the ending conversation. The Leviathan topics you can bring up with the Star Child are great. In fact the whole story is a lot better, with the lone exception being the change to the warp gate status at the end. Though taht feels more like a “oh shit, we need to sell more DLC in this universe” than a story change.

It’s too bad they seem to have abandoned the idea of GOTY editions with all DLC installed. The whole thing feels so much more cohesive.

2770

Yeah, I played all of them. Leviathan in particular seems like pretty critical backstory.

2771

The Catalyst isn’t “right” but it’s like arguing with God (or a god). Are you so sure you’re a special snowflake and millions of years of experience are wrong? The Reapers aren’t BSing, that’s what they “believe”, and the reason they exist. They’re not some runaway Von Neumann AI that eats organics because that is their innate and unchanging nature. So even even if it seems like BS you’re (player and Shepard) in no position to debate the merits of the point. And as far as Sci Fi goes, it’s not after all implausible that machines surpass man, and is one of the oldest of tropes.

2772

I am totally with you that the reapers believe in what they’re doing. It’s that what they’re doing results in the end of everything. Until next time, when it’s the end of everything again, and so on. My point is, the machines don’t care about the cost, only the results. That’s generally not the way we, as humans, operate. So I think their plans merit scrutiny, if not outright distrust.

2773

I do think that that Bioware talks a lot more about story than other companies typically do. They did it a hell of a lot with Star Wars Online, and yes with ME3 they had this it will all be tied together in the end approach. Your choice matters. . For me anyway, that was newish, this idea that something is meant to be told over three games, from inception, and there might be more than a oh here is a good ending, here is a middle ending, here is the bad ending (good and bad not in the quality sense but the you did good things you did evil things). It was always meant to be a trilogy is what was stated I don’t remember the year because I was not part of the target market for 1 and completely missed it, at least 2010 maybe 2009 or 08. By the ending point, I meant for Shepard, not the Mass Effect universe as a whole.

Second, why should other games get a pass? For instance, I am bitterly disappointed with the ending of Bioshock and I don’t feel it deserves any sort of pass. If anything, it deserves to be held to a higher standard because the writing was so good.

I didn’t play Bioshock, so I can’t comment on that series. Borderlands is probably one of the bigger let downs I can remember which is why I mention it. It got a pass from me because it’s a FPS focused on killing a lot of things with humorous writing and various jokes here and there. Like 2, some of the gore I find a little excessive, but not enough to dissuade me. I couldn’t tell you who the main baddies were in Borderlands, can’t remember one of the name of the main characters, don’t recall if it’s the same planet as 2, assume it is, and certainly not why I was looking for a vault. I didn’t care. I still don’t care. I played that game to enjoy a couple of hours a night playing with friends and shootings things to smile at the absurd forgettable characters and watching guns drop. I had no real connection with the story or the characters, but enjoy the gameplay.

Regardless of what Bioware does, or what their choices mean, if anything, to the future the industry, they are very successful with at least one attempt. They got this strong response because they get people to care about what they are weaving in a story. Characters, worlds, ideas… these things are not usually forgettable in a Bioware game. People still talk about their older games, remember story elements after playing hundreds of other games.

But most importantly, I disagree because I think games have been playing up “story story story choice choice choice” (as you call it) for as long as they’ve been around. Particularly RPGs. I don’t see the Mass Effect trilogy as fundamentally different from, say, the King’s Quest or Leisure Suit Larry games in terms of how they weave stories in the context of players making choices. Bioware’s games are certainly more elaborate, and they pretend to react to choice more frequently, but RPGs have been doing this for as long as they’ve been around. I just don’t understand this idea that the Mass Effect games somehow promise something different from, say, the Ultima games.

-Tom

Yeah the illusion of choice has been there for awhile, but its was mostly false. They’ve had the same formula for awhile in RPGs. If you play it evil you get this ending, good this ending, maybe they’ll throw in some midway point. They implied differently with this one. Because of statements like this

Yeah, and I’d say much more so, because we have the ability to build the endings out in a way that we don’t have to worry about eventually tying them back together somewhere. This story arc is coming to an end with this game. That means the endings can be a lot more different. At this point we’re taking into account so many decisions that you’ve made as a player and reflecting a lot of that stuff. It’s not even in any way like the traditional game endings, where you can say how many endings there are or whether you got ending A, B, or C.

Skyrim has a beautiful world, some neat ideas, and is in the RPG camp although not in a traditional sense since is so… actionish I guess. I am playing that game now. I am so divorced from feeling much about the story or the characters in the game that my goal is to find better gear and try and stop some dragons… and the thing that is behind them that spawned them again, I think it was a big dragon or something. I don’t even remember if they played up story for that game. I know the interviews I read or heard did not imply the story was going to grip me. My guess is they played up their exploratory, open world as their strength, since it is.

Yes, La Femme Nikkita had a poorly received ending. They released another ending later after the original.

Farscape had a similar issue with how they ended the first run, then they came back and did a mini run for another alternate ending.

For those two, the official reason statements were something along the line that the series was canceled and large fan campaigns brought them back temporarily, but the endings of those series were not well received either, even for the a short notice cancellation.

Highlander End Game - the ending that was in the theater is not the ending that is on the disc, which is a director’s cut version, and was a lot better received.

I mention these three specific ones because they have or had a large fanbase, like Bioware’s fans. They’re also niche. And when you talk to the creators of the content, they’re a little more upfront about reasons for changing the endings to these serials.

I am not saying this typical or should be common. This just isn’t unheard of in the entertainment industry like its being portrayed here. Fans have been fans doing fan things for years now. I think companies should listen to fans, take away what they can, but only give them what they want if they think they should. There is no force here. If fans are not getting what they want, no longer enjoying games in this case, stop buying from them and move on.

2774

Or, alternatively, it’s based on authentic personal experience with the game that completely contradicts yours and was abso-fucking-lutely clearly and unmistakably bad writing and presentation. I will refrain from conjecturing as to why your impression of it was different because that tends to be pretty insulting.

And to be clear, I loved almost the entirety of the rest of the game, which is in significant part why I was so disappointed by the ending and why it seemed so incredibly out of tune with the excellent job they did up until that point. To the point where I’d swear it was made by someone else entirely.

2775

The fact that you’re willing to throw bombs about the “abso-fucking-lutely clearly and unmistakably bad writing and presentation” and yet claim that being called out on that is “pretty insulting” is absolutely mindblowing, malkav11.

2776

I was saying I’d rather not speculate about why your experience of the ending was so different from mine because trying to assign you motives and perceptions that I have no way of verifying doesn’t usually go over well and I’m trying not to be an asshole about what is ultimately a pretty minor dispute. I get that the ending struck you as cohesive, viable, and supported by the existing game narrative. I have absolutely no idea how you could believe that based on the game that I played (and I’m a completionist, so I doubt I missed anything plot-significant), but I am willing to accept that that is your perception of it and leave it at that. Claiming that those of us that had a very different experience are somehow “chickenshit” because we post honestly about said experience is ridiculous.

2777

If only Mass Effect 3 had been so lucky. But as anyone who cares enough to post in this thread knows, that’s not what happened here.

-Tom
2778

That’s not what Pogue claimed. Did you read Grifman’s posts? You might want to do that.

-Tom
2779

Bioware doesn’t want that happen. I suspect they still want people to buy their games, especially DA3, and they’ve been asking for feedback directly for a couple years now for DA and ME and I’ve had a few Star Wars inquires since I left that game too. Their decision to address the issue only makes rational sense if the number isn’t as small as you seem to think Tom, or they think the ramification is large enough to placate a risk. Myself, I won’t preorder Bioware games anymore, will watch DA3, but really it’s so far down my list, I don’t really care about the tech they keep talking about. Tech isn’t the problem.

2780

That is as far as I can tell exactly what Pogue claimed, dating back to before Grifman’s posts (which were, as far as I can tell, a separate conversational thread about the ending invalidating the whole game - something which it most certainly does not do for me). He said that we’re claiming it’s bad writing just because we don’t like it, and that we are asserting things which he has seen with his own eyes to be untrue, and that this is “chickenshit”. I’m not sure how else to read that.