Grifman
3141
Nope, I read a lot of posts on the issue and I don’t remember a single fan saying “Tell me exactly what happened to the relays”. Instead what happened is Bioware wasn’t paying attention to their own story, backed themselves into a corner and contradicted themselves rather badly. In the Arrival DLC it is made clear that the destruction of a mass relay will wipe out whatever system the relay is located in. That’s a major plot point of the DLC. which led to Shepherd being accused of a war crime.
Well, in the original ending of ME3, you see all the relays blowing up as the magical space beam travels from system to system. So fans, paying attention to what Bioware told them, said, damn, all our work was for nothing, we killed the reapers but destroyed every system that had a relay. Yeah, Bioware, way to make our effort feel totally wasted. We basically accomplished what the reapers wanted anyway.
Bioware says, “Oops, we never intended for fans to reach that conclusion (at least that’s what they said). We didn’t intend for people to think all the relays blew up, killing billions and destroying galactic civilization.” So in the extended cut it clear that the relays were not destroyed, just damaged by the magic space beams.
Nope, I read a lot of posts on the issue and I don’t remember a single fan saying “Tell me exactly what happened to the relays”. Instead what happened is Bioware wasn’t paying attention to their own story, backed themselves into a corner and contradicted themselves rather badly. In the Arrival DLC it is made clear that the destruction of a mass relay will wipe out whatever system the relay is located in. That’s a major plot point of the DLC. which led to Shepherd being accused of a war crime.
No, what the DLC shows is what happens if you ram an asteroid into a relay. It tells us nothing as to the effect the Crucible’s kill switch would have. And, in fact, as long as your readiness wasn’t abysmal, the ending cinematic shows the Earth surviving the Citadel’s relay being destroyed in the same manner as all the others. Assuming that every system with a relay is decimated is such a huge logical leap that it borders on willful misinterpretation, not unlike many other criticisms leveled at the original ending.
I thought it was one of the examples of why the original ending was so sloppy. Just like with the Normandy escaping out of nowhere which didn’t jive with what we’d last seen of it, or who was on it, I thought the Mass Relay’s destruction being inconsistent with the Arrival DLC in ME2 was just another example of Bioware not thinking things through. You call it bordering on willful misinterpretation but consider this: The Arrival DLC had come just a few months before the release of ME3, it’s as if they were priming us, showing us what happens when a relay gets destroyed. And then the way the explosion is shown in the original ending, it looks devastatingly huge. Especially when they zoom out to the galactic map and we see the explosions spreading from relay to relay, and we can see the explosions from such an incredible distance away. The implication, I thought, was big explosions. But no, they were just once again being sloppy and needing to clarify what they really meant.
That bit about Buzz Aldrin’s planet being the same one that the Normandy landed on never occurred to me. I’d personally call that willful misinterpretation. If they’d really meant to imply that was the same planet, the view of the stars/planets in view would have at least been similar, but it wasn’t.
The Citadel was in orbit over the Earth! You see the magic tri-color “blast wave” sweep over the planet will no ill effects (other than the intended control/destruction/synthesis). The game shows us emphatically these explosions aren’t destructive. It’s only “sloppy” if you are not watching or are an idiot. Everyone else just seems to be compiling anti-ending bullet points with no regard for their veracity.
That bit about Buzz Aldrin’s planet being the same one that the Normandy landed on never occurred to me. I’d personally call that willful misinterpretation. If they’d really meant to imply that was the same planet, the view of the stars/planets in view would have at least been similar, but it wasn’t.
The view was similar. You see a similar arrangements of moons. Obviously at a different time of day at a different lattitude, but they connected immediately in my mind. It seemed very obvious to me. But a lot of these things felt obvious to me, so maybe I’m a terrible judge.
I’m not compiling bullet points, I’m trying to explain my reasoning for thinking what I did about the ending.
Watch the original ending again. You seem to be confused about the order of events. First the Citadel/Catalyst sends out the Green/Blue/Red wave. That’s the one we see hit Earth and we see the Earth portion of the cutscene. And THEN after that, the Citadel/Catalyst is seen exploding as it sends a signal to the relay. The Citadel/Catalyst explosion looks small. The relay then gets the green/blue/red wave, and it sends it onward first, before exploding in a much bigger explosion. This happens AFTER the scene where we saw the Earth survive. So the relay hasn’t yet exploded (and presumably destroyed the system with it) when we see the Earth part of the cutscene. And thanks for calling me an idiot though. That’s really what this discussion needed. I appreciate it Brad.
You may have me on the sequence of events. I haven’t looked at the ending in many months. Of course, we still have the high readiness ending which shows Shepard surviving, which again shows that the relay destruction didn’t scorch every solar system in which they were positioned.
I just find it ironic that I’ve been accused in this very thread of inventing my own personal “fan fiction” that helps me enjoy the ending, and the relay destruction question is a concrete example of people on the other side doing the exact same thing (creating a reading of the ending), only they’re inventing something to be mad about. Bioware doesn’t show the galaxy being scoured of life by the relay explosions, so why are so many people choosing to believe that’s what happened only to be mad about it? Why not interpret the ending in a manner more pleasing to one’s sensibilities? That would be a lot easier than lobbying the creators to modify the ending so one can’t accidentally assume something they didn’t intend has happened.
That’s why I found this debate so infuriating. From my end a lot of the ending is simply a matter of interpretation. I enjoy the ambiguity and I like the opportunity to image the implications of the vast changes implied. So why then have so many people chosen to interpret so many thing to in a manner that anger them? It’s not the ending they’re mad at, it’s their interpretation of the ending they rail against. That should be an easy fucking fix. Chose to look at it in another way. If you can’t do that, well…
Seems to me, from what I remember, that when the mass relay explosion was shown on the galaxy map at the end of Arrival, it looked pretty much the same - especially in scope - as what was going on at the end of ME3. I mean, yes, we knew one was caused by an asteroid, and the other magical beams, but from what we saw on the galaxy map - the results looked the same (except for their color, of course). So given that evidence, why wouldn’t anyone jump to the same conclusion? I mean, it seemed the Normandy was somehow kicked out of hyperspace travel due to the already mentioned magical beam of destruction, so they may have landed on a planet outside of the influence of a mass relay. But we saw no evidence of life in any other system - just system-wide (and larger) explosions on a galaxy map. So why would we assume different outcomes than Arrival?
Also, I liked the part where you basically said anyone who didn’t make up your interpretation of the origial ending was an idiot.
davidf
3148
Yes the codex describes that the destruction of the mass effect relay would cause in massive damage, played out in the arrival when it destroyed the system it was in killing billions/millions, but anyway all life in the system is lost. So why wouldn’t the destruction of the relay system result in the death of most of the known galaxy? Bioware admitted to missing that.
Brad you were on more solid ground when you stated you preferred the ambiguity artistically. Countering that people are stupid because they don’t get the (unclear) narrative is paradoxal logic and shows your bias.
also Shepard surviving is only shown if you choose the destroy option and have a high rating. Which was confusing because the citadel, and catalyst apparently explode, so did he/she somehow survive re-entry to earths orbit?
…and then Shepard wakes up in the rubble of London and the player realizes that the past 10 minutes were just a dream and the game ends with uncle Stargazer.
A lot of people don’t enjoy ambiguity. A lot of people also didn’t feel like their choices mattered anymore when the ending came. It was a non-sequitur to what had happened up till then and given the context of ME and ME2 where the ending truly was different based on your choices throughout thr game, ME3 seemed to break from this mold.
I was the one who mentioned that, but you either misunderstood or are misremembering what I said. I said any unofficial explanation like the one you came up with, OR the ones anyone else like the fans who think the Mass Relays would destroy the systems ALL seem like Fan Fiction to me. Unless it’s clearly shown what happened, I was saying that it all feels like Fan Fiction to me to argue one way or another.
Just to clarify, just like with the appearance of my two squadmates on the Normandy, the destruction of the Mass Relays is something that I felt was an example of sloppy plot holes on the part of Bioware, and one of the reasons the ending felt so poorly done to me. On the one hand, I didn’t think Bioware really meant to imply that my two teammates abandoned me, but since they were both shown getting off the ship, that seemed like the only explanation that made sense given what were shown. Similarly, I didn’t think that Bioware intended to have the Mass Relays destroy all the solar systems they were in, but they just forgot about that tidbit when they made the ending. It just showed the sloppy nature of the endings to me, where to you it showed an open-ended ending where you could fill in your own blanks. What I was saying earlier is that having to fill in my own blanks when seeing inconsistencies feels like fan fiction to me, and at that point, why not just going with whatever ending I want to write instead of going with Bioware’s? That seems like a pointless exercise to me. When I’m reading/watching a piece of fiction, I want to see what the author’s intent was, not make up my own. Now if the intent was intentionally ambiguous, that’s one thing, but I think in this case they were just sloppy.
Kadayi
3152
Really? Then cite them.
And I don’t know where the hell you’re going with this Bill O’Reilly crap.
Too funny.
The mass relays aren’t destroyed, not as of the release of the extended ending DLC. Let’s hear it for progress!
They plugged a continuity hole. Nothing more, nothing less. Fundamentally nothing changed, they just rounded out the ending(s) as were.
Not really.
Both games were really good until the last 5% which was extremely disappointing and unexpected. Both games had fans guessing that the extremely disappointing and low quality (relative to the rest of the content) ending was due to the game being rushed/unplanned at the end.
Mass effect 3 got an official ending fix (attempt) but from what i hear, it still isn’t good. Kotor 2 did not get an official fix, but fans have thrown together a couple mega patches which help a ton supposedly. I have not had a chance to play through either ending fix attempt yet, but plan to for both. From reading the opinion of others it sounds like the kotor 2 restoration patches were more successful in fixing the story problems, but again, second hand.
Bioware does get points in this case for being the one to try to fix the ending, where as with kotor 2, fans had to do it.
Anyway, as a general comment, i think it is pretty clear that the reason they made the mass effect relays not be destroyed is not because fans were complaining about that (because i don’t think most were) but because they wanted to make another game using the same space travel mechanics and general universe.
I really don’t care about the mass relays. Make them explode, don’t, i don’t care. If you want to kill the main character, fine, people like that stuff, as long as it is done well (see the genophage scene). The problem comes when you kill the main character to a long running series in an anticlimactic, underwhelming way that is a poorly supported, random plot twist.
Imagine you’re watching terminator 2 and in the end, instead of the final battle, a dragon appears out of thin air, stomps on both terminators and tells John Connor that this is all a dream and needs to wake up in order to save the Space Elves from destruction. Then the credits roll for mass effect 3.
Do you really, seriously, think they destroyed them at first, and then later on thought: oh wait, perhaps we can still use them in ME 4, lets just fix them? Because surely ME4, or at least it’s story, was well under production before Bioware made the original ending of ME3. So unless both teams weren’t even speaking to each other, what you suggest is simply impossible…
As for the explosions destroying whole starsystems: I didn’t even consider that option until I read it here, and I can’t remember this cropping up in the early discussions about the ending either. Discussions about whole fleets starving and unable to return to their homeplanets, yes. But their homeplanets not even existing anymore, no. Oh well, I can understand how people could come to either conclusion.
RickH
3155
Thank you God of Unintentional Humor.
davidf
3156
Ok, in that sense I see your point. I find it hard to disagree, in fact. That the action we supported resulted in a better ending is great, but there is truth that it does come at the cost that ME3 will likely (and unfairly) reduced to the game that was more than anything else, the game with the bad ending.
It was so much more than that. I’d hate to see this be its final legacy.
Cite them. Really. So you’re not even reading the thread that you’re posting in, and you want me to do your homework for you. You don’t actually have to go back that far to find the very topics you raise exhaustively. Several times. With posters who have valid points to make. Go dig them up. Or don’t. It’s all the same to me.
Plugging a continuity hole, that’s what you’re going to run with? Why don’t you check out this video of the original ending, jump to about the 8:18 mark or so, where you can see the Catalyst’s signal routing through a mass relay which then blows up. I’d like to know how changing the ending so that the mass relays just get better is plugging a continuity hole. But I’d rather hear it from someone who has a serious argument.
Not surprised. Here’s the critical difference: Obsidian, the development house that created KotOR 2, has been quite vocal about how much they wish they could have ended that game, and polished quite a few other aspects of that game. They knew the game they released was incomplete but had to go with what they had. Chris Avellone has given his blessing publicly to the restoration project, saying how happy he is that the game is getting a proper ending.
Contrast that with Mass Effect 3. Your pointless anecdotes about dragons and space elves aside, this game had an ending. It worked. It pissed a lot of people off, but what are you gonna do. Besides rewrite the ending to hopefully un-piss off a lot of people I guess, but hey. You haven’t heard Casey Hudson or the the doctors or anyone else tell you that they knowingly released an incomplete or broken game. There may be a posting on Penny Arcade from someone who may have written part of the game expressing dissatisfaction, but apparently he no longer feels that way either. Bioware acted according to outside pressure to change the end of the game. That is nothing at all like what happened to KotOR 2.
Yeah, I was kind of hoist by my own petard there. But that’s probably my biggest objections about this whole issue. I do take seriously that whole “artistic intent” thing, even when I think the quality of Mass Effect is so uneven. But I mostly hate how the “narrative” of Mass Effect 3 – my favorite game in a series that I mostly haven’t cared about and a damn fine bit of space opera that finally figured out how to effectively meld an RPG and a shooter, and with a crackling good co-op multiplayer feature, to boot! – is about the ending and not the game itself. Just look at this thread. :(
-Tom
Yeah, we don’t have to guess about KOTOR2’s ending being rushed or unfinished. It was literally released months ahead of the original scheduled release date, not because the game was done, but because LucasArts decided it should be released. And since LucasArts controls the IP (and I assume owns the rights to the game itself as well), Obsidian hasn’t been -able- to fix the ending.
I think KOTOR 2’s ending feels a lot like ME3’s, and I otherwise think comparisons between the two are fair, but there’s no evidence that Bioware was forced to release ahead of schedule or with an ending that they were unhappy with as far as I know.
RickH
3160
Yeah, that’s a pisser and I hope it doesn’t happen again. This crap will all blow away when the next ME is announced. Hopefully.
