2821

I really think this whole long running disagreement of how many people liked the ending really overshadows the rest of the conversation because short of someone enrolling a couple political polling firms across the countries with significant sales and then tricking Nate Silver or Sam Wang into analyzing them we’re not going to have meaningful numbers to discuss. For instance one side can point to the negative metacritic user reviews and a petition and the other side can point to all of the fact that all of the metacritic professional reviews are positive and there are more positive user reviews than negative. All this gets us to is a point where we can say something like less than 95% of the players were satisfied with the ending and less than 95% of the players were satisfied.

There are plenty of things to discuss around the game without invoking the fact that one side has popular support because none of us know where popular support really would be. (I’m guessing popular support would probably look at us funny and ask why we’re discussing that old game).

It is also hard to take the ‘I won’t buy sequel X because of some game feature/issue’ posts and petitions seriously when things happen like almost all of the boycott CoD (over no dedicated servers) members of the steam group end up online playing CoD on release day.

2822

Not that it really matters, but professional reviews are usually taking into account the entire game experience and could thus be on balance positive while agreeing that the ending sucked. Hell, my review of ME3 would be pretty glowing.

2823

Do I need someone to articulate their reasons behind their opinion and detail any suggestions as to how things might be better? Oh yes, please. I take my discussion forums with a little discussion, if you please.

And I’m not terribly illuminated, to he honest. Between your and malkav11’s responses and others I have seen, you just lacked resolution with your team members, or to find out where all that war effort went. Need to see some Morgan’s kicking ass! But my thoughts on the ending were that he war effort was always a stalling effort until you got the Catalyst active, when the endgame began. The game didn’t care much about the war effort, though you disagree. But I argue again that it’s not a botch or rush that they went this route. For the ending montage? I can see that but I think the logic was that this was the end. Shepard paid he ultimate price (or maybe not) and life moved on. It may have been nice to see survivors rebuilding but not ultimately necessary.

Again, my point is not that you should like or accept this. You don’t and that’s cool. But why people jump to the big guns and say Bioware destroyed all their goodwill by trashing or at least negligently rushing the end is beyond me. Those are assumptions. None of you have any basis for it. But I am not getting through to anyone about this, so I think I will move on.

2824

The ending of Kubrick’s 2001 was self-indulgent, unwatchable crap.

2825

But the ending wasn’t re-written, at least not in substance. It’s still choose your poison at the behest of the star child (which in my opinion was a lame device all through the game, made even less tolerable with the unskippable dream sequenses).

I notice you still can’t stop taking shots at the audience. It’s stupid for them to want better quality because it’s all garbage, you see! How droll that they want “less ambiguity,” don’t they understand the lessons taught by open European cinema classics like Rules of the Game as opposed to that claustrophobic, closed and linear Hitchcockian tradition? Philistines.

Beret-wearing issues aside, Mass Effect is an IP owned by EA. EA likes money. EA likes money so much they made Bioware put removable characters in the ME games so they could charge extra for them and screw used game purchasers. Do you really think EA is going to ignore, let alone affirm, a presumably artistic choice that fucks up their IP? No, EA will not put up with that.

I can hear the corporate command right now: fix it – I don’t care how, just fix it. We will not be taking a markdown on loss of goodwill for the ME franchise, not after taking a bath on SWTOR.

EDIT: Have bought zero ME3 DLC. Maybe on sale, maybe never.

2826

In other ME3 news, I’m not sure I want to replay it. This happens with every game in the series. I think for sure I’d love to try another class and dialogue options. I wanted to watch the understudies in ME3 to form a better opinion on the consequence side of C&C. But now I don’t know if I want to take the time. Vanguard didn’t grab me right away. Adept was exactly what I was looking for, but I’ve already done that.

2827

It’s the internet, man. Home of baseless speculation. But nothing personal, just throwing stuff out there. You have stated you case well and I understand where you are coming from.

But my thoughts on the ending were that he war effort was always a stalling effort until you got the Catalyst active, when the endgame began. The game didn’t care much about the war effort, though you disagree. But I argue again that it’s not a botch or rush that they went this route.

The ongoing invasion of the races’ home worlds was very troubling for me, story-wise. How could I justify random side-quests or even major story resolutions like the genophage when Earth and the galaxy was in the process of being liquidated? Talk about re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Why wasn’t I trying harder to develop Reaper-killing technology? Nobody had offed more Reapers than Shep (one wonders why the rest of the galaxy was so incompetent). Why was I dicking around on the Citadel buying plans for a water cleaner for some random guy? Why wasn’t I seizing Cerberus’ Reaper-control tech for my own use?

Then there was the compete loss of tension thanks to full Reaper invasion before the story begins. Instead of watching planets be attacked or lost one-by-one, it was a constant background grind with no peaks or valleys. Lots of structural flaws in ME3 beyond the ending, but hey, multiplayer!

2828

Ha ha! Oh, you!

2829

Seconded.

2830

Wait, we’re still fussing about the endings? What players wanted was a Fallout ending; what they got was a KotOR 2 ending. Seriously though, I think people were spoiled by Mass Effect 2, where the in-game choices had a much more direct impact on the ending.

2831

I’d have preferred the ME3 ending that was already in the game, with the mortally wounded Shepherd and Anderson sitting at the console, knowing they had successfully activated the Catalyst. Cut to credits.

This desperate need to spell everything out for the slow readers is why most endings in games, films and books are crap.

2832

I’m thinking your ending would have been the best.

And I’m not thinking that the “spell everything out” thing is necessarily just for slow readers; there seems to be a real need for EVERYONE these days to know detail and background that just isn’t important. Everybody seems to be afraid to leave things to the readers’/viewers’/players’ imaginations – every i must be dotted and every t crossed even if it’s an unsatisfactory solution that would have better served by leaving it to the audience to imagine it. I call this the “we have to show the monster syndrome”.

2833

You’re right. Sometimes less is more.

Sorta off-topic, the film “Children of men” should have ended 30 seconds earlier. It would have been perfect. Because again, sometimes less is more…

2834

I’ve always championed this ending. The world-weary way Shepherd gets up from the seat and struggles over to the console to acknowledge the radio signal is perfect.

2835

I could not resist.

2836

That would have worked. I’d have gone to bed in a far better mood that night.

2837

I agree. Ending the game at that point would have been best. The ending they gave us just confused what should have been a triumphant ending.

2838

This would have set better with me to.

Still I would have still been not thrilled. Mass Effect 2 had a very customized strong ending, and bioware kept promsing how much are choices would have a profound impact on the ending, but what happened was eeirly similar to the walking dead game, where all the choices boiled down to one ending with diffirent context. With much the same reaction from fans to both games, though i do give credit for Walking Dead for making an ending that was more satasfying narrative wise ( at least for my specific tastes). For me, Mass Effect 3 would have been fine with the original ending, if it had vastly diffirent outcomes for the specific choices you made in the game. For instance, getting the save all option only if you solved the quarrian geth issue, etc., maybe save your own life if you side with the salarian’s. This was what i was honestly expecting, considering the dynamics of ME2.

2839

I’m not as tore up by the lack of endings tailored to my choices throughout three games. I never thought Bioware was going to be able to fulfil that promise. Frankly, I’d rather have one set ending than the choice of three that had very little to do with what I did before.

2840

The “audience”? Really?

I’m “taking shots” at a very specific segment of the audience. One of the hallmarks of that specific segment is that they can’t distinguish between themselves and everyone else who played Mass Effect 3, some of whom really enjoyed the game despite how loudly this segment shrieks about Mass Effect being broken, ruined, violated, or maybe even “claustrophobic, closed, and linear”. Some of them even get so confused when Mass Effect is referred to as “young adult fiction” that they immediately leap from that to “garbage”.

-Tom, Mass Effect 3 audience member who liked the game