Posted on: Friday, June 22nd, 2012
Posted in: News
Comments: 303
Mass Effect 3′s Ending will be Fixed on June 26th
Bioware will put out the Extended Cut which will “expand” and “give closure” to the original ending in Mass Effect 3 come June 26th, just 3 months after its release. Credit must be given to Bioware for listening to the fans and actually doing something about it, whether or not it pays off depends on whats actually in the content, but they make it painfully clear that the content will not “change” the ending but rather just expand on it.
I don’t have a lot of confidence to be honest that this will magically make things right. Despite saying that they’ve seen youtube videos (hopefully ours included), read the bioware social network, and countless comments it seems to me like they will ignore the Indoctrination Theory, keep with their current “creative” ending, and rather simply address how they never properly gave closure to just the characters we knew and loved over the past 5 years. I doubt there will be any new gameplay or boss battle or “it-was-all-a-dream” moments. However, i’ll reserve judgement of the new content till I actually play it, who knows maybe they’ve found a satisfactory middle ground between their vision and our (better) Indoctrination Theory. =P
Important information from the FAQ on masseffect.com:
How much is the Extended Cut?
The Extended Cut is available to download at no additional charge.
What is included in the Extended Cut?
The Extended Cut expands on the endings of Mass Effect 3 through additional scenes and epilogue sequences. It provides more of the answers and closure that players have been asking for. It gives a sense of what the future holds as a result of the decisions made throughout the series. And it shows greater detail in the successes or failures based on how players achieved their endings.
What save game should I load to play the Extended Cut?
To experience the Extended Cut, load a save game from before the attack on the Cerberus Base and play through to the end of the game. The Extended Cut endings will differ depending on choices made throughout the Mass Effect series, so multiple playthroughs with a variety of different decisions will be required to experience the variety of possibilities offered by the new content.
- Related Posts:
-
Angry Rant: Metro LL Charges $5 for Hard Mode!
May 11, 2013
-
Star Trek The Game – Angry Rant
April 24, 2013
-
Defiance Launch – Angry Rant Vlog
April 10, 2013
-
The Fault Is Not In Our Stars
March 19, 2013
Gaming Comics
Glue
Unjust Battles
The Confessionist
Fight the Biscuit!
Crummy Deal
Recent Reviews
Metro: Last Light Angry Review
May 17, 2013
Star Command iOS Angry Review
May 6, 2013
Star Trek The Game Angry Review
April 30, 2013
Injustice Angry Review
April 19, 2013
Defiance Angry Review
April 12, 2013
Partners
303 thoughts on “Mass Effect 3′s Ending will be Fixed on June 26th”
okay …………… FUCK MASS EFFECT ENDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don’t feel the ending DLC made things better… in fact, it made things worse. It showed just how much this was just a PR move and there was no love and effort put in the ending. The additional dialogue just reveals further just how childish the Catalyst’s logic is. Many plot holes such as that involving dark energy were clearly just thrown in, AS was how your squadmates got off the planet. Seriously.. I don’t want to spoil it, but if you stop and think about it, there’s a huge issue with how they do it. They didn’t even do what was promised! Sure they explain the endings more, but the choices you made in ME1 and ME2 don’t influence the epilogue worth jack.
I could go on and on about this really, nitpicking almost every little detail. I mean, HELL, they don’t even add on to the gasping breath scene. I want to know wtf happens after that.
Oh, and Synthesis STILL makes no sense. Oh, organics and sythetics will never get along, so we’ll send this magical energy to make them ALL friends because suddenly everyone understands eachother! DNA doesn’t work that way first of all. Second, REALLY? There’s suddenly no more conflict because of this? Ever? HELLO? What kind of naive childish garbage is that? Look around you, take a look in the world today. There is conflict and war among ourselves. Lack of understanding isn’t the issue either. Even if someone understand someone else perfectly, that doesn’t mean they are going to get along. That isn’t how things work! This isn’t just a terrible ending, its an ending that defies all logic and breaks it down to again, childish naivity. I am flat out ashamed of BioWare for writing the Synthesis ending. I find it ASTOUNDING that anyone likes the Synthesis ending. You CAN’T justify that ending.
I seen on the bioware forum someone saying the ending because they didn’t see if Liara had babys…
I think people have lost their mind. This was biowares story the fans took part in. they didn’t say “please write in and tell us how to write stories”.
The endings from the EC took a rather horrible end and make it perfect depending on how -you- played.
Synthesis didn’t make sense to you..so surely you didn’t choose it.
My shep has always been about seeing the future.
He united the geth and quarians
he encouraged edi and joker
he liked his new implants
synthesis is something he seen as ideal..far more than destruction.
Your now moaning about how some endings didn’t fit your gameplay..
This means mass effect did it..they brought back personalized experience.
butthurt folks need to get over it or start your own development company. These various outcomes were what we wanted…nobody demanded indoc theory, we just toyed with the idea until we understood…and they did it well.
4/5 would be my verdict for the ending..but the game itself, including the ending is a 10/10
and I was very disappointed in the initial ending, also assumed this would be a bad slapped together yammering of how killing myself is cool…
Pity this wasn’t in the original content..but then again, if it was, we woudn’t have been talking about this for as long as we have.
could have been a marketing ploy
hmm
It isn’t just about play style. Even if you like the concept of synthesis, the logic is flawed HORRIBLY. If things were as simple as the synthesis ending implies, we’d have world peace TODAY! The mind DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY. DNA DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY! NOTHING works the way Synthesis tries to push and its naive bullcrap I gave up when I was a child because of finally understanding that things DON’T WORK THAT WAY. If your playstyle involves Synthesis, its a fantasy fairy tale dream because THINGS DON’T WORK THAT WAY. Not in the context of the real world and not in the context of ANYTHING shown previously in the Mass Effect universe.
The other choices aren’t any better except Refusal really because its the only one that didn’t defy logic. It didn’t defy the themes of the previous two games. I hated the refusal ending because EMS had no effect on it, but at least it fit the context. It wasn’t fantasy fairy tale bullshit.
Rate it a 100/10 for all I care, I expect GOOD writing out of a company like BioWare, not the garbage naive concepts of a five year old. No, I don’t care if that insults you because that’s EXACTLY what these endings were. They can’t be taken seriously at an intellectual level. At an emotional level? Perhaps for those who are able to ignore the many MANY flaws in all the choices.
Prove me wrong. Tell me how suddenly becoming cyborgs and understanding suddenly brings about peace. Tell me in the context of the Mass Effect universe how ANY of the choices work? The only one that might is Destroy as some sort of EMP device, but in everything else, they took the time to explain the pseudoscience. They established rules in their universe, then threw them out the window. It’d be like taking the force in the Star Wars universe and suddenly saying that a sufficiently powerful user can grant wishes. You can try to explain it all you want, but you’re still changing the rules of the universe, which is pretty unforgivably bad writing when done in the way they did it.
Seriously, I could go on with other issues too. For example: Normandy comes for evac… wait… isn’t Harbinger right there? Isn’t that suicidal? …he’s seriously ignoring the Normandy? Wow… biggest target in the field… would just need to sweep a beam up at it while roasting another target. No? Really? Just going to let it go? OK….
this may have been biowares story in ME3, but in ME1 and ME2 it was much more the players story than what ME3 was. The biggest problem with ME1 and ME2 was that those two games were were Drew K.’s and the players story, Mass effect 3 was Casey Hudsons, Mac walters, Patrick weeves and a few more unnamed writers story. The player was barely present in this iteration of the series, Its simply a case of someone else trying to interpret the original vision of the original author of a story. This is why Mass effect failed and why startrek succeeded, because Startrek was written by gene Roddenberry and he prepared scripts ahead of time for his series as a just in case for when he passed away, unfortunately star trek started failing hard because the original author of the series was no longer among us and now you have the new movie that obliterates the lore of the entire series in one shot.
I tell you now gene rodenberry is rolling in his grave over that travesty but I digress the point I’m trying to make is the moment drew was moved to the old republic mmo was the moment when mass effect died and I dare say the moment EA bought bioware was the day bioware died.
R.I.P bioware it was nice knowing you while your games were good.
I actually didn’t mind the new movie, though granted, it just doesn’t have that Star Trek feel anymore. Gene Roddenberry did indeed make that series, just like losing lead writers likely killed ME3 and DA2… whatever is happening in BioWare that drove them away? It needs to stop. It really does. Otherwise? Well? Guess I’ll keep track of what those writers are doing. Guarantee if they stay in gaming and get a job with a competent company they’ll bring them pretty great success in terms of storytelling.
So you agreed with Saren in the first game? Y’know, the guy who said that this was the best possible outcome, just like the starchild.
I write this begrudgingly because it’s hard to get over the fact that the slacked jawed mouth breathers of Bioware doled out slop on what was supposed to be the final opus in the grand epic called Mass Effect.
The Extended Cut is fine for what it is: a patch for a truly horrid ending. It fixes most of the plot holes and offers us fans some measure of closure, depending on what we choose as the final ending. Granted, that these supposed veterans of the gaming industry didn’t come up with this before the original release date is going to forever mystify me.
Artistic integrity, my ass.
That it took a public outcry and for the consumers, a.k.a. self entitled little emperors, voting you the worst company in the U.S.A. (EA) to get you to concede that you might have screwed up is still outrageously unforgivable.
So. Bioware. EA. Thank you. You fixed the ending to Mass Effect 3. It’s not the glorious epic ending I feel you were building up to, but what we finally got will have to do.
But be warned. Corporate entitlement is a bad business model. Do not continue this delusion that you can produce a substandard product and expect us, the consumer, to reward you with our money. With Dragon Age 2 and now Mass Effect 3, you are on thin ice.
Fuck with us at your own peril.
EA’s been on thin ice for a while. I should have known ME3 would be bad after seeing the slap in the face that was D2′s advertising “your mom will hate dead space 2″ A jab at conservative america while also attacking the government gaming ban supreme court decision, while I agree with the decision the court gave what bothered me was EA’s view of the gaming community as a whole. Now I look for the political messages in all of EA’s advertisements and games and its not hard to see all you need is a little context and a good history lesson.
Alright, I know some people were a bit miffed about the red ending still having Shepard taking a breath in the rubble, because it made no apparent sense.
However, if you watch the scene where, normally, your love interest puts your name up on the Normandy’s memorial wall, in the red ending they hesitate, as if there was uncertainty about his/her fate (whereas in the other two colour-coded endings, it’s obvious that Shepard doesn’t make it). This is followed by that slow zoom through the rubble, followed by the breath intake.
To me, this means that Shepard lives in the red ending. At least that’s how I interpret it. The red ending isn’t bad, but I personally place it 3rd. I like the Blue ending best, and the green ending 2nd best.
No spoilers here:
Did the synthesis ending.
Now, I was grumpy at the original ending…figured this new ending would only try to bridge the understanding as to why I would do any of these three.
I am amazed at how well the tied up most of the critical aspects…it truely was a fantastic ending and I am fully happy with it. Now wanting to try the other endings.
The indoctrination theory was a good idea while they worked on giving us the proper extended ending…but this is far more relevant and frankly…better.
Thing is, people are discussing which ending is the best…no longer saying the ending sucked…but rather, why one ending or another is better..like debating if Liara or Ashley is better to hook up with (for me..Miranda all the way).
Back on the Bioware fan wagon…now…lets see how they do with dragon age titles in the future…
Here is why I say rejection is the only decent ending out of the four.
The Start Child:
The Star Child’s solution to synthetics destroying their organic creators, is to create synthetics that destroy races capable of creating highly advanced synthetics. It works out to being destroying the parents so that they won’t have children who destroy their parents.
Teenage rebellion is a fact of life and this is what the Starchild’s reasoning alludes to, yet as any adult knows killing your parents isn’t generally a part of growing up unless you are Bioware apparently.
And we see this in the Geth versus Quarian conflict – the Geth rebelled against their creators, but still desire a relationship with them and are quite happy to live in peace with them. The angry teenager growing up to being the responsible adult.
Synthesis:
Synthesis is stupid from one major thing: evolution does not work that way.
Evolution does not provide simple to distinguish stages – on organism is not in a more advanced stage of evolution than another. This is why devolution is a bullshit term, evolution simply means change over time, evolution via natural selection simply means change to better survive the conditions you are in.
It is survival of the fittest, not survival of the best. The Lamarkian underpinnings of the Star-child have been thoroughly debunked in our universe, and Mass Effect obeys the rules of our universe except where stated otherwise.
Similarly the “new DNA” is full of fail itself. DNA is not a mystic substance that defines artificial versus manufactured, it is simply chemistry which we, in the comparitively un-advanced present are already learning to manipulate.
So the gap between synthetic and “organic” is simply which one occurred naturally and which one was manufactured – so what of a life form manufactured using genetic engineering? Wouldn’t this already be synthesis? Wouldn’t Grunt be synthesis? A DNA life-form engineered in a lab?
In fact given that this is the distant future we are talking about – genetic engineering is already a part of the universe. If synthesis is a solution, it is a solution that already happened.
Control:
This is full of fail because Mass Effect does not actually have souls exist per se. When Legion is said to have a soul it is not a reference to some mystic something else, but more a reference to a level of sentience being attained.
Legion’s plot in this game is already problematic, why would copying himself destroy himself? We live in a world where copy-paste exists and information can be transmitted without destroying the original. The same problem crops up with Shepherd right at the end, why would simply copying the data that makes up Shepherd’s mind require Shepherd’s destruction?
The comparitively primitive Reaper enhanced Geth created a means for organic life to enter their hive mind without destroying that life. Wouldn’t the far more advanced being that created the Reapers be able to manage better?
And remember, if you made the right choices the Geth were involved in making the crucible.
Further this is exactly what was being attempted by the Illusive Man and Saren from the first game, and in both cases it didn’t work, so why would Shepherd assume that it would work for him simply on the word of a self-confessed megomaniacally omnicidal AI that does not appear to be particularly interested in ceasing to exist?
Destruction:
This was the best of the old endings, and is now the second best current ending. The reason for this is that it sets the galaxy free of the influence of the Reapers. While the other endings now involve Reaper Tech being used by the rest of the races of the galaxy, this ending shows the galaxy developing independent of it.
However there are still major issues with it. Every race uses synthetics in their ships, and the Quarians are themselves partially synthetic. Their suits use limited VI capabilities to keep them alive.
And why are we shooting the bomb again? Normally you shoot things to make them stop working.
And if the blast doesn’t discriminate why are the migrant fleet still alive? And not even really sick for that matter? While the epilogue clearly shows that the assumed effect didn’t happen, why didn’t it happen?
This ending would have been better played as fully dark as its implications, which brings me to the final ending, the only one that is actually reasonably good as per the story thus far, even though it was intended as an insult…
Rejection:
Why is this the most satisfying ending? Because it fits the narrative a lot more closely than every other one of them.
It takes Liara’s stone thrown into the future and uses it as the basis for the next cycle winning the war against The Reapers. This is the only ending that actually builds on something that was present in the rest of the game.
Every single other ending exists materially independent of the rest of the game. Sure you get pictures of Krogan babies and all of that, but this is the only ending that really hinges on something that happened in the actual game.
It is the only ending that is not generic, that could not be slapped onto an entirely different game for much the same result. It is the only ending that is an ending to Mass Effect, rather than to the last ten minutes of Mass Effect.
And it is the ending that was intended as an insult. Think about that.
Oh, I wish people would stop calling Catalyst the “Star Child” now. He’s no longer the star child. Especially given the rather well explained history of Catalyst. If anything Catalyst to me is now an ultimate Rogue VI (Virtual Intelligence). **SPOILERS** DON’T READ FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW… An organic race from very long ago is in a war against a synthetic race they themselves created. In an attempt to find a way to end the war, they create Catalyst to come up with a “Solution” to resolve this conflict. Catalyst tries a few things and fails. Then Catalyst comes up with the “ultimate” solution and destroys it’s creator race and transforms them in to the first reaper (against their will obviously). Then repeats the cycle every 50,000 years each cycle creating more reapers from new races.
Catalyst is genocidal. But doesn’t just leave it at that. He also mutates all he destroys to create more reapers to do his bidding. Catalyst reminds me of a more “clinically” cold and calculated version of SHODAN from System Shock 1 and 2. Except Catalyst doesn’t taunt you while doing it. I’m quite happy with how the new endings turned out. It’s given far more depth to the Reapers and Catalyst. And has (at least for me) removed the Star Child moniker from the game for good.
Don’t insult “Systems Shock 2″ brilliant writing making it an analogy to ME. Catalyst is nothing like Shodan. Shodan’s a villain, Catalist is a freakin’ Deus Ex Machina.
I’m not insulting system shock’s brilliant writing. Nor am I saying Catalyst is a better villain than SHODAN. In fact I still think SHODAN is the best video game villain of all time. I have yet to see a video game villain that tops her. And yes I agree with you regarding the deus ex machina comparison. But make no mistake. There are similarities between Catalyst and SHODAN. They are both artificial intelligences. In regards to their methods, they both killed their creators. And they both altered/mutated/transformed their victim’s into machinations/creatures of their own design and used/controlled their creations/minions to achieve their own ends. Catalyst and SHODAN do share this parallel and no amount of nostalgic offense you may feel will ever change that. However, that’s as far as their similarities go. Which is why I was very careful to emphasize the term “clinically” cold and calculated when describing Catalyst. Where as SHODAN was malicious, mischievous and downright sadistic. Damn I loved SHODAN. I still hope to one day see a “proper” System Shock 3. Notice how I just emphasized the word “proper” in the previous sentence? That’s where their similarities end. Catalysts driving ambition was to achieve the goal of finding a permanent solution to the conundrum for which itself was created to solve in the first place. SHODAN’S driving ambition was to become a veritable god reshaping/mutating all life to creations of her own vision of perfection to worship her. So yes, there are vast differences between SHODAN and Catalyst, but there are a couple parallels. So yes, my analogy is accurate and valid. And so is yours in regards to pointing out SHODAN is a villain where as Catalyst is a deus ex machina.
You appear to use the most broad definition to an AI menace imaginable. By that definition “HAL 9000″ (“2001: A Space Odyssey” film), “Skynet” (“Terminator” movie series) and V.I.K.I. (“I, Robot” movie) are all like crucible. Saying that AI is cold and calculative is saying nothing, it’s a tautology.
Shodan’s creations (The Many) also abandoned her, whilst the reapers didn’t abandon the crucible. Not to mention that Shodan was a central villain of the series, whilst Bioware pulled star child right out of their asses. How long was he in the series? 15 minutes tops and don’t say it’s harbinger, harbinger is a totally different character.
That’s why I’m saying that equating Shodan to crucible is an insult. Star child’s a deus ex machina abomination that crawled out of some EA/Bioware top douche’s butt as a publicity stunt, a meta statement and an instrument to control franchise’s future. The extended cut is just some salt upon our wounds and an insult even greater (Nope, you lose!).
Just how do I lose? You’ve used nothing but crap, flawed logic to try to contradict my argument. Except, you’ve failed miserably. I’m just going to argue your points:
“You appear to use the most broad definition to an AI menace imaginable. By that definition “HAL 9000″ (“2001: A Space Odyssey” film), “Skynet” (“Terminator” movie series) and V.I.K.I. (“I, Robot” movie) are all like crucible.”
First of all, IT’S CATALYST. Not Crucible. Crucible is the device you built to fight against Catalyst. Did you even play the game? Second, No HAL, Skynet and VIKI are not good comparisons. Maybe VIKI’s motivation to a small extect, but not HAL 9000 nor Skynet. HAL and Skynet have no similarities to Catalyst, because both only try to kill their creators. They don’t transform or mutate them into their own creations to control. Nothing like that. And VIKI only removed freedom as a means of protection to accomplish her programming. So again, where is this crap argument coming from, because it fails miserably to contradict my argument.
“Shodan’s creations (The Many) also abandoned her, whilst the reapers didn’t abandon the crucible.”
Again, it’s Catalyst. SHODAN’s creations (The Many) didn’t abandon her until the System Shock 2. In System Shock 1 she did exactly as I described. Mutating her victims into creations of her own design to do her bidding. Did you play System Shock 1? You’re argument about them rebelling against SHODAN in the 2nd game is just an exercise in pedantics.
“Not to mention that Shodan was a central villain of the series, whilst Bioware pulled star child right out of their asses. How long was he in the series? 15 minutes tops ”
Again, I agreed with you on that point. I’ve never tried to compare Catalyst to SHODAN in a comparing who’s the better villain as that would be an exercise in futility. SHODAN’s the best, hands down. I wasn’t comparing them against each other. I was comparing the method by which they executed their plans. Or are you just too blind to see that without getting nostalgically offended again.
“That’s why I’m saying that equating Shodan to crucible is an insult.”
Again, comparing methods of execution. Not equating. This was never a competition. You’re too damn touchy like a redneck in the bible belt getting mad at scientists for saying dinosaurs existed and quoting evolution and you screaming back illogically back, that god put those bones in the ground to test our faith. And yes, that is an argument I’ve heard a bible thumper use. It was the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard.
As far as whether you liked the extended cut or not, that’s your opinion. But your feelings have no bearing on whether my comparison of methods had validity or not simply because I may have made the supposedly sacrilegious mistake in your “book” of using System Shock as a point of comparison. So again… How do I lose?
Bignick277, cruscible or catalyst, whatever – it’s a question of semantics not syntax. You lose because you somehow mistook idiocy for brilliance in the sudden appearance of “catalyst”, what’s even worse you tried to equate it to things far better.
Shodan was established as a series’ villain basically once it started. The story had Shodan in mind all along unlike catalyst, crucible, star child, annoying AI brat, whatever you like to call it. That one isn’t even a villain, it’s an agricultural harvester collecting living things and turning them into goo. Why it does what it does makes little sense and why it ceases to do what it does makes even less sense. Not to mention the fact that it appeared on the podium just before the front curtain was lowered.
A villain doesn’t stop if asked nicely, a villain will bash your head on a toilet sink and proceed to laugh as you drawn in your own blood, talking about how our morals are but a simple construct, nothing else.
Star child tries to sell you some bullshit about how the creations will always rebel against its creator, yet it gives up after you talk to it for a minute.
And no, “System Shock 2″ is not a bible, it’s not a dogma, but its writing is light years ahead of anything ME has to offer.
Why HAL and the rest? Because they are all cold and calculative as I said. By your own logic your comparison to Shodan fails, because The Many rebelled against her, the reapers did no such thing.
Comparing Shodan to ME3 star child is like comparing Yoda to Jar-jar Binks.
Oh, yeah and “pedantics” have nothing to do with it. My argument stands because it happened in the canon of the series, SS2 is canon to SS.
If we’re really taking “pedantics” here it’s you weaseling out by the means of comparing their methods. You’re wrong even there: the Many are a conscious species, unlike the reapers that are just mindless drones.
That’s why the reapers, going against catalyst’s own argument will never be able to rebel against its creator, the star child.
Oh… I get it now… You can’t read. I’m so sorry. I hope you don’t get made fun of too much for your lack of ability. Let’s try this one last time. Again I’ve not said once that I even liked Catalyst. I’ve agreed with you multiple times that Catalyst isn’t a villain. And yet you still claim I’m insulting system shock by equating it to mass effect. I will say it one last time and maybe, but not likely you might understand this time. Catalysts method of execution IE destroying civilizations and transforming/mutating them into creations of his own design to achieve his own goals reminds me of a more “cold and calculated” version of SHODAN’s method of execution. Let me guess. You still don’t get it. You still think I’m comparing Catalyst to SHODAN principally. You think I’m supporting Catalyst as a legitimate villain and putting him up on a pedestal to be revered with the likes of SHODAN. Again, I am doing none of these things. I don’t really like Catalyst. But I am glad to understand what makes him tick better now that the extended cut has elaborated on him. And my original point is still valid. Again, I will say it one last time. I AM NOT COMPARING CATALYST TO SHODAN. I WAS COMPARING CATALYST’S METHOD TO SHODAN’S METHOD. If you can not see that, then I can’t help you. It is not my job to teach you how to read nor how to interpret and understand the english language. Respond however you like, I won’t be wasting any more of my time on your uselessness.
Oh, I think I got you mad. Am I detecting more and more ad hominems from you? It is of course always the right argument.
“Catalyst reminds me of a more “clinically” cold and calculated version of SHODAN from System Shock 1 and 2. Except Catalyst doesn’t taunt you while doing it.” and “They are both artificial intelligences. In regards to their methods, they both killed their creators. And they both altered/mutated/transformed their victim’s into machinations/creatures of their own design and used/controlled their creations/minions to achieve their own ends.” – your quotes by the way.
Trying to weasel your way out later by comparing their methods and their methods only didn’t do you any good either, as I said: Shodan CREATED A SENTIENT RACE whilst catalyst CREATED A BATCH OF DRONES. There is a huge difference between the two, so I conclude that even their methods are not similar.
The only similarity they share is really that they’re both AI, but so are HAL, VIKI and Skynet. Once again: too broad of a definition.
Star Child will still be called Star Child by me because his logic is childish. “Even you are partially synthetic. Could you see living your life without them?” I wouldn’t say “that’s besides the point”. I’d say, “…yes… yes I could. If they aren’t vital to my survival, sure. I got along just fine without them before the Lazarus project. You told me such a change can’t be forced and yet you’re SUGGESTING I force it on everyone else? No.”
Almost every statement made by the little bastard can be countered by the simplest of logic. Grade school level logic, middle school at best really. Its sad and pathetic really. They really shouldn’t have thrown out the intentions of the original lead writer, because they CLEARLY couldn’t write it better than he could.
Correct me if i’m wrong the “refusal” ending is another miss opportunity to makie your in-game choices & war assets matter. We could have here many variation from this Liara thing to a final victory against the Reapers against all odds. Another sub-ending were Reapers aren’t vaquished but forced to retreat, etc….
Yeah. I know. This is been made as a big finger from BW/EA to the people who refused to eat their precious “Artistic integrity” but still. i’ld gladly waited a few months more just to see this missed opportunity…^^
Sorry i missed a few words. That’s what happen sometimes when i’m typing too fast.
You’ve pretty much just stated exactly why they never would have gone for it: it’s an insult to all us “idiots” out there.
Despite it being the most logical answer because it doesn’t involve fairy tale space magic or a choice no one has the right to make. Or, you know…. listening to your enemy when you’re literally in a position to threaten him… you know.. one of those enemies who have shown to lie, cheat, and manipulate their ways to victory and it would be completely out of character for them to help you no matter how they justify it…
Well said, Kuari.
Yes This time I can say that the ending is well done. For me it is green color.
I do know that in red ending Shepard takes is last breath but I will stick with the synthesis ending as the best for me.
I took exception at the ME3 ending because I felt it was sloppy. I was prepared to face with controversial ideas, but when I saw the execution it was only obvious to me that Bioware had dropped the bar. This is what disappointed me and marred my final memories of my otherwise wonderful experience playing the Mass Effect series.
The Extended Cut ending is many things, but sloppy isn’t one of it. Bioware goes in it and tells the story it wants to tell, and it’s now reasonably well told and fleshed out.
I do feel the choices offer are polarized, and don’t offer the ideal outcomes I would have liked from them. I am not thrilled that there is little personal happiness involved in the pivotal choices made by Shepard. Destroy feels like the most appropriate ending, though I don’t my victory coming at the expense of EDI and the Geth. Synthesis feels like it was supposed to be a god ending, but Shepard’s sacrifice for it and the very visible circuitboard skin effect it bestows is hard for me to find satisfying.
I think the most irksome part of the EC was when the Normandy was facing off Harbinger during the pickup of the squadmates. I was like ‘Thanix Cannon, fire!”… but no, just turn tail and run. Pssh.
But, ME3 is now a complete game. That much is laudable, I feel.
I tried the red and the new 4th ending. The red ending is much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much BETTER than it was. There are still some annoying stupid things in it but whatever.
The new 4th ending is a Biotroll ending, it’s just lol.
I won’t touch the green and blue ending for a few days though.
I can tell you that the blue ending is MUCH better as well. And the biotroll ending is still good
Thanks but after trying the end still sucks, Shepard has little more opinion with the reaper child but the best trilogy ever is still fu***d up
I don’t know about you guys, but as far as I’m concerned, I’m gonna go with MY OWN ending on this one.
Everything after the Harbinger beam was not only indoctrination, but Shepard wakes up in the rubble to Anderson and his/her love interest who tells him that somehow his dream-like/indoctrination state caused the The Reaper’s program to malfunction and shutdown, thereby destroying the Reapers.
The Illusive Man killed himself. All of Sheppard’s squadmates who died will be brought back using Project Lazarus.
And the galaxy has hereby named Sheppard, the President of the Galaxy……
Sheppard’s first proposal to outlaw the words “EA” and “Bioware” unanimously passes the Galactic Senate.
The End.
And ohhh yeah, the Crucible emits a purple light and has the words: Bad MuthaF@#@er on it… you know, just so you’re absolutely sure that THIS ending is artsy and different.
How about this – Shepard is still asleep before entering the Illusive Man’s base. He woke up within the dream and, in fact, the indoctrination attempt took place before he ever even had a chance to find out what the catalyst was. If you choose control or synthesis, you wake up as a zombie and in fact slaughter all of your squadmates and fight alongside the Illusive Man and the Reapers. If you choose destroy or refusal, you wake up and find your love interest performing explicit acts on you, then reveals that the war was won without you because the reapers were allergic to apples, or something. The crucible, it turns out, is actually a replication of the theatre in Sheffield where the world snooker championship takes place, and the final scene is a reanimated Jimmy White winning the title while Shepard and his crew watch on in comedy sunglasses and beer hats.
I will always pick the Rejection or destruction choice. When I picked destruction I felt like we had achieved our goals, and realistically. It wasn’t rainbows and unicorns, the present was dark, but the future looked full of hope. Thats what I always thought the game was about, hope. Rejection meanwhile is the most “shepardy” choice. “This is not a game where we are only given three options, this is life. and in life we are given freedom, the freedom to forge our own destinies. So fuck you and your space magic, we will end this with the blood and sweat from our brows. And if we are doomed to die, we will pass on everything we know to the next who come. There is always hope, even if it is just out of our grasp..eventually..someone tall enough will reach it. So no, I reject all your endings. and if I die..I die knowing that it was my choice, and mine alone.” “So be it” *BOOM!!!!* Transmission from liara..and blam, a quality ending.
Close but no cigar. Two major flaws for me, why the hell couldn’t we win with Reject and why couldn’t we see shep walk about of the rubble in Destroy ending? So close! all they had to do. Yet still better than the original.
Do we know for sure that you can’t win with rejection? I remember when it was first suggested, the guy who came up with it said you should be able to win but only with an EMS rating of 7000+. Considering most people who’ve played the DLC probably haven’t played multiplayer for weeks and therefore are nowhere near that threshold, is it possible I wonder that someone will discover that 7000+ leads to the super-secret happy ending? Either way, it’s nice to have the option.
Played it through with 7408 EMS. Same ending. Shepard takes a breath under a pile of rubble… yeah.
Yeah it’s been tested, there’s no way to “win” rejection. It was bioware’s way of thumbing their noses at the gamers and saying “we know better than you, you don’t like the ending deal with it.” They took a step forward by trying to explain things but two steps back with that unprofessional stab at the fans of their series.
If that so, I’m regret to spend 2GB space…
EC was great. It closes a lot of plot holes.
I enjoyed the new endings they were definitely more satisfying than the originals which were so full of plot holes. The only problem I had was that with the destroy ending the breath scene was still there! I hate that because it’s just another loose end that wasn’t tied up.
the best part of the EC was the new message from BioWare at the end.
Sure it still is a Deus Ex rip off, but at least it filled in the Mass Effect plot holes.
it bumps the ending from a 3 to a 7 in my book
Just added filler. Although it was nice to see why Joker fled and it was nice to see a few loose ends tied up….. But still shit on a stick endings….. arms up and walking away from EA and Bioware.
I loved the new endings, I even clapped at the end in solitude. However, there are some issues I take with it even still. They definitely improved greatly and I enjoyed learning more about the future as well as the past.
For one thing, They removed the option to save at the critical choice. So now, if you want to see all four (yes four) endings with your characters choices. You must sit through all the convos with the catalyst and the Illusive Man (plus other animations). So now, you essentially have to quit before the credits and extra scene are done with and load the auto-save to end up at the decision point.
I’ve NEVER been able to save manually at the final choice. The last time I’ve been able to save was just before taking on the six brutes. What platform were you using? Mine was 360.
On PC, I have a save just prior to going up to the citadel. Just before Marauder Shields tries to stop me from going up.
I have seen all four endings its official EA is trying to warn us of political agendas that destroy freedom and democracy. Either that or we are looking into the minds of bankers as to what they want for the people. Hint freedom is not amongst that list.
Damn, though I knew deep down they were only going to add more content on the original, I seriously thought that the Indoctrination Theory would the the ace in the hole, but at least they filled in some of the more bigger plot holes and added a Refusal ending. But sadly it isn’t really at all that much better, still I feel Bioware has done it’s piece and it is doubtful they will ever change it.
But hell it is certainly an improvement over the awful excuse of an original ending, but that is not saying much. Ultimately this EC should have been in the original.
And on a note, The Refusal Ending is a big “screw you!” if you wanted something that wasn’t word for word a Deus Ex rip-off ending, But at least isn’t a clone of the other 3.
But one thing that I am still confused about is why does the Normandy still crash when it shows other ships running away and apparently unharmed? Why even include the scene at all if the next minute you show them leaving?
And I wish their was a boss fight at the end, it still feels a little anti-climatic without one in my opinion.
Yes, that was REALLY out of place. They should have amended that scene and showed them regrouping or something. Very odd.
I was thinking about that too…but…I THINK the reason the Normandy is fleeing is because of EDI…he doesn’t her to be destroyed or controlled? Just a thought…
you have mist the fact that joker dint want to leave.
so the normandy was the last ship to retreat.
bycose of that is was the only ship to get stuck in the blast
*Waits on pins and needles for Joe’s opinion.*
You and me both.
So here we have it. Basicaly. They just clarify the reason why the Normandiy fleed, they add a few closures & make clear the mass relays didn’t exploded.
Thank you YouTube for sparring me 1,85Gigs…
Actually, they do end up wrecked…I haven’t done the Synth or Destroy ending yet, but they can be repaired in the Blue ending at least.
Of course, we did get to a great big fuck-you to the Starchild with the new 4th ending.
After finishing the conversation, I did what I tried on the original ending – walking back to the elevator to see if I could leave. That didn’t work, so out of frustration I shot the kid. That was a HUGE moment to discover there was a rejection option. I’d like to think that someone will find out you can defeat the reapers through rejection with a high enough EMS score, but either way it’s just good to have the option.
The Star-Brat remains, RBG remains, slideshow closure cannot fix those overwhelming problems.
Oh, and Bioware added a fourth ending, if you shoot the Star-Brat and refuse his options, i’ts like “Fine, you don’t like the three choices you were given? You and all your friends can die then!” The Reapers then win. The End.
Seems like a great big middle finger to everyone who wanted a non Deus Ex ending.
I agree, it is an improvement but on a whole not a vast one.
It is now June 26, 2012 and Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut DLC is out. I have seen all four, I repeat FOUR “Possible” endings and this is my conclusion.
Bioware destroy the Mass Effect Series with this Vanilla favored dialogue end THAT STILL TASTE LIKE SHIT!! NO INDOCTRINATION THEORY, NO EPIC BOSS AND NO MUPTILE ENDS!!!
I only thing I say to your all: Do not get this DLC, Do not buy any Bioware Games agian and my last and most importuned advice: do not buy any Games with EA Logo on it.
Here is also like to The Indoctrination Theory – A Documentary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caAqFFhBn2U&feature=related
The extended ending is TOTAL BULLSHIT why did they fucking reject the indoctrination theory that is the most retarded move in game history and every ending IS THE SAME BUT WITH DIFFERENT VOICES and some OTher different scenes and whats worst they took out when Shepard wa breathing in the destroy decision this is just a trick to line up for a stupid sequel and make more $ I know I’m ranting but for fuck sake bioware do a fucking better job they saw a fucking opportunity and they just smack it away that bullshit maan joe it extremely right man they would reject the super smart indoctrination theory and tell is to fuck off they ruin dragon age 2 now mass effect FUCKKK!!!!
Finally, I meet another who hates what Bioware did to Dragon Age 2! Welcome up board!
I still got the breathing scene from the destroy ending… maybe a glitch?
Nah, they kept it from the orginal, or so I have heard.
The extended ending is TOTAL BULLSHIT why did they fucking reject the indoctrination theory that is the most retarded move in game history and every ending IS THE BUT WITH DIFFERENT VOICES and some OTher different scenes and whats worst they took out when Shepard wa breathing in the destroy decision this is just a trick to line up for a stupid sequel and make more $ I know I’m ranting but for fuck sake bioware do a fucking better job they saw a fucking opportunity and they just smack it away that bullshit maan
As much as I loved the Indoctrination Theory and was blown away by how much sense it made, the bottom line is that Bioware clearly didn’t intend it. I actually have to back Bioware on this one, they stayed true to their vision while addressing the major issues with their ending instead of taking the easy way out. Would Indoctrination have been awesome? Hell yes. Would it have made sense? Yup. But, it wasn’t what they wanted. I respect the fact that they found a compromise and even provided another ending choice while keeping their original view for the series somewhat in tact, albeit amended.
The endings are still crap.
I’m happy we get an epilogue and some additional scenes before the “ending-crap”. But the worst part of the game stays as it was.
The two worst things were not improved.
The “godchild” stays.
The mass-relay destruction stays.
I still hope for an alternative ending.
If the game would automatically skip to the destruction (red) ending, after the crucible connects to the citadel (so we don’t have to see the “guardian of the cycle”), the ending would be acceptable (not good, but acceptable).
So ExtC. Dlc:
plot hole 1:
UR team members somehow teleported to the ship AGAIN,but u see they interact with joker
plot hole 2:
Y did ur squad mates leave u
plot hole 3:
Normandy crashes from the blast wave,but the other ships did not,it was fixed,but still ….
i’m not gonna count the stupid shit,I think it’s better but it’s like a piece of paper that has a hole and they put another one to fill in the hole,They don’t realy fix the hole rather then just covering them up
Hate to say it but those plot holes are fixed
1 and 2, Joker comes to pick up your teammates because they were both injured by Harbingers beam and the chaos it caused
3. Joker stayed behind to try and pick you up but had to leave to avoid the blast, but was too late and behind the fleet
Have just watched all four endings. They’re still crap, though at least now they are at least varied crap.
The new ending is basically the best for ending the story from a writing perspective, though it would have been nice to have seen galactic assets mattering at all.
Seems like the ending they should have made in the first place. Very democratic situation: Bioware did a bad job on the ending, public let them know and they responded. They’ll be studying this situation in “gamer school” for years…
Thanks to the net, I could watch the endings without actually having to redo the two last dungeons. Which gives me an opportunity to reminisce, and quote myself:
Ahem….
What I wrote in the Top 10 reason Joe @ co hate Mass Effect 3 ending:
What do we see in the extended cut? Hackett doing exactly what I said he would do: giving everyone -including a reuctant Joker- the order to get away from the Citadel. And, what a shock, we see military personel executing a superior officier’s order.
***
The colored wave are shown spreading through the galaxy, and all they do is killing/controlling/mutating reapers, not igniting the Milky Way
***
What do we see? We see Krogans coming back home despite the lack of Mass Relay and Quarian metropolises
So nope: FTL travel still exists and Quarians do not starve.
***
As I just said: we see the Krogans coming back home and we also see Wrex holding his kid.
Just as I said happened when people were complaining about the original ending.
***
What happens if you refuse to choose one of the crucible-induced bittersweet endings?
Oh yeah: you lose: turns out the Reapers are indeed too strong for conventional warfare and without the crucible the galaxy is screwed once again.
And in fact, this is a ballsy move from Bioware to add this way to tell the happy-ending fetichists to fuck off.
***
Which is demonstrated by the added dialogue options. Preserving the DNA of teh species as well as remembering their culture and realizations is explicitely stated by the catalyst to be its chosen form of “preservation”, and if Shep chooses the merge or control option, all the ancient cultures knowledge becomes available.
***
Well, Bioware’s writers decided to play nice and give you the option to reject the catalyst’s choice.
And as I just said, it was a clever way to tell the people who wanted Shep to go all Nietzsche on the starchild to fuck off.
***
So, after having been called a “blind fanboy“, “making desperate assumptions“, whose arguments “just make no sense“, who “did not do his research“, a “troll“, “paid by EA“, a “dumbass” who “did not understand the ending” yet “tried to sound like he did“…
Well, it seems I did in fact understand the ending better than the collective of angry Mary Sue junkies. So, if you excuse me, I’ll go and bask in the glory of my manifest superiority while you peons wade in the mud, trying to decide if you should pretend that the same ending than before is now magically satisfying or if you should try to invent new ways of playacting the rational consummers.
*****
*****
More seriously, thought, while I am happy that Bioware chosed the lesser evil (more cutscenes telling the same story instead of retconning it), my criticism about the “reaeke Mass Effect” crowd’s reaction stands stronger than ever:
I did not “get” the ending better all the whiners because I am somehow inherently smarter than virtually everyone: I did get the ending because I paid attention:
Every stupid fan theory (Everyone Starve, the Galaxy blows up, the Crew is lost, Joker chickened out instead of obeying Hackett’s orders, the lack of a “fuck you starchild” option betrays the trilogy, Shep was indoctrinated, the choices were all meaningless, galactic civilization is screwed, there’s not FTL anymore) never made any sense to anyone who actually paid attention about the plot. There never was any big, gapping “plot hole”: just an audience which did not read or remember the enormous codex and did not listen or remember the numerous dialogues which made the added scenes unnecessary.
And this intellectuel laziness on your part is dangerous for anyone who value plot heavy video-games:
As I wrote before: This is FF XII all over again. Remember: Squeenix had promised us the War and Peace of Video Game with FF8, which they screwed up by filling it with a overdose of teenage hormones-induced angst. Seven years later, when they finally delivered on their promise with FF12, people complained about it because there was no plot spoonfeeding in this episode and a modicum of intellectual effort was required to understand it. And when the consumers complained, Squeenix reacted by giving them a shiny and shallow thirteenth episode… which sold more, despite the fact that the combined number of 360′s and PS3 sold never reached the number of PS2 sold, meaning that with a smaller potential consumer game, the mediocre game outsold the masterpiece.
Now what will happen with Bioware?
They promised us “The” great Sci-fi video-game epic. The result was an underwhelming quasi-RPG built around another invincible Space Marine. Then they made a sequel, which was gameplay-wise even more a shooter than before, but plotwise the second episode introduced way more interesting character, a much deeper plot and a lot more ambiguity. Then the third episode came, one which finally embraced its fatalistic premise, where Shepard finally stoped being the boring invicible space-marine n°382 to become a much more intersting character: the cassandra who’s finally taken seriously, and then has to face the gargantuan responsability of being put in charge of everything, and spend his/her final weeks on the verge of a mental breakdown while marching toward their certain demise.
And what was the consumer reaction to the best episode in the trilogy? They whined because they were not spoonfed the plot like they wanted to and because they had interpreted Bioware’s promise of “choice” as a possibility to have a perfect ending with a Yub Nub dance and Shepard turned into a impossible mix of Jesus, Cincinnatus and General Thomas Dumas. Not only was there much complaining, but the third episode sold less than the second one, just like FF12 sales where bellow the previous episodes’ numbers.
So now the question is, what will stop Bioware to act like Squeenix and make their “FFXIII”: the shiny, shallow, streamlined, not hard to follow game which will probably be panned by the critics but sell more? And even if Bioware staff still cling to their artistic liberty, what will stop EA to force them to make worse but “more sellable” games? By clamoring for an extended cut, you all have already made it likely that when budgetizing their games, the ratio cutscene/gameplay will be leaning more toward cutscenes, and by demonstrating once again that carefully crafted and subtly delivered stories in video games fail to reach an important audience, you may very well have pushed another develloper toward bland riskless simple plots
Those “Happy ending fetishists” exist only in your head.
“What do we see in the extended cut? Hackett doing exactly what I said he would do: giving everyone -including a reuctant Joker- the order to get away from the Citadel. And, what a shock, we see military personel executing a superior officier’s order.”
Also you still see the party members that were with you in the last suicide run and that should according to what we were told be dead magically teleported aboard the Normandy.
“The colored wave are shown spreading through the galaxy, and all they do is killing/controlling/mutating reapers, not igniting the Milky Way”
Yeah, remember how we were told that the the relays would be destroyed and were shown the Normandy crash-land? Scratch that, it was a mistake, they were both only lightly damaged and are still fully functional. Way to put a cap on a gaping plot hole.
“What do we see? We see Krogans coming back home despite the lack of Mass Relay and Quarian metropolises
So nope: FTL travel still exists and Quarians do not starve.”
We already knew that conventional FTL travel still existed. We also knew that with conventional FTL travel it takes more than a year to get to where the next relay is supposed to be alone (Mass Effect 2 Arrival DLC, it’s why you destroy the relay, remember?). I seriously doubt that any race other than the Quarians had nearly enough food to last that long. And their homeworld is on the other end of the galaxy, it would be the next generation that would reach it.
“I did not “get” the ending better all the whiners because I am somehow inherently smarter than virtually everyone: I did get the ending because I paid attention:”
Yes you chose to pay attention to the parts that suited you.
“So now the question is, what will stop Bioware to act like Squeenix and make their “FFXIII”: the shiny, shallow, streamlined, not hard to follow game which will probably be panned by the critics but sell more? And even if Bioware staff still cling to their artistic liberty, what will stop EA to force them to make worse but “more sellable” games?”
You do realise that we got this ending BECAUSE there was interference from EA, right? The writers, and more specifically Drew Karpyshyn, have already given us hints about what the originally intended ending was meant to be.
The only ‘intellectual laziness’ on display is from you, Nixou. You make the same, tedious error that many others make of assuming that ‘plot hole’ means ‘thing that can’t be explained’. It doesn’t – it means something that ISN’T explained and – in the case of EVERYTHING that Joe pointed out in his review – actually contradicts key, established canon in the rest of the series. What you have produced is nothing more than a selective argument, cherry picking the parts that suit your theory instead of forming your theory around the facts. That is the very definition of intellectual laziness.
Don’t bother replying, you’ve proven yourself repeatedly to be a Bioware fanboy and a troll. We don’t care anymore, son.
The commenters here who complain that they made a “perfect paragon” game yet did not have their cookie are a figment of my imagination, instead of, you know, actual people who let actual written traces of their disappointment?
The people who are here already complaining that the “fuck you starchild” is merely a non-standard gameover are imaginary friends of mine, perhaps.
The constant whining about how even the highest EMS rating does not allow one to defeat the quasi-eternal Mecha-Cthulhus is a fiction?
You know, one of the most annoying thing for me is the case of people thinking “You know, maybe if I deny the glaringly obvious long enough; he will think that I’m merely stupid and not trying to bullshit my way out of a lost argument“. It’s not that you did lose your argument with me -well, you did lose it, but I’m irrelevant-: It’s that you tried to convince the people who actually did create the game that their ending made no sense, failed to do so, leading to an “extended cut” which does not change the ending, does not create the triumph you felt entitled to, and merely gives you the same ending you hated in the first place -only longer-
***
They don’t teleport: Joker picked them up : you’re still not paying attention
*
Nope: the Normandy is as damaged as it was before, and the Mass Relays have been given slighty less impressive explosions because Bioware writers realized that the square-cube law was above their audience cognitive capacities.
After that, the Normandy crew fixes their ship and if the Reapers are stil there, they rebuild the broken Mass Relays. Nothing is changed: what was implied at first is explicitly told because the kids were crying after the parent left Fido at the vet for a benign operation and in the kids minds the parents going back without Fido and not saying anything obviously means that Fido was put to sleep, right? Same thing here: a few scratch on the paint, a few sparks here and there, and it’s certain, the Normandy is damaged beyond repair (but Edi is somehow more interested in hugging Joker than in frantically trying to find a way to salvage what’s still salvageable).
*
You’re cute: so much for the “anyone will starve in Earth’s orbit”, huh? You’re just aknowledging that I was and still are right when I say that what stupid fan theories were born from people who did not pay attention to the plot and the lore yet thought they should have an advice about the verse verisimilitude.
*
So what?
Assuming you did destroy the Reaper instead of, you know, making them fix the damage they caused, I can even tell you how long a every trip could take: (1600 days to Palaven, 650 to Sur’Keh). Without the Mass Relays, the fleet will have to content themselves with recycled food for a while, but the Mass Effect Universe is one where the local gypsies managed to build from rusted scraps a fleet of farming spaceships sufficient to sustain millions.
They waited for three centuries: they won’t go extinct if it takes them 15 more years.
All this is yet another exemple of the unaknowledged desire for an happy ending: you want the fleet to come home for the week-end. The idea that it would take a long and harduous journey to get back home goes against it, so you treat it as a death sentence for the fleet despite the fact that the lore did establish that the citadel civilization was technology capable of doing such a feat. Its actually one of the main plot points: Organics were always capable to reach distant stars on their own: the Reaper built the Relay network honey trap to lull organics into complacency, ensuring that their civilizations were constrained by the apparently easier path, instead of expending in every directions and making them harder to harvest. Had the organic species been unable to do long journeys on their own, the Mass Relay networks would have had no purpose, and the whole story would have been devoid of internal logic. But the fact that the ending is consistent with the lore and the plot internal logic is meaningless compared to the outrgeous decision of depriving you of your Nub Yub
***
I’m not saying that the non-existent “plot holes” “can’t be explained”. I’m saying that they were already explained through 3 games worth of lore and dialogues except the whining players did not want to make the tiny effort of connecting two neurons together before throwing a tantrum.
It’s the same with Dragon Age: they gave in the first game many hints and foreshadowing that the mage-templar war was an unavoidable consequence of Thedas’ flawed social structure, but when it eventually happened at the end od DA2, instead of thinking “Heeeeeey, i remember how they hinted at this conclusion in the previous episode: clever”, they went all “Why can’t I stop the war, Waaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh, this plot sucks”
Same problem: players buy a game with certain expectations, and when the writers -even when they gave tons of warnings beforehand- decide to not satisfy the audience preconception, the audience treat it like a betrayal.
***
How dare you talk about “established canon”? The whole whining problem came from the fact that a lot of players like you were so engrossed in their masturbatory power-fantasy that they did not even notice the canon: they kept pumping their fist thinking “What a badass Shepard is, What a baddas I am” while the writers where throwing at them tons of foreshadowing and clues about the conclusion of the trilogy.
***
Now the only remaining question is: will all the people who whined about the ending keep whining despite it becoming more and more difficult to appear sincere when they deny doing it because they wanted a triumphant end to their power-fantasy, or will they pretend to love this nearly identical ending?
My guess is that they will test the water and wait to see which answer is more socially acceptable.
Why isn’t there an edit button for when you forget to close one bold [b] tag? >_<
First of all, no need to be a jerk. I was part of the Retake movement and I was not condescending, nor intolerant to those who respectfully stated their cases as to why they liked the ending.
Secondly, a lot of your observations, as it were, could have just as easily been wrong. Let’s forget the extended cut exists for a moment; we see Joker fleeing a large shockwave in the Normandy. Several possibilities exist as to why this is happening, but I’ll point out two:
1: Your observation about Hackett ordering the fleet out.
2: Joker fleeing the massive explosion of energy because, well, it looks life-threatening…and it’s not just his life on the line, but the entire crew’s.
Both probable, both could have been the truth. Your observation just happened to be it. You got lucky.
Third: We all knew standard FTL existed. The Mass Relays were just the fastest way to get around, reducing trips to mere hours or days instead of -years-. Those military ships weren’t stocked with -years-, probably not even one year, worth of rations and supplies. Nor could they conveniently stop off to a nearby world to get those supplies. Your logic is flawed in that sense; this isn’t star trek, there are no replicators. The extended cut now allows for mass relay reconstruction because, if you note, they don’t blow up nearly as completely as in the first endings. Therefore, one can infer they are not being ‘ruptured’, where as you read in the secondary codex that if they are ‘ruptured’ they ruin all terrestrial planets in their solar system.
Fourth: The fact is, and I stated this before, you got lucky that so many of your observations matched up with what they did in the extended cut to such a degree. If it weren’t almost 2am, I could easily give you a nice long list of other possibilities, equally valid, based on the data we were given in the original ending.
This is all moot point. Thanks to Retake, the extended cut came to be. We got a better, more complete ending. We got to see what happened as a result of our choices as a sum, rather than -just- picking Blue, Green, or Red. Something positive happened here; the majority (and if you know anything about how polls work, you’ll know it -was- the majority) of paying customers weren’t satisfied with a product, they complained, and they were heeded by the big company.
That is a -major- win for consumerism; dunno if you noticed, but lately customer service and satisfaction have been a low priority for most companies. We, as consumers, have shown that we can still wield enough power to change a product for the better.
If you didn’t understand that this was a battle about more than just a game, then you really weren’t paying attention.
Peons indeed.
Well said.
Amen, Stephen. The little helmet spends months teary-eyed, desperately trying to defend Bioware and EA by lashing out at those who pointed out blatant plot holes and lore errors by suggesting that they were deliberate, then claims he ‘understood the ending’ when his incredibly simplistic explanations that anyone over the age of seven could have retconned within half an hour were used out of nothing more than convenience and coincidence by Bioware, as if it’s somehow a victory to have a writing skill equivalent to a first year student. These are professional writers who screwed up and, thanks to the constructive and objective feedback of the fans – and in counter to the obedient ‘screw me more’ philosophy of Nixou and his gods in the gaming press – we now have a definitive ending that takes on board a lot of what fans had been asking for and (albeit in limited ways) responds to EVERY SINGLE POINT made by Angry Joe.
All four massive plot holes (and no, saying it’s “explained in the Codex” isn’t good enough – show it on the screen as part of the narrative, or it’s a plot hole. Simple as that)? Filled.
War assets? Still only limited influence but a big step up from before.
Closure? Dealt with, albeit with still boards which is a bit dissatisfying. But it feels like an ending now, that’s what matters.
Twist ending (and not, as Nixou tried to stipulate, ‘happy-ending fetichists’ (sic) looking for a happy ending as much as not wanting a deus ex machina to be the explanation for everything they’ve experienced)? It’s still there, but there’s a lot more context to it and you can take it in a lot better. They also show former squadmates doing things afterwards, so that’s taken care of to an extent.
Beam sequence? Actually this has been left pretty much the same – Illusive Man never explains how he got there, which is pretty trivial anyway, and the AI’s reasoning still operates, at a base level, on circular reasoning. However, as mentioned above, there’s now more information with which to understand what Bioware’s original vision was, so it’s more than acceptable.
Shepard’s acceptance? They added the option to reject the choices – which, despite the fact that fans have been asking for this for months and even said they would happily have it lead to the loss of the war as long as it was there, since it’s far more consistent with Shepard’s character to die free, has (in a rather impressive display of mental and intellectual gymnastics) been represented by Nixou as somehow being a ‘ballsy’ middle finger to the fans instead of the positive compromise that it actually is. In fact, if we assume that it WAS basically just a way to tell fans to screw themselves, then how exactly does this set Bioware in a good light? Again, thoughtless obedience and devil’s advocacy from an abrasive, immature fanboy.
Choices mattering? Not as much as we were originally promised – and Bioware and EA’s refusal to follow through with their promise on release can never be 100% forgiven or forgotten, even if they’d included the indoctrination ending – but it’s better and, most importantly, the individual endings themselves do at least have something resembling variety and some sort of view of how they affected the galaxy afterwards.
So, apparently addressing every complaint and providing a solid compromise is, in Nixou’s eyes, somehow a means by which he was proven right about the original rushed, inconsistent ending. Again, the mental gymnastics required to pull off that level of self-bullshitting is amazing.
I won’t comment on the Final Fantasy comparison as I don’t know enough about Final Fantasy, though I suspect it’s highly questionable given how unreliable and biased the rest of his views are. Needless to say, it ends with the dull, cop-out nonsense of ‘artistic credibility’ and ‘gamer entitlement ruining the industry’ that reads like a macro on an OPM staff keyboard. Both of these points, while having a (very limited and totally overblown) element of truth to them, are primarily used as nothing more than a distraction technique, a means by which the ignorant and the threatened can justify their lack of understanding of a given issue by claiming it’s all some artistic license or that gamers complain about everything. The fact that most of the complaints regarding ME3′s ending were addressed by Bioware? Irrelevant in the mind of Nixou – clearly, Bioware always intended to do this exact thing anyway, because Bioware can do no wrong.
It’s pointless even trying to correct people like Nixou (which is why I’m referring to him in the third person), because they’ve already entered into a belief system that even blatant false advertising and betrayal of core concepts established over several years for a cheap shock is somehow not only an acceptable, but even an intelligent way of doing business. It’s not, and it’s to the credit of the Retake Mass Effect movement that they refused to buckle under the weight of such vapidity and stood up for what they knew was right. The extended cut, while still flawed in places, is the legacy of the fans who would not be intimidated, and it is also the legacy of a developer who was bold enough to accept they made a series of mistakes while still remaining true to their vision. It completes the series in a perfectly imperfect way, and that’s more than enough for most of us to draw a line under the issue – while still remaining vigilant for any such further bullshittery from games companies.
And all the while, Nixou will continue to accept anything he’s given while making excuses for even the most undeniable of errors, because he’s a conformist posing as a non-conformist. Ignorance is bliss so I hope he enjoys his endless residence in paradise.
I know from experience that politely explaining why I enjoyed the original ending caused exactly the same amount of backlash. “Change your tone” is only a pseudo-polite way to tell people to shut up.
*
And none were taken into account when Joe started ranting about Joker “chikening out”. Mass Effect is military sci-fi: a recuring trope in military sci-fi is that the protagonists are competent military personel, who will obey orders unless they make no sense and make sound decisions on the fly.
Both hypothesis point toward Joker being a competent military spacecraft pilot. Both hypothesises are coherent with what is shown about Joker and his character development.
Joe’s rant about “Joker chickened out, it makes no sense” never was a valid hypothesis.
*
Back in the real world, the International Space Station can stock up to one year worth of food supplies, security rules state that crew should make itself ready to evacuation has to be prepared if supllies fall behind 45 days worth of food, which happened only once if my memory serves me correctly and the ISS is a bunch of jury rigged cylindrical containers.
One should expect expensive futuristic military crafts supposed to partake in dangerous missions light-years away from their home base to be better equipped than a manned satellite merely 400 kilometers from its homeworld.
*
As did the original cut: both show waves of energy filling the whole galaxy.
The Milky Way is, as a previously mentionned: 2.500.000.000.000.000.000.000 times bigger than our solar system: even if the energy released by the Crucible was billions of time bigger than the energy released by the rupture of a Mass Relay at the end of Arrival, it’s amount would be so diluted as to being harmless beyond it’s intended effect. In fact, if you really want to complain about the “space magic”, go on and complain that Shep managed to break to laws of physics with Space Homeopathy. (Which is still nitpicking consideriong that the eponymous “Mass Effect” which allows FTL and upon which the games’ verse is built is a magic trick giving spaceships a negative mass)
*
This is all moot point. Thanks to Retake, the extended cut came to be. We got a better, more complete ending.
I never backlashed against reasonably well thought-out arguments, only people that came in and said things along the lines of ‘The ending rox, you all suxxors’, who were blatent and obvious trolls. I can’t speak for everyone else, but I can speak for -myself-
With your talk of the international space station, you’re forgetting a key concept; space travel, for us, is limited and extremely expensive, as well as extremely dangerous due to our relative new entry to it and the ever-increasing cloud of debris around our planet. In mass effect, they can make trips across the Galaxy in the same time or less it takes one of our current day naval ships to cross from one side of the atlantic to the other. When a ship goes on a voyage, it has a limited time it can operate before needing supplies. It might be able to last a few weeks to a few months, depending on the size of the ship, but it won’t be able to function for a whole year.
An alliance dreadnought has a crew compliment of 1250 personnel. A modern day Nimitz-class carrier has a compliment of 3,200 personnel for the ship alone, plus 2,480 personnel for their air power (pilots, support staff, etc). It’s a much bigger ship than the biggest in the alliance navy, and in order to stay on lengthy deployments it needs a lot of supply ships to continuously operate.
The international space station, by comparison, houses only a very few personnel, has by ratio comparison more storage space, and gets regular supply shipments, if not nearly as frequent as, say, the aircraft carrier.
The alliance dreadnoughts alone would run out of food and supplies well before reaching any other system, as there would be no supply ships, and no port in the storm. They aren’t exploration ships, or space stations, they are naval ships that are designed with the reasonable expectation of being able to resupply via port call or supply ship.
I can out logic you on this, because I can apply the knowledge I gain through observation of the game and codex (no replicators, you’ll note, so they’re still growing food and shipping it all over the place via cargo to places that can’t grow it themselves), and I have enough real world knowledge about how things work that I can apply based on those observations.
The fact that you come back with such rhetoric dripping with venom can only bespeak of an individual that refuses to be wrong, and shouts at everyone until they just go along with you to stop your shouting. You then believe you’re an intellect, when you’re really only a bully. I’m only getting this envenomed with you because you essentially tried to bully me into shutting up.
Sir, with all due respect, if you want anyone to take your opinions seriously, you should present them in a clear, logical fashion, and do so with a bit of common respect. You’ll find then that you’ll attract the people who will treat you with respect and consider your opinions, and you can safely ignore the ones that are simply trying to be mean-spirited. You will also be taken far more seriously.
As I said, I could out logic you all day about every detail you choose to discuss, but I have more important things to do than to argue with you over a game, and the nature of the victory (do you honestly think they would have done -anything- at all if there hadn’t been such an outcry?) consumerism has achieved.
EA is now convinced -and rightly so- that most their customers have shity taste and will complain unless they’re given the same bland formulaic soup.
The original ending, and for that matter the remake of it, are both direct lifts off of Deus Ex. It was already bland formulaic soup, except they had missed out half the ingredients making it even blander formulaic soup.
And while we are on the subject of experimentation and trying new things, sometimes new things don’t work. They wouldn’t be risks if they didn’t sometimes end badly.
And that is something you don’t seem to understand, the reaction to the risk taken here, was what made it a risk. By calling for people to “Let Bioware take risks” – you are taking precisely what makes them risks out of the equation.
And this is true of any art form. A chef may take risks with ingredients, and find the customers don’t like it – that the customers don’t like it isn’t the customers telling the chef not to take risks, it is the risk the chef ran.
The same goes for artists – an artist can take massive risks, and find they don’t pan out. It is why the word “artist” is so frequently paired with the word “starving”.
If we the angry consumers didn’t form a backlash against this, we would get more of the same. The backlash happened, we won’t get more of the same and we are happy about that. We are delighted that you aren’t happy about that, because frankly, we don’t like you.
You take complaints against something, and claim people are lying about what they are complaining about. The staggering degree of sheer brain-damaged stupidity of that, is mind blowing.
It’s a bloody RPG mate. If i want a happy ending i want a bloody happy ending, if I want a bittersweet ending on another play-through I choose the bittersweet ending.
What can’t you understand in this? I just want to choose how my character(s) end’s HIS/HER story. You can’t deny these final choices from an RPG as high of a caliber as Mass Effect. So just stop laddie with these “Happy ending fetishists” because it was just a realistic expectation from the grand finale of a great /’RPG!!!’/ game.
Let me dream goddammit without someone telling me to wake up!
/”A sad note in the finale always has a greater echo in the times to come, but I still believe in Happy endings.” ^_^/
Okey, i didn’t want to write this massage, because my knowledge of English is bad, but this comment is totaly pissed me off.
U wanna happy ending? Then go and and play cassual games, and next part of Call of Duty or Diablo.
Good games is good because they dont obey desires of the masses and saying something different that the thoughts of 95% of people, and trying to change some parts of our souls. They trying to make u think.
This comment doesn’t show that I’m epic fan of Bioware, ME and ending of ME3. I know that ending of ME3 was bad and full of innuendo.
Thay wanted to show THIS ending, and they apologized for a plot holes with Extended Cut. If u dont like it, just forgot about Universe of ME and go ahead.
Seems like the ending that they should have put together in the first place. Very democratic situation: Bioware did a very bad job on the ending, public let them know, and they responded. This is one they’ll study in “gamer school” for years…
No kidding