And I don't believe, though I could be mistaken, that BioWare ever actually said they messed up the ending. They have repeated stated how proud of the game they are and how they are standing by the "artistic vision" (their words, not mine) and that the DLC is just attempting to provide more closure, and as mentioned previously, more "context and clarity" (again, their words, not mine).
What I don't understand is why they chose the path of the star-kid in the first place? What possible reason was there? They've been playing things as a Star Wars / Starship Troopers / action sci-fi movie from the very conception of the trilogy, why would they completely go the other way right at the end? It's like Suzie says, it's as if they brought in a group of writers who had never seen any of the previous content and asked them to write up an ending. How can Bioware not see that the ending just doesn't fit the theme they had through all three games?
It confuses the hell out of me, it really does, I just can't come up with any rational reason why they would switch themes right at the very end. It's confusing, frustrating, and ultimately, bloody annoying.
The Second MrBtongue video deals with that. Apparently everything but the ending was peer reviewed by everyone involved.
Except the ending, which was done solely by Casey Hudson and Mac Walters, and without peer review. Granted, it's a rumor, but it does seem to explain why the ending and the rest of the game feel so differently.
And if true it also explains why they won't fix it. Simply an issue of ego and pride.
Hence the whole Artisitic Vision defense
Personally, I always tend to make comparisons with Dreamweb, when folks accuse me of wanting a happy ending. In that game, you play this chap who may be suffering from a nervous breakdown and is going psychotic.
But essentially you're The Chosen One, who has to stop the Big Bads, from tearing apart the Fabric of Reality, and thus unleashing some other Beasties who make the Great Old Ones from the Lovecraft Ctulhu Mythos seem like Mr. Rogers in comparison.
You manage to do so, and get sent back to Earth. All's well that ends well? Not really. Considering that you're wanted by the police for multiple murders and get shot by them as you try to give yourself up.
Turns out that all the witnesses to the existence of the Dreamweb need to be eliminated, and even as The Chosen One, you're not immune to this. Your soul then enters the Dreamweb, combined with those of the Big Bads that you dispatched, and helps strengthen it for another 1000y or so.
(Least that's how I remember the game going anyway. Heck, it's been roughly 20y since I've played it.)
Happy ending? Nope. Fully consistent with the established world? Which is one of those Dystopian Cyberpunk variants. Very much so. Did they pull the "double cross" out of thin air? Nope. There were small clues that things would end up this way, but nothing that you'd immedialy notice during your initial play through.
Now granted this is a singular game and not the end of a trilogy, but even then it's not as if the ME crew had to worry about any dangling plotpoints for a ME4.
To quote Casey Hudson: "As Mass Effect 3 is the end of the planned trilogy, the developers are not constrained by the necessity of allowing the story to diverge, yet also continue into the next chapter. This will result in a story that diverges into wildly different conclusions based on the player's actions in the first two chapters."
To once again use an Olympic Gymnastics reference. They didn't stick their landing, they either ended up on their face or their backside. And that means no Gold Medal.
And in part what makes this issue even more egrerious is the role of the Media in all of this. Which is also something that MrBtongue addresses in that second video of his.
Rather than to take Bioware to task for flubbing the landing, they went into cheerleader mode. Rather than actually reporting the dissatisfaction of the fanbase, they belittled them, to hide the fact that they themselves weren't doing their job, but were playing cheerleader.
Thereby causing both Bioware and the Media to forget one thing. Those whiny opinionated folks, who won't shut up? They kinda help you guys pay the bills. They're the ones actually reading the News Sites (that means pageviews and advertising revenue). They're the ones who help spread Word of Mouth about how awesome a game or a studio is.
Neither group is in a position like Microsoft with its Operation System. And while there are alternatives even for MS, they're not that open or available for the casual computer user.
Not quite the case with either the Gaming Media or Game Companies like Bioware. Back in the late '90s, who would've believed that Black Isle Studios, Westwood Studios, Origin Systems or Sierra would end up defunct. And the Gaming Media? Their print counterparts have slowly dwindlered, more and more online versions arise. It's not just Gamespot, IGN or Gamespy (to name the big three) no more.
And while it may not be an immediate deathknell, it's not one that should be underestimated. Bioware just needs to look at Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog, or Pandemic Studios to name a few. And none of those went under due to a fanbase that felt screwed by the Developers that they trusted.
I wrote a better ending for ME3 that ties into all the choices you have made throughout all 3 games that makes a HELL of a lot more sense than what is currently in the game.
Took me like.. 10 minutes of brainstorming.
No plot holes, ties into everything in the game, more importantly ties everything together! and has varying outcomes based directly on what you have done for hundreds of hours throughout the franchise instead of a random A,B,C decision that doesn't tie into anything and means jack sh!t to anyone/everything.
Also, would be 100% entirely possible to do given how well Bioware proved they can track the decisions your character made via the import system.
10 minutes or so of extra dialogue, than 3 seperate possible endings (cut scenes and such) that actually make sense, provide resolution for the franchise, and would without a doubt completely eliminate any lingering doubts/fears/anger the fans have.
Bioware, give me a call.
Oh yeah, it also fits perfectly into the lore as established by the series in terms of plausability.
Oh and you know what? It even ties into the current ending just enough to not have to scrap ALL of it.
MMORPG.com, use your connections and make it happen lol I promise you won't be disappointed.
Actually it's more like 4 possible endings because there would be one super special ZOMG I "beat" Mass Effect ending for the uber fans.
I agree that the "happy ending" wasn't necessarily what I would expect (even if we all hoped for it). People should accept that "all things must pass".
Nonetheless I agree with the fact that the sudden "divine intervention" (mostly anticipated by the strange dreams of the child) was a total letdown...
But then I watched the video about the "indoctrination theory". It could be.
Anyway I'll wait and see. ME3 is a fantastic game. The ending is a bit of meh...
This is the game BioWare wanted to make all along. The people who think they "retconned" the reapers at the end don't understand what the word means. This was their plan from the beginning. They never revealed what the reapers were, what they wanted, or if they worked for someone else. But they left little hints...
That's from the first game, look at the second paragraph of the description. "beings of light" controlling the reapers to stop synthetic life from taking over. That makes zero sense until you see the ending.
I understand the complaints where choices didn't seem to have that much of an impact directly. Yeah, they did promise that, didn't they? But they did from an emotional standpoint. If you freed the geth (either on their own or got them to stop fighting the quarians) choosing the destruction option is totally absurd. "Thanks for the help, geth... suckers!" If you told Legion to spin on it and chose the quarians, then destroying all synthetics didn't seem like such a bad choice. Heck, get enough points, and you get to kill all synthetics and even live at the end. Happily ever after!!!
I want to know how people thought the game was going to end. It was established in the previous games that the reapers numbered in the hundreds of millions and that all of the combined resources of the galaxy didn't stand a chance against them. Was the Crucible suppose to just be a super weapon that targeted only reapers and wiped them out? Would that have been the awesome ending everyone was waiting for? Shepard comes sliding down off a giant pile of reaper corpses, having sacrificed nothing in his/her entire quest, then takes the love interest by the hand and skips off into the sunset?
The "happy" ending to the story is the synthesis ending where Shepard ends the cycle of destruction and evolves all species to the point where organics are no longer at odds with synthetics. Joker and EDI walking out of the ship was a ham-fisted swipe at an Adam and Eve type of ending.
Shepard is a hero in that ending. Shepard got all of the races to work together (unlocking enough points for the synthesis ending) and chooses an ending where nobody else dies not even the reapers.
All of it did matter, because if Shepard had been selfish, had told people he/she didn't want their help, chose one side over another instead of getting them to work together, that ending isn't possible.
...unless you play through multiple times and do multiplayer... okay I just defeated my own argument.
Nice post, Escapehatch. It may be a bit too... calm for most rabid fans, but you make some good points.
The ending isn't perfect, but I think people are overreacting. I do see some sense in Escapehatch's logic. The Reapers were impossible to beat. How many cycles had this happened before Shepard even got this far? I think I would have been disappointed if it were a happily ever after ending.
Also, I keep hearing how the endings are exactly the same with different colors (everyone did NOT die in my ending --- arguing that they would eventually die isn't really an arguement; not being able to use the relays does not equal death).
Where were all the complaints about ME2? There were 2 endings, you destroyed the Collector base or you didn't. Even calling these 2 different endings is a bit weak -- you've already deteated the Collectors by the time this decision is made! Your crew dying was more about you rushing through the game skipping ship improvements and/or skipping the crews' personal missions. Sure, you could do all that and still have people die, but it was much more difficult to do. It was great that ME2 got the whole crew involved at the end (what the hell, ME3?), but crew death really doesn't feel like a "custom" ending to me. The ending was still about defeating the Collectors.
The point is that ME doesn't have a history of custom endings (including ME1). They allow a few choices that make it feel like you've got freedom, but Bioware needed to control the story or each following game would have too many wildly differing storylines to follow. (If there is no ME4, then this arguement is not valid for ME3.)
I was not overly excited about the ending -- mainly because it felt like you crawled (limped) over the finish line. I would still like to see more details behind the ending, so will be playing the free DLC. I just can't bring myself to protest and/or boycott like many of you are doing. I'm a fan of the series, but there are too many other important things to be upset about.... like Origin or DRM (just kidding).
It's like watching Blizzard all over again. You just wish you could go back in time when the game always came first. Nothing lasts forever. RIP Bioware?
Blizzard's still successful as a company, but does anyone still love/respect them like pre-'04? I'd suggest that if Bioware isn't there yet, they're well on their way after ME3 and TOR.
OK, long winded time. Screw spoiler alerts, because if you read the article you either beat the game already or had it spoiled anyway.
First off, I agreee with the "95%" article 400%. Right up until the final battle the game was flat out EPIC. My only complaints would have been the occasionally retarded cover and the small number of playable side missions. But everything I did felt awesome when I had a mission. Seeing old and new friends, Seeing how Jack changed, watching Mordin redeem himself, watching Liara repeatedly break down..just awesome.
Then came the ending. I'ma break this down in pieces.
1) The ghost/AI/kid/Whatever. There would have been nothing wrong with this character IF it had better representation in the 95%. We had a couple dream sequences that don't even feel connected to the ending.If this had been developed better throughout the game (or better, the series) I'da been OK with it.
2) "I created synthetics to kill organics so organics don't make a synthetic that kills organics": I wanna slap the writer who handled this part for screwing up. I actually GET what the stupid AI is talking about. It purges the most advanced species every so often so they don't get TOO powerful and wipe out ALL life with their own stupid. Think of it like pruning a tree, or perhaps an analogy to the Tower of Babel. Problem is this was so horribly prhased it comes out idiotic. Horrible, terrible writing. Unforgiveable.
3) The choices: Knowing how much of ME was influenced by classic sci-fi, these don't surprise me...much. Kill the Reapers. OK, we knew that had to be one. Control them? Well, the Renegade options in 2 tended to have you thinking a lot along the lines of the Illusive Man, so I'll buy it. Merge with them to form a new super form of life? If you've ever read the Uplift series, 2001, Ringworld, or many other classic sci-fi pieces...you'd remember the idea of species merging to become something greater, beyond life as we understand it, is hardly new. It was a direct homage to those ideas and I'm OK with that.
What I'm NOT OK with is the fact we could choose. I get all the way to the end a perfect, sweet paragon, and at the end, I can turn around and undo it all and control the Reapers? No. The smart thing would have been to have your choices throughout the games shunt you into one of the endings automatically, without you choosing. Make the ending be the sum of your personality....you know, like it was supposed to.
4) Colored explosions: The cinematic team phoned it in. Period. They were rushed, there were budget cuts, they didn't know how to make it not suck....so they took the cheap route. Bioware did that a lot in DA2 as well, and I'm pretty much done giving them a chance because of it.
5) Relays destroyed: Remember my allusion to the tower of Babel? This fits pretty well really...but shoudl NOT have been the result of every ending. I think they shoehorned it into some endings so the same cinematic could be used for them all.
6) Joker picking up your teammates/running.crashing: This is plausible actually. It's possible he came down to help in the fight, found your mates all unhappy that you apparently died, and got the hell off earth. Then his sensors pick up the exploding ME relay, and he runs like hell. It's possible the planet he crashes on is one right in out Solar system..maybe a terraformed Venus or something.
Or it's a stupid plot hole. Whatever.
All the same, Bioware promised us something like 9+ completely, wildly different endings driven by our choices. And didn't give us that. I can understand some of their choices, and even agree with some, but I can't forgive the majority.
I did a lot of thinking about this last night and I came up with four reasons it sucks that have nothing to do with the ending being "unhappy."
1. It's Deus Ex Machina. In fact, that's an understatement. Having a magical space god show up at the end of the game is a straight up ass-pull. It's the science fiction version of "it was aliens." It's just plain bad, cliched writing. Even if it was their artistic vision from the beginning, gods/aliens showing up at the end is about as artistic as it turning out to have all been a dream at the end.
2. The world just got inverted. For the entire series, Shepard's choices define the plot. When you hit the ending, the plot starts defining Shepard's choices. Not onlydoes this sort of undermine the entire feeling of the series, but it's also just another case of bad plotting. If you have to make the characters make unreasonable or out of character decisions to make your plot work, then throw it out. It sucks.
3. It's not just sad. It's downright tragic. Shepard dying at the end really isn't the problem with the plot, and I don't think anyone could reasonably expect the ending to be better than bittersweet.. But the fact is that the ending is loaded with horrifying consequences that aren't immediately apparent, and most are tied to the destruction of the mass relays. First, millions of friends, families and lovers will never see each other again. They are separated forever. Second, billions of beings will never be able to return to their homeworlds. Third, the millions of people that lived in colonies and space stations will starve to death without supplies. Finally, with the destruction of the mass relay system, the only thing that made the universe interesting is gone. It's like Harry Potter ending with magic being destroyed. Sure, we saved the world, but to what avail? There really is no reason to care about it any more. The alien races are forever separated. The non-human races might as well not exist.
4. It didn't matter. Nothing that happened in any of the games up until the final multiple choice question mattered. Nothing. In a game all about choices, BioWare undermined their own creative vision by throwing every choice you made out the window and tacking a linear, one-dimesional Japanese RPG style ending on to the game, essentially ending their series with the antithesis of the reason they created it.
The more I think about it, the more it seems like the best way to summarize the issue is that Bioware tacked an poorly written, braindead, cliched Eastern ending on to a Western RPG.
In regards to a good/sad ending. /This was said more or less in one of the youtube vids/ The 3 games have all been about making choices, so what's the problem if you made good choices all the way through and can then pick a good ending? The point is if its all about choices, when why end the game with any ONE way?
A sad ending doesn't mean good writing. btw.
I noticed someone above asked if a writer should change somehting they have done if people complain. That's up to the author. However, if as a person you can't acknowledge when you have made a mistake, when it is layed out clearly before you, then you aren't much of a person.
Do we really believe Shepard's crew would abandon her? Especially her LI? I think that that relationship transcended the whole idea of commander and soldier by the time we hit London. The same goes for all of the crew. They were undyingly devoted to Shepard, as was Joker. I think even knowing that the relays were blowing, he'd keep fighting.
But I think what bugs me the most is the fact that we don't get to see anyone remembering Shepard's sacrifice, knowing that she did it and is remembered. Oh sure, we get the child molester scene telling the kid about "The Shepard" but that smacks more of a fictionalized story than it does telling the story of a hero, the person who literally single-handedly (at the end at least) save the galaxy...well kinda but you know what I mean.
What's so disturbing about the whole exercise is that we have been left with nothing, not even a shred of a good feeling except for the breath that Shepard draws at the end of the 'red choice'. I had to go that way or I would never have been able to sleep at night again.
And while I'm at it: I honestly don't believe that synthesis is the "Paragon" choice. I'm replaying ME1 these days, difficult as that is, and it's clear right from the onset that Shepard's goals were to DESTROY the reapers, not control or meld with them. Control was TIM's bag. Synthesis was Sarin's thing. Shepard outright rejected both of them, first by helping Saren redeem himself in ME1 by rejecting synthesis and ultimately killing himself to show his rejection of synthesis. Shepard learned from that. Later by destroying the Reaper base and rejecting TIM's contention that we could learn to control them. From my perspective, red is the ONLY Paragon choice since that was Shepard's ultimate goal from the start.
In regards to a good/sad ending. /This was said more or less in one of the youtube vids/ The 3 games have all been about making choices, so what's the problem if you made good choices all the way through and can then pick a good ending? The point is if its all about choices, when why end the game with any ONE way?
I am so down with this. We live in a world of sorrows. Why can't we at least have the option to have a good, happy ending?
On a related note, I think the ending pretty much proves that Drew Karpyshyn was the true reason Bioware had a reputation for excellent storytelling.
Pretty much. Not sure if anyone here is familiar with the Baldur's Gate novels.
First two were written by Philip Athans, one of WOTC Editors. And how can I put this politely..They were horrendous. Characterization was way off (Khalid a domestic abuser?) dialogue was trite, pretty much every character was unlikeable etc.
(And before anyone says that it's hard to write a novel about a game, Leonard Boyarsky didjust that, was at a website known as Silvermoon's Attic, it's no longer available though.) And quite frankly it beat the pants off of what Athans did. (Leo used to be a BIS/Troika guy, currently working at Blizzard on Diablo 3.)
Anyway, fast forward to the third novel, based on the Throne of Bhaal. They hired Drew to do it as opposed to Athans. Let's just say that if the previous novels scored 1s on a scale of 1 to 10, that Drew managed to drag the third novel to a 5,5.. The third one was actually readable, still not great, but, he had to incorperate all the previous material in order to resolve the storyline, and when you have to work with rubbish. Well, it was just downright impressive what he managed to pull off.
Makes me wonder what he could've done with the entire series, if they'd given it to him right off the bat.
And to be blunt, I really do think, that Bioware/EA should pay Drew a million dollars, net pay, to come in and fix this mess. He's done it before (see the novel thing), and ME was his baby to begin with. They'd be better off in the long run with that course of action. A good reputation is a very hard thing to build, but oh so easy to destroy.
Do we really believe Shepard's crew would abandon her? Especially her LI? I think that that relationship transcended the whole idea of commander and soldier by the time we hit London. The same goes for all of the crew. They were undyingly devoted to Shepard, as was Joker. I think even knowing that the relays were blowing, he'd keep fighting.
But I think what bugs me the most is the fact that we don't get to see anyone remembering Shepard's sacrifice, knowing that she did it and is remembered. Oh sure, we get the child molester scene telling the kid about "The Shepard" but that smacks more of a fictionalized story than it does telling the story of a hero, the person who literally single-handedly (at the end at least) save the galaxy...well kinda but you know what I mean.
What's so disturbing about the whole exercise is that we have been left with nothing, not even a shred of a good feeling except for the breath that Shepard draws at the end of the 'red choice'. I had to go that way or I would never have been able to sleep at night again.
And while I'm at it: I honestly don't believe that synthesis is the "Paragon" choice. I'm replaying ME1 these days, difficult as that is, and it's clear right from the onset that Shepard's goals were to DESTROY the reapers, not control or meld with them. Control was TIM's bag. Synthesis was Sarin's thing. Shepard outright rejected both of them, first by helping Saren redeem himself in ME1 by rejecting synthesis and ultimately killing himself to show his rejection of synthesis. Shepard learned from that. Later by destroying the Reaper base and rejecting TIM's contention that we could learn to control them. From my perspective, red is the ONLY Paragon choice since that was Shepard's ultimate goal from the start.
Exactly. I know there was a thread on the BSN with that had an interview with Patrick Weekes (best writer left currently working on Mass Effect) that had stated there was 'good reason' that Joker had left earth with the rest of the crew. My question to that is, THEN WHAT THE HELL IS IT?
I've replayed the game twice since I beat it originally, and I always end up just alt-f4ing after Anderson dies and writing an ending that makes sense and fits within the cannon. Much more satisfying than the drivel we were handed.
This is the game BioWare wanted to make all along. The people who think they "retconned" the reapers at the end don't understand what the word means. This was their plan from the beginning. They never revealed what the reapers were, what they wanted, or if they worked for someone else. But they left little hints...
- Dev 1) Guys we need to wrap this game up anyone have ideas how to end it.
- Dev 2) How about we use this quote from klencory to have one of these light creatures be behind it.
- Dev 1) Oh nice find, let's use that.
To be honest the quote is really vague. An argument can easily be made that those beings didn't make the reapers, but instead where just part of a previous cycle but got conquered by the reapers and the one in the citadel got indoctrinated.
An argument could be made that the reapers set in motion these cycles purely to prevent any civilization from creating AI's that could rival their own.
Overal the ending didn't resolve anything and only gave more questions due to the many plotholes it left behind.
It is sad to see previously great game developers like Bioware and Blizzard allow their success to become blinding arrogance that drives a wedge between them and the players who loved and supported them. That arrogance prevents them from thinking like just another gamer who loves games, but that way of thinking is what drove their success to begin with. Just sad, we lost Bioware to EA and Blizzard to Activision.
I did a lot of thinking about this last night and I came up with four reasons it sucks that have nothing to do with the ending being "unhappy."
1. It's Deus Ex Machina. In fact, that's an understatement. Having a magical space god show up at the end of the game is a straight up ass-pull. It's the science fiction version of "it was aliens." It's just plain bad, cliched writing. Even if it was their artistic vision from the beginning, gods/aliens showing up at the end is about as artistic as it turning out to have all been a dream at the end.
2. The world just got inverted. For the entire series, Shepard's choices define the plot. When you hit the ending, the plot starts defining Shepard's choices. Not onlydoes this sort of undermine the entire feeling of the series, but it's also just another case of bad plotting. If you have to make the characters make unreasonable or out of character decisions to make your plot work, then throw it out. It sucks.
3. It's not just sad. It's downright tragic. Shepard dying at the end really isn't the problem with the plot, and I don't think anyone could reasonably expect the ending to be better than bittersweet.. But the fact is that the ending is loaded with horrifying consequences that aren't immediately apparent, and most are tied to the destruction of the mass relays. First, millions of friends, families and lovers will never see each other again. They are separated forever. Second, billions of beings will never be able to return to their homeworlds. Third, the millions of people that lived in colonies and space stations will starve to death without supplies. Finally, with the destruction of the mass relay system, the only thing that made the universe interesting is gone. It's like Harry Potter ending with magic being destroyed. Sure, we saved the world, but to what avail? There really is no reason to care about it any more. The alien races are forever separated. The non-human races might as well not exist.
4. It didn't matter. Nothing that happened in any of the games up until the final multiple choice question mattered. Nothing. In a game all about choices, BioWare undermined their own creative vision by throwing every choice you made out the window and tacking a linear, one-dimesional Japanese RPG style ending on to the game, essentially ending their series with the antithesis of the reason they created it.
The more I think about it, the more it seems like the best way to summarize the issue is that Bioware tacked an poorly written, braindead, cliched Eastern ending on to a Western RPG.
Great post.
It's so disrespectful from Bioware to completely disregard the past decisions of my Shepard at the end. It's all the same if I just played a ME3 stock-Shepard compared to my 100+ hour veteran from ME1. I won't even say anything about their "artistic integrity", because it makes my blood boil.
The journey was great in Mass Effect series, but the ending ruins all re-play value it has. I plan to check out Extended Cut, but I doubt I'll play ME again.
I also wish Bioware luck with their upcoming DLC sales. Even ME2 DLC was mostly poorly made, but with ME3 and the way it's all meaningless in the end since everything dies (no synchetic-crap for my guy), the salenumbers have to be pathetic.
Full of links and opinions and info: The mightier the epic, the harder the fall, if the ending ends poorly. It's worth always keeping in the back of the mind that in stories... endings are perhaps the hardest part. I wonder if it was Murakami who said that? Damn one of those interesting authors. I noticed that The Matrix, Star Wars new gen., & more generally fizzle out. I think Mass Effect has been some great rpg-games but suffer this same creator's problem. What will be the end for humanity, even?!
The theory of why the end works is interesting in posing questions that negate choice: "Inevitability" ~ The Reapers were always going to win... yet this is actualy fundamentally an error to the intensity for each of the player's decisions: If the whole series of 1-3 is about choice (this can be shown in myriad ways) then add the structure of the player's choices & changes in forks in the games progression....
ME:
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x--End of ME
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x--End of ME2
ME3...
So what ME3 should be is a combination of ME & ME2's x = unknowns added together. Instead you have:
Y-Y-Y--!!! (literally) End of Story, more or less. Put simply: The ending DOES NOT ADD UP.
The trick a columbo or murder she wrote or miss marble or whatever daytime detective: "Yes, 10yrs ago... I saw this in the paper, put 2+2 together and voila: It was him all along." *GROAN*
TL;DR:I think players expected a more structured multiverse of endings for the Mass Effect Universe to end this story in.
Comments
I'm assuming this was a typo, as the DLC will be free for two years, not twenty (Press release = http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=662095)
And I don't believe, though I could be mistaken, that BioWare ever actually said they messed up the ending. They have repeated stated how proud of the game they are and how they are standing by the "artistic vision" (their words, not mine) and that the DLC is just attempting to provide more closure, and as mentioned previously, more "context and clarity" (again, their words, not mine).
Ummm... No.
Director: Casey Hudson
Writers: John Dombrow, Neil Pollner, Cathleen Rootsaert, Mac Walters, Patrick Weekes.
I guess your posts match your name..
The Second MrBtongue video deals with that. Apparently everything but the ending was peer reviewed by everyone involved.
Except the ending, which was done solely by Casey Hudson and Mac Walters, and without peer review. Granted, it's a rumor, but it does seem to explain why the ending and the rest of the game feel so differently.
And if true it also explains why they won't fix it. Simply an issue of ego and pride.
Hence the whole Artisitic Vision defense
Personally, I always tend to make comparisons with Dreamweb, when folks accuse me of wanting a happy ending. In that game, you play this chap who may be suffering from a nervous breakdown and is going psychotic.
But essentially you're The Chosen One, who has to stop the Big Bads, from tearing apart the Fabric of Reality, and thus unleashing some other Beasties who make the Great Old Ones from the Lovecraft Ctulhu Mythos seem like Mr. Rogers in comparison.
You manage to do so, and get sent back to Earth. All's well that ends well? Not really. Considering that you're wanted by the police for multiple murders and get shot by them as you try to give yourself up.
Turns out that all the witnesses to the existence of the Dreamweb need to be eliminated, and even as The Chosen One, you're not immune to this. Your soul then enters the Dreamweb, combined with those of the Big Bads that you dispatched, and helps strengthen it for another 1000y or so.
(Least that's how I remember the game going anyway. Heck, it's been roughly 20y since I've played it.)
Happy ending? Nope. Fully consistent with the established world? Which is one of those Dystopian Cyberpunk variants. Very much so. Did they pull the "double cross" out of thin air? Nope. There were small clues that things would end up this way, but nothing that you'd immedialy notice during your initial play through.
Now granted this is a singular game and not the end of a trilogy, but even then it's not as if the ME crew had to worry about any dangling plotpoints for a ME4.
To quote Casey Hudson: "As Mass Effect 3 is the end of the planned trilogy, the developers are not constrained by the necessity of allowing the story to diverge, yet also continue into the next chapter. This will result in a story that diverges into wildly different conclusions based on the player's actions in the first two chapters."
To once again use an Olympic Gymnastics reference. They didn't stick their landing, they either ended up on their face or their backside. And that means no Gold Medal.
And in part what makes this issue even more egrerious is the role of the Media in all of this. Which is also something that MrBtongue addresses in that second video of his.
Rather than to take Bioware to task for flubbing the landing, they went into cheerleader mode. Rather than actually reporting the dissatisfaction of the fanbase, they belittled them, to hide the fact that they themselves weren't doing their job, but were playing cheerleader.
Thereby causing both Bioware and the Media to forget one thing. Those whiny opinionated folks, who won't shut up? They kinda help you guys pay the bills. They're the ones actually reading the News Sites (that means pageviews and advertising revenue). They're the ones who help spread Word of Mouth about how awesome a game or a studio is.
Neither group is in a position like Microsoft with its Operation System. And while there are alternatives even for MS, they're not that open or available for the casual computer user.
Not quite the case with either the Gaming Media or Game Companies like Bioware. Back in the late '90s, who would've believed that Black Isle Studios, Westwood Studios, Origin Systems or Sierra would end up defunct. And the Gaming Media? Their print counterparts have slowly dwindlered, more and more online versions arise. It's not just Gamespot, IGN or Gamespy (to name the big three) no more.
And while it may not be an immediate deathknell, it's not one that should be underestimated. Bioware just needs to look at Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog, or Pandemic Studios to name a few. And none of those went under due to a fanbase that felt screwed by the Developers that they trusted.
I wrote a better ending for ME3 that ties into all the choices you have made throughout all 3 games that makes a HELL of a lot more sense than what is currently in the game.
Took me like.. 10 minutes of brainstorming.
No plot holes, ties into everything in the game, more importantly ties everything together! and has varying outcomes based directly on what you have done for hundreds of hours throughout the franchise instead of a random A,B,C decision that doesn't tie into anything and means jack sh!t to anyone/everything.
Also, would be 100% entirely possible to do given how well Bioware proved they can track the decisions your character made via the import system.
10 minutes or so of extra dialogue, than 3 seperate possible endings (cut scenes and such) that actually make sense, provide resolution for the franchise, and would without a doubt completely eliminate any lingering doubts/fears/anger the fans have.
Bioware, give me a call.
Oh yeah, it also fits perfectly into the lore as established by the series in terms of plausability.
Oh and you know what? It even ties into the current ending just enough to not have to scrap ALL of it.
MMORPG.com, use your connections and make it happen lol I promise you won't be disappointed.
Actually it's more like 4 possible endings because there would be one super special ZOMG I "beat" Mass Effect ending for the uber fans.
Suzie if you want I can write it out for you
You could even take it to Bioware as your own I wouldn't care.
And yes, it really is that good.
I agree that the "happy ending" wasn't necessarily what I would expect (even if we all hoped for it). People should accept that "all things must pass".
Nonetheless I agree with the fact that the sudden "divine intervention" (mostly anticipated by the strange dreams of the child) was a total letdown...
But then I watched the video about the "indoctrination theory". It could be.
Anyway I'll wait and see. ME3 is a fantastic game. The ending is a bit of meh...
Im so glad I opted not to buy ME3 and just wait till 2 year down the line for a deluxe with all the DLC ending where it might actually be decent.
Seems that Bioware are just putting out fail after fail since the EA takeover.
Nice post, Escapehatch. It may be a bit too... calm for most rabid fans, but you make some good points.
The ending isn't perfect, but I think people are overreacting. I do see some sense in Escapehatch's logic. The Reapers were impossible to beat. How many cycles had this happened before Shepard even got this far? I think I would have been disappointed if it were a happily ever after ending.
Also, I keep hearing how the endings are exactly the same with different colors (everyone did NOT die in my ending --- arguing that they would eventually die isn't really an arguement; not being able to use the relays does not equal death).
Where were all the complaints about ME2? There were 2 endings, you destroyed the Collector base or you didn't. Even calling these 2 different endings is a bit weak -- you've already deteated the Collectors by the time this decision is made! Your crew dying was more about you rushing through the game skipping ship improvements and/or skipping the crews' personal missions. Sure, you could do all that and still have people die, but it was much more difficult to do. It was great that ME2 got the whole crew involved at the end (what the hell, ME3?), but crew death really doesn't feel like a "custom" ending to me. The ending was still about defeating the Collectors.
The point is that ME doesn't have a history of custom endings (including ME1). They allow a few choices that make it feel like you've got freedom, but Bioware needed to control the story or each following game would have too many wildly differing storylines to follow. (If there is no ME4, then this arguement is not valid for ME3.)
I was not overly excited about the ending -- mainly because it felt like you crawled (limped) over the finish line. I would still like to see more details behind the ending, so will be playing the free DLC. I just can't bring myself to protest and/or boycott like many of you are doing. I'm a fan of the series, but there are too many other important things to be upset about.... like Origin or DRM (just kidding).
Thanks Suzie. I completely agree!
Above all else... never ever piss off the penguin.
Hope the extended DLC is several minutes of the writing staff being bludgeoned by a large elephant turd.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
Writing staff? Nah, I think they got the drunken hobo out back to write it...
On a related note, I think the ending pretty much proves that Drew Karpyshyn was the true reason Bioware had a reputation for excellent storytelling.
It's like watching Blizzard all over again. You just wish you could go back in time when the game always came first. Nothing lasts forever. RIP Bioware?
Blizzard's still successful as a company, but does anyone still love/respect them like pre-'04? I'd suggest that if Bioware isn't there yet, they're well on their way after ME3 and TOR.
If you don't worry about it, it's not a problem.
OK, long winded time. Screw spoiler alerts, because if you read the article you either beat the game already or had it spoiled anyway.
First off, I agreee with the "95%" article 400%. Right up until the final battle the game was flat out EPIC. My only complaints would have been the occasionally retarded cover and the small number of playable side missions. But everything I did felt awesome when I had a mission. Seeing old and new friends, Seeing how Jack changed, watching Mordin redeem himself, watching Liara repeatedly break down..just awesome.
Then came the ending. I'ma break this down in pieces.
1) The ghost/AI/kid/Whatever. There would have been nothing wrong with this character IF it had better representation in the 95%. We had a couple dream sequences that don't even feel connected to the ending.If this had been developed better throughout the game (or better, the series) I'da been OK with it.
2) "I created synthetics to kill organics so organics don't make a synthetic that kills organics": I wanna slap the writer who handled this part for screwing up. I actually GET what the stupid AI is talking about. It purges the most advanced species every so often so they don't get TOO powerful and wipe out ALL life with their own stupid. Think of it like pruning a tree, or perhaps an analogy to the Tower of Babel. Problem is this was so horribly prhased it comes out idiotic. Horrible, terrible writing. Unforgiveable.
3) The choices: Knowing how much of ME was influenced by classic sci-fi, these don't surprise me...much. Kill the Reapers. OK, we knew that had to be one. Control them? Well, the Renegade options in 2 tended to have you thinking a lot along the lines of the Illusive Man, so I'll buy it. Merge with them to form a new super form of life? If you've ever read the Uplift series, 2001, Ringworld, or many other classic sci-fi pieces...you'd remember the idea of species merging to become something greater, beyond life as we understand it, is hardly new. It was a direct homage to those ideas and I'm OK with that.
What I'm NOT OK with is the fact we could choose. I get all the way to the end a perfect, sweet paragon, and at the end, I can turn around and undo it all and control the Reapers? No. The smart thing would have been to have your choices throughout the games shunt you into one of the endings automatically, without you choosing. Make the ending be the sum of your personality....you know, like it was supposed to.
4) Colored explosions: The cinematic team phoned it in. Period. They were rushed, there were budget cuts, they didn't know how to make it not suck....so they took the cheap route. Bioware did that a lot in DA2 as well, and I'm pretty much done giving them a chance because of it.
5) Relays destroyed: Remember my allusion to the tower of Babel? This fits pretty well really...but shoudl NOT have been the result of every ending. I think they shoehorned it into some endings so the same cinematic could be used for them all.
6) Joker picking up your teammates/running.crashing: This is plausible actually. It's possible he came down to help in the fight, found your mates all unhappy that you apparently died, and got the hell off earth. Then his sensors pick up the exploding ME relay, and he runs like hell. It's possible the planet he crashes on is one right in out Solar system..maybe a terraformed Venus or something.
Or it's a stupid plot hole. Whatever.
All the same, Bioware promised us something like 9+ completely, wildly different endings driven by our choices. And didn't give us that. I can understand some of their choices, and even agree with some, but I can't forgive the majority.
I did a lot of thinking about this last night and I came up with four reasons it sucks that have nothing to do with the ending being "unhappy."
1. It's Deus Ex Machina. In fact, that's an understatement. Having a magical space god show up at the end of the game is a straight up ass-pull. It's the science fiction version of "it was aliens." It's just plain bad, cliched writing. Even if it was their artistic vision from the beginning, gods/aliens showing up at the end is about as artistic as it turning out to have all been a dream at the end.
2. The world just got inverted. For the entire series, Shepard's choices define the plot. When you hit the ending, the plot starts defining Shepard's choices. Not onlydoes this sort of undermine the entire feeling of the series, but it's also just another case of bad plotting. If you have to make the characters make unreasonable or out of character decisions to make your plot work, then throw it out. It sucks.
3. It's not just sad. It's downright tragic. Shepard dying at the end really isn't the problem with the plot, and I don't think anyone could reasonably expect the ending to be better than bittersweet.. But the fact is that the ending is loaded with horrifying consequences that aren't immediately apparent, and most are tied to the destruction of the mass relays. First, millions of friends, families and lovers will never see each other again. They are separated forever. Second, billions of beings will never be able to return to their homeworlds. Third, the millions of people that lived in colonies and space stations will starve to death without supplies. Finally, with the destruction of the mass relay system, the only thing that made the universe interesting is gone. It's like Harry Potter ending with magic being destroyed. Sure, we saved the world, but to what avail? There really is no reason to care about it any more. The alien races are forever separated. The non-human races might as well not exist.
4. It didn't matter. Nothing that happened in any of the games up until the final multiple choice question mattered. Nothing. In a game all about choices, BioWare undermined their own creative vision by throwing every choice you made out the window and tacking a linear, one-dimesional Japanese RPG style ending on to the game, essentially ending their series with the antithesis of the reason they created it.
The more I think about it, the more it seems like the best way to summarize the issue is that Bioware tacked an poorly written, braindead, cliched Eastern ending on to a Western RPG.
In regards to a good/sad ending. /This was said more or less in one of the youtube vids/ The 3 games have all been about making choices, so what's the problem if you made good choices all the way through and can then pick a good ending? The point is if its all about choices, when why end the game with any ONE way?
A sad ending doesn't mean good writing. btw.
I noticed someone above asked if a writer should change somehting they have done if people complain. That's up to the author. However, if as a person you can't acknowledge when you have made a mistake, when it is layed out clearly before you, then you aren't much of a person.
Do we really believe Shepard's crew would abandon her? Especially her LI? I think that that relationship transcended the whole idea of commander and soldier by the time we hit London. The same goes for all of the crew. They were undyingly devoted to Shepard, as was Joker. I think even knowing that the relays were blowing, he'd keep fighting.
But I think what bugs me the most is the fact that we don't get to see anyone remembering Shepard's sacrifice, knowing that she did it and is remembered. Oh sure, we get the child molester scene telling the kid about "The Shepard" but that smacks more of a fictionalized story than it does telling the story of a hero, the person who literally single-handedly (at the end at least) save the galaxy...well kinda but you know what I mean.
What's so disturbing about the whole exercise is that we have been left with nothing, not even a shred of a good feeling except for the breath that Shepard draws at the end of the 'red choice'. I had to go that way or I would never have been able to sleep at night again.
And while I'm at it: I honestly don't believe that synthesis is the "Paragon" choice. I'm replaying ME1 these days, difficult as that is, and it's clear right from the onset that Shepard's goals were to DESTROY the reapers, not control or meld with them. Control was TIM's bag. Synthesis was Sarin's thing. Shepard outright rejected both of them, first by helping Saren redeem himself in ME1 by rejecting synthesis and ultimately killing himself to show his rejection of synthesis. Shepard learned from that. Later by destroying the Reaper base and rejecting TIM's contention that we could learn to control them. From my perspective, red is the ONLY Paragon choice since that was Shepard's ultimate goal from the start.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I am so down with this. We live in a world of sorrows. Why can't we at least have the option to have a good, happy ending?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Pretty much. Not sure if anyone here is familiar with the Baldur's Gate novels.
First two were written by Philip Athans, one of WOTC Editors. And how can I put this politely..They were horrendous. Characterization was way off (Khalid a domestic abuser?) dialogue was trite, pretty much every character was unlikeable etc.
(And before anyone says that it's hard to write a novel about a game, Leonard Boyarsky did just that, was at a website known as Silvermoon's Attic, it's no longer available though.) And quite frankly it beat the pants off of what Athans did. (Leo used to be a BIS/Troika guy, currently working at Blizzard on Diablo 3.)
Anyway, fast forward to the third novel, based on the Throne of Bhaal. They hired Drew to do it as opposed to Athans. Let's just say that if the previous novels scored 1s on a scale of 1 to 10, that Drew managed to drag the third novel to a 5,5.. The third one was actually readable, still not great, but, he had to incorperate all the previous material in order to resolve the storyline, and when you have to work with rubbish. Well, it was just downright impressive what he managed to pull off.
Makes me wonder what he could've done with the entire series, if they'd given it to him right off the bat.
And to be blunt, I really do think, that Bioware/EA should pay Drew a million dollars, net pay, to come in and fix this mess. He's done it before (see the novel thing), and ME was his baby to begin with. They'd be better off in the long run with that course of action. A good reputation is a very hard thing to build, but oh so easy to destroy.
Very good article Suzie. Well Done!
Exactly. I know there was a thread on the BSN with that had an interview with Patrick Weekes (best writer left currently working on Mass Effect) that had stated there was 'good reason' that Joker had left earth with the rest of the crew. My question to that is, THEN WHAT THE HELL IS IT?
I've replayed the game twice since I beat it originally, and I always end up just alt-f4ing after Anderson dies and writing an ending that makes sense and fits within the cannon. Much more satisfying than the drivel we were handed.
Shepard unable to get pregnant makes Kaidan :'(
The more likely thing that happened.
- Dev 1) Guys we need to wrap this game up anyone have ideas how to end it.
- Dev 2) How about we use this quote from klencory to have one of these light creatures be behind it.
- Dev 1) Oh nice find, let's use that.
To be honest the quote is really vague. An argument can easily be made that those beings didn't make the reapers, but instead where just part of a previous cycle but got conquered by the reapers and the one in the citadel got indoctrinated.
An argument could be made that the reapers set in motion these cycles purely to prevent any civilization from creating AI's that could rival their own.
Overal the ending didn't resolve anything and only gave more questions due to the many plotholes it left behind.
It is sad to see previously great game developers like Bioware and Blizzard allow their success to become blinding arrogance that drives a wedge between them and the players who loved and supported them. That arrogance prevents them from thinking like just another gamer who loves games, but that way of thinking is what drove their success to begin with. Just sad, we lost Bioware to EA and Blizzard to Activision.
To me the ME2 ending, and actually that whole game was far worse story wise. So I was pleasantly surprised by the ME3 ending.
Great post.
It's so disrespectful from Bioware to completely disregard the past decisions of my Shepard at the end. It's all the same if I just played a ME3 stock-Shepard compared to my 100+ hour veteran from ME1. I won't even say anything about their "artistic integrity", because it makes my blood boil.
The journey was great in Mass Effect series, but the ending ruins all re-play value it has. I plan to check out Extended Cut, but I doubt I'll play ME again.
I also wish Bioware luck with their upcoming DLC sales. Even ME2 DLC was mostly poorly made, but with ME3 and the way it's all meaningless in the end since everything dies (no synchetic-crap for my guy), the salenumbers have to be pathetic.
This article was an awesome read!!!
Full of links and opinions and info: The mightier the epic, the harder the fall, if the ending ends poorly. It's worth always keeping in the back of the mind that in stories... endings are perhaps the hardest part. I wonder if it was Murakami who said that? Damn one of those interesting authors. I noticed that The Matrix, Star Wars new gen., & more generally fizzle out. I think Mass Effect has been some great rpg-games but suffer this same creator's problem. What will be the end for humanity, even?!
The theory of why the end works is interesting in posing questions that negate choice: "Inevitability" ~ The Reapers were always going to win... yet this is actualy fundamentally an error to the intensity for each of the player's decisions: If the whole series of 1-3 is about choice (this can be shown in myriad ways) then add the structure of the player's choices & changes in forks in the games progression....
ME:
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x--End of ME
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x--End of ME2
ME3...
So what ME3 should be is a combination of ME & ME2's x = unknowns added together. Instead you have:
Y-Y-Y--!!! (literally) End of Story, more or less. Put simply: The ending DOES NOT ADD UP.
The trick a columbo or murder she wrote or miss marble or whatever daytime detective: "Yes, 10yrs ago... I saw this in the paper, put 2+2 together and voila: It was him all along." *GROAN*
TL;DR:I think players expected a more structured multiverse of endings for the Mass Effect Universe to end this story in.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem