Mass Effect 3 Discussion Thread

Q-BZ said:
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1038483856&postcount=895
Question: If you play MP and get everything up to 100 percent and really play thoroughly and kick ass and such...can you help that "ending" situation out at all?
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Not really, the only significant effect from all decisions in the series are:
~3k effective strength, unlocks synthesis ending.
~4k effective strength, lets the destroy synthetics ending show a 30 sec clip that hints that Shepard might have survived on earth.

Other than that, it's all for nothing.
 
Q-BZ said:
Question: If you play MP and get everything up to 100 percent and really play thoroughly and kick ass and such...can you help that "ending" situation out at all?
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No, as long as you have over a certain amount (there's debate whether it's 4000 or 5000) you will get the, ahem, "good" endings.
 
Q-BZ said:
It's the biggest screwjob of all time and the biggest con in television history thus far. A shaggy dog story from start to finish. A group of overgrown, tripping out frat boys said "Let's throw a bunch of shit at the wall and see what sticks if it sounds cool and string it along."

That's my summary of Lost.


Same here although the MP is pretty fun so I don't playing it regardless of what it does.
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I really enjoyed Lost until it hit the fan at the end but alas I digress. I find that I'm enjoying Fringe more than Lost. I'm a fan of Bad Robot's productions (though Alias isn't exactly entirely fun).

I won't do MP (for now) since my time to game is never set in stone at times.
 
The "best" ending that you can get is an additional short cutscene.

I've been playing MP a bit so maybe I'll get to see that stupid cutscene sometime in the future....

Honestly, I think I'm not as irritated by the ending because I essentially treated the game as complete before I went to the final phase :) Having the general idea that the ending was bad, I went into the ending expecting a bad movie sequence....and got what I expected.
 
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Neb said:
The "best" ending that you can get is an additional short cutscene.

Honestly, I think I'm not as irritated by the ending because I essentially treated the game as complete before I went to the final phase :) Having the general idea that the ending was bad, I went into the ending expecting a bad movie sequence....and got what I expected.
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Right.

I've seen enough harpings on the ending by now, even without spoilers, to know I damn well better go into it with absysmal expectations just to be safe.
 
Neb said:
The "best" ending that you can get is an additional short cutscene.

I've been playing MP a bit so maybe I'll get to see that stupid cutscene sometime in the future....
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Can you tell me what the "best" ending is?
 
Without spoilers: Is the ending something that can be addressed in any way, shape, or form (think Fallout 3) via additional DLC or whatever? ANY room for any kind of shenanigans or back doors?
 
Q-BZ said:
To some degree or another: Probably depending on who you talk to.

I'm amazed at how fast some people have already finished the game and it suggests to me they blazed ass through it and may have missed a number of things.

If I blazed ass through these games I'd probably be less than impressed with the narrative myself.
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I spent ~45 hours finishing the game. I had a few days off work, plus the weekend... :D

I played ME1 and ME2 multiple times each - at least 5 times each - and I savor the story and interactions. That's why I love the game. I'm a *massive* ME fan. And while the ending(s) would have been fine as an OPTION for the ending, the fact is that there's VERY LITTLE DIFFERENCE between all the endings, and almost ALL of your major decisions in all three games prior to the ending HAVE ALMOST NO EFFECT ON IT.

One of the biggest decisions in the game? Paragon vs. Renegade - my Paragon is SO different from my Renegade and that fact defines most of their actions, but for the final ending... LOLWHOCARES, doesn't matter.



Honestly, the on-disc Day One DLC thing seems like nothing but a minor annoyance compared to the ending.


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Q-BZ said:
Without spoilers: Is the ending something that can be addressed in any way, shape, or form (think Fallout 3) via additional DLC or whatever? ANY room for any kind of shenanigans or back doors?
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Short of retconning the final ~30 minutes or so of the game? Not really, in my opinion.
 
Q-BZ said:
Without spoilers: Is the ending something that can be addressed in any way, shape, or form (think Fallout 3) via additional DLC or whatever? ANY room for any kind of shenanigans or back doors?
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No, the game ends for good after the ending. You get sent back to the normandy pre-last mission and told to explore more.
 
Q-BZ said:
Hey. You never know. ;) If there's enough of an outcry...
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I guess an alternate ending DLC would be interesting. And with EA's track record, I wouldn't be entirely shocked if they released a crappy ending just so they could sell a $20 "ALTERNATE ENDING" DLC in a few months. (Sorry, don't mean to sound too bitter)

But for stories I get heavily invested in, I've never liked the alternate endings. It just seems like a snapshot of what 'could have happened' or a glimpse into a parallel universe. The ending of Mass Effect in my mind will unfortunately always be RGB.
 
Cali3350 said:
No, the game ends for good after the ending. You get sent back to the normandy pre-last mission and told to explore more.
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Thanks for the heads up.



KatalDT said:
I guess an alternate ending DLC would be interesting. And with EA's track record, I wouldn't be entirely shocked if they released a crappy ending just so they could sell a $20 "ALTERNATE ENDING" DLC in a few months. (Sorry, don't mean to sound too bitter)
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LOL, yup, that sounds like EA.


But for stories I get heavily invested in, I've never liked the alternate endings. It just seems like a snapshot of what 'could have happened' or a glimpse into a parallel universe. The ending of Mass Effect in my mind will unfortunately always be RGB.
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Fair enough although I can think of a recent movie, I Am Legend, where I easily and happily embraced that alternate ending quite happily. As it is, the sequel to that movie happens to be working off that ending so like I said: Hey, you never know.

I think people should go ahead and make their displeasure known now as much as they can. EA forums. Bioware forums. These. The works. It can't hurt.
 
Q-BZ said:
Without spoilers: Is the ending something that can be addressed in any way, shape, or form (think Fallout 3) via additional DLC or whatever? ANY room for any kind of shenanigans or back doors?
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It could be if the DLC essentially replaced the ending sequence completely. Perhaps they could use the old dream-sequence cliche to explain the current ending, then switch you to the DLC's ending storyline.

I think I agree with LhasaCM's post saying that it feels like the ending was a haphazardly done rush job.


Q-BZ said:
Hey. You never know. ;) If there's enough of an outcry...
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There's a poll going on in the bioware forums voting for a better/more positive ending with 24925 votes. There's certainly a decent outcry for it, but I'm not sure if it's enough given that ME3 sold 890k on the first day. Small but vocal minority might work, maybe? :)

I didn't know I Am Legend had an alternate ending....time to netflix it :D
 
Dan_D said:
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Totally agree, I played ME1 and 2 7 times each and I don't really feel like going through ME3 more than once. And it's sad because I absolutely loved ME3 until the end.

The ending left me more confused and with more unanswered questions than when I started the game. I've read what others thought of the ending and I like this explanation...it was all a hallucination, Shepard is still out cold next to the beam and hallucinated the whole thing. It's the only way I can make sense to an ending that didn't really make any sense to me. I can only pray that DLC will be released that "fixes" the ending.

My thoughts on the choices
Am I the only one that thinks there was only one choice?
- I spent 3 games trying to destroy the Reapers so I'm not choosing the "Blue" ending.
- I've also spent 3 games not buying in to all of the Reapers crap that they tell you so I'm not choosing the "Green" ending. Even though this is the "everyone is happy ending," why would I make a choice based on what the creator of the Reapers tells me "might" happen. "Jump into this beam and all the problems will be solved"...fuck you buddy, how do I know you're not trying to indoctrinate me or the entire universe if I do this.
- So that left me with the only logical choice IMO and that was to destroy them and all synthetic life which didn't leave me satisfied either since I just spent an hour before that "freeing" the geth.

edit, this...

Neb said:
It could be if the DLC essentially replaced the ending sequence completely. Perhaps they could use the old dream-sequence cliche to explain the current ending, then switch you to the DLC's ending storyline.
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That is my ending, my Shep is still on the ground...Since I made a bunch of choices that apparently didn't matter, I'm going to make one more choice, my game ends right there. It's the only explanation to why my squad mates magically teleport back to the Normandy.
 
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I'm a little more clear headed this morning after completing Mass Effect 3 earlier today. I went to bed pretty angry about the game's endings. The ending I got was so terrible that I immediately researched other possible endings to see if I got everything horribly wrong somewhere along the way and as it turns out I didn't. They say the game has six endings, I'm going to tell you now, it doesn't. the game doesn't really even have more than 1 ending from a practical standpoint and that Shepard's fight was all for nothing. He might has well have let the Reapers win. The end result is about the same.

So my thoughts on the current endings and how things SHOULD have happened with a note for BioWare and how they can fix this atrocity.

What amounted to an action RPG with a story that could have made for the next major science fiction franchise following in the foot steps of Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, etc. basically ended the same way the modern BSG did. And that's not a good thing. The game could have really transcended being a game and ended up being so much more without even trying. And that's the problem. BioWare actually tried to turn the game's story into something akin to the so called classic's of science fiction which becomes more like a philosophical debate about man vs. machine and their fears about what true artifical intelligence could one day turn into. This isn't an uncommon trait but it makes for a lousy gaming experience It tries to be thought provoking and intelligent but all it really does is piss me off. If I wanted that sort of story, I'd pick up a book written by Isaac Asimov or someone like that. A game's ending, and a science fiction series ending should leave you with a sense of accomplishment and a hope for a brighter tomorrow. It should allow the universe as you know it to continue, hopefully a little brighter thanks to your character's achievements. But instead nothing Shepard does matters and if anything he's made things worse.

Mass Effect has always been about choices and seeing how those choices impact the game world. At the end of Mass Effect 3, you are presented with three choices after a dismal, grim and ultimately unsatisfying ending. All three end choices essentially lead to the same conclusion. The end and complete destruction of the Mass Effect universe with your Shepard sacrificing himself for nothing and the destruction of the relay network. The fight becomes a moot point as letting the Reapers win would have at least preserved the network and allowed the races to live on the run from the Reapers a little while longer.

Already there is a huge plot hole as the destruction of a Mass Relay as we've seen in the Arrival amounts to the destruction of the entire star system which the really arrives. I'll give you a minute to absorb that.

The final act begins with you taking on Cerberus in a bid to stop the Illusive Man once and for all and take Cerberus out of the equation so the fleets can concentrate on destroying the Reaper menace without anymore interferance. You find the Illusive Man's station and set a course. And I'm sure the conversations differ a little based on who your Shepard romanced if anyone and a sex scene which is ultimately about the same as it was in ME1. OK fine, whatever. At that point you travel to the main Cerberus base which is a space station near a giant sun. You move through the station encountering entrenched forces of Cerberus and taking them out. You are forced to bring EDI into the base with you for her hacking expertise and knowledge of Cerberus. As she takes a moment to break through security leading in the next section you find various "unsecured and unscrubbed" consoles which detail events during Shepard's two year reconstruction. It starts with Wilson's insistance that there is too much damage and that bringing Shepard back isn't a matter of resources, but rather an impossible task.

As you watch these scense unfold, immediately you begin to question whether or not this is really Shepard or a clone, cyborg replica, or something of that nature. Then as you progress the game does a 180 on you and the videos indeed confirm that this is the real commander Shepard. The Illusive man is seeing ordering EDI's construction by marrying Reaper technology to the AI from the Luna base in Mass Effect 1 which went rougue and killed tons of Alliance soldiers. He also orders the construction of Normandy and knows off the top of his head exactly who is needed for Shepard's mission. It was cool to see the plans being put into motion which were essentially the plot of Mass Effect 2. You then make your way into the Illusive Man's office and have a verbal confrontation with him as he'd never have stood there personally to face you. He then explains that controlling the Reapers is the key and that he can do it.

Kai Leng, the assasin who tried to kill the Citadel Council and did kill Thane Krios returns to try and kill you. Shepard and Leng exchange some whitty dialog and the fight leads to the dstruction of the Illusive Man's office. The floors get torn apart as he does his ground pound thing and Cerberus troops drop in from the ceiling. Eventually he's beaten and Shepard goes to examine the Illusive Man's terminal. Leng attempts to be stealthy and sneak up on Shepard while your companions curiously state out the window with indifference to what Shepard is doing, and then of course Shepard gets up from the chair, turns around and melee's him in the stomach killing him in self-defense and vengeance in the name of his fallen commrade Thane. Aside from the opening cut scenes of the battle to retake Earth, this is where the game stops being good.

Shepard goes from being concerned about the future, but still optimistic and inspiring to being pretty much depressed and uncertain for the rest of the game. The Crucibal, is ready to meet the fleet and the Citadel is parked over earth. Rather than storming the Citadel and destroying Reaper forces in it in a manner similar to ME1, you hit London in a plan to capture a site in which human bodies are placed in a beam and essentially ride the light to the Citadel for some type of processing. There is no boss fight, just fighting wave after wave of enemies until you reach a tank which carries missiles potentially able to harm a Reaper destroyer assuming the eye is open and vulnerable. You hold your ground until the missiles can be targeted at the Reaper and eventually you finish the thing off. It's honestly anticlimactic after having fought a Reaper just like this one on foot and painting the target for Normandy earlier on the Quarrian homeworld of Rannoch.

After taking out the Reaper, Sovereign class Reapers like Harbinger and Sovereign break from the battle to come and deal with whatever is happening on the ground. They arrive quickly and fire at you and your team destroying M35 Mako's and killing the cannon fodder troops of the combined forces. Eventually you get really close to the beam and one of the Reapers fires a shot which melts Shepards armor, and kills everyone else on the team as far as you can tell. Your companions are no where to be found and aren't seen again until the end credits. This is another point of contention with me as you don't see their bodies, but they appear more or less fine later. You travel up the beam to the Citadel and find yourself in a gruesome room filled with dozens of dead bodies and your injured Shepard makes his way past a Keeper who is doing whatever it is that Keeper's do. You find your way out into the Citadel and walk to a control room where you find Anderson trying to start the process that will enable the Crucibel to do it's thing. The Illusive Man appears, clearly indoctrinated and showing signs of being turned into a Reaper soldier of some kind, very much like Saren was in ME1. You go back and fourth about how Cerberus should control the Reapers and that even if it can work, he's the last person who should do so. He apparently has a hold on Shepard and Anderson and though Shepard has a pistol, he and Anderson are unable to move. The Illusive Man exerts some kind of thought control over Shepard and shoots Anderson in the stomach. This is in the ending I got and after reading about it, this part is the most variable part of the story.

If you have enough paragon or renegade points you can talk the Illusive Man into shooting himself in the head exactly as Saren did in the original Mass Effect. There is no final battle hear, just this conversation. Shepard then watches Anderson die and then Hackett calls telling you that the Crucibel isn't working. You make your way to the control panel but Shepard is bleeding badly and lacks the strength to do anything. He passes out and a left appears and carries him away.

And as if the game didn't jump the shark enough already, Shepard is met by some kind of being which appears to be immortal and the force behind the cyclic nature of the Mass Effect universe. He states that Reapers harvest only advanced civilizations who live on as Reapers themselves. They are in a sense preserved, but their form is altered. He claims this symbiosis is necessary because machines always rise to destroy their creators even though this notion is totally disproven earlier in the same game as the Geth didn't rise to destroy organics, they truly were forced to do so in order to preserve themselves. He claims that this is a solution to the problem of mortality and man vs. machine. But then he further states that his solution has finally failed because Shepard is before him has and that he needs a new plan. Oh and did I forget to mention that this being is a glowing pattern of energy which resembles the boy that Shepard saw die at the beginning of the game? Oh well if I didn't there is that too.

The being outlines three possible choices for Shepard. Two of these choices will consume Shepard and add his energy to whatever it is exactly that the Crucibal outputs. The being confirms that controlling the Repears is the key as the Illusive Man predicted. He of course states that he was unable to do so but that Shepard can.
  • Send a signal which destroys the Reapers and all synthetic life in the galaxy entirely but at the cost of the Mass Relay network.
  • Send a signal which repels the Reapers back to where they came from, but that signal or energy will destroy the mass relay network.
  • Destroy all life in the galaxy and reform it into a hybrid synthetic / living form.
So basically even though this is presented as three choices, you really only get one. Destroy the Mass Effect universe completely. One wipes out all life, and the other two destroy the relays and would allow people to live in peace aside from that pesky fact about exploding relays wiping out star systems. Even if they didn't, the loss of the relays essentially maroons each planet and with a society based on space commerce, travel and shipping of goods, each of these worlds is in trouble. Any population they have which can not be sustained naturally on the planet would be destroyed. Earth for example can't sustain Quarrien or Turian life. The Krogan would breed out of control and probably have no choice but to destroy what remains of Earth's populace. Colonies would have no support and would die off. Basically given the level of destruction, each society is more or less bombed back into the stone age.

So basically Shepard has no choice but to destroy civilization as we know it and hope the best for his friends. His fight was basically nothing and he might as well have ignored the Reapers. At least then information could be passed into the next cycle with the relay system intact.

Once your choice is made and the Crucibal "fires" the Reapers are destroyed, driven back and the signal travels to the relays destroying them. The Normandy attempts to outrun the wave and is heavily damaged. It then shows the ship marooned on a primitive planet with Joker, Liara, and Javik getting off the ship. (Yet Liara was in my party and shouldn't have been on the Normandy at all whether she is alive or not.) The sky of the planet is clearly alien and not Earth. So even if you are in the same galaxy, it's not anywhere near Earth. Then after the credits you see a father and his sone standing in what appears to be a park or something in the winter with trees and the same back drop the Normandy crew saw after crashing. As it turns out the father is telling the Mass Effect story as basically a bed time story to his kid. Refering to Commander Shepard as "The Shepard" and the kid asking if all that really happened. The father replies with something about some of the details being lost to time, but more or less that's how it went.

The maddening part is all Shepards relationships are over. All your choices don't matter and literally mean nothing as the endings are all pretty much final. The entire struggle was futile. And ironically the man who brings the galaxy together as never before is responsible for shattering it and ending civilization. Much of which being the very things he or she fought and died for. This is ultimately a slap in the face and totally unsatisfying. The Mass Effect universe is generally about possibilities and choices. Your choices should matter but don't.

How it Should have Ended:

How it should have ended is one of those things that people may never agree on. So I don't want to write any specific endings here. Personally I'd like to have seen an ending in which the Repears were repelled or destroyed with a new Citadel Council being formed with members from each race who came together to destroy the Reapers. The Citadel still remains at Earth in the Sol system with Shepard taking Udina's spot on the Citadel council and people resolving to rebuild. Perhaps that future Shepard joked about at the end of Lair of the Shadow Broker in which he/she marries Liara and make "lots of little blue children" would have been appropriate. A nice Renegade option could even feature Shepard as the master of the Reapers and getting to choose how everything will be from that point on taking on an Emporer type role. One people rally to because he's done right by them so far.

Future installments may be slightly problematic on that model, but could take place 20 or 30 years from the end of ME3 with a new galactic hero and an older Shepard based on your imported save file aged appropriately to take Andersons role in the series or having been defeated and killed if you imported a renegade save. The general details of the current happenings which reference the earlier games could be left vague enough to cover all the bases. Future installments should of course most likely feature rogue / renegade Geth corrupted by Reaper code wanting to dominate and destroy or something like that and maybe sending a signal to retreive the Reapers or recreate them.

I'm not sure why it was so hard to come up with a more satisfying ending, but this game's basically bleak and unfulfilling at the end. As it stands now the ending is so bad I wish I had never heard of the series at all rather than feel the way I do now.

What BioWare SHOULD do and an actual note to any BioWare people that might read this. (You never know, anything's possible.)

This is another topic that few people may find "consensus" on as Legion would put it. I'm sure that there are some people who love these endings as they are now, and leaving them in as potential alternate endings shouldn't necessarily be out of the question.

A DLC should be incoming from BioWare and I think that's already rumored to be the case. Further more this DLC should be FREE. I normally don't mind DLC's being charged for provided they provide what I'd consider a value. While a DLC that makes the game's ending more satisfying would be worth a lot to me, after getting kicked in perverbial nuts, I think BioWare and EA owe us on this one. The game should have included a more satisfying ending in the first place. It's even in EA's best interest to change the official endings to pave the way for future installments in this obvious cash cow.

As for repairing the damage that is the final act, you are basically left with science fictions go to and unoriginal options to resolve the current mess. Shep's been around a lot of Reaper tech and the gay dream sequences of the boy running away and spontaneously combusting indicates Shep's been losing his or her marbles since Earth was attacked and possibly earlier. I hate to say it, but going with Dallas's "J.R. wasn't shot it was all a dream" type of scenario would probably be the easiest fix. Given the proximity to Reaper tech an explanation that Harbinger is showing Shepard a vision of what may happen should they activate the crucibal would seem to be the most logical conclusion in my mind. He spent days near the Reaper artifact at the end of the Arrival DLC, so again this makes sense to me.

So I'd say that as a bridge to fix this would be to have a playable mission, in which Liara, (whether in your party or not) is tasked to find out if Shepard made it or not. This could involve her and other characters from the Normandy crew fighting their way to the beam device to see what happened. (If Liara was in your party, then she could have been thrown clear by the explosions etc. that hit the area.) She fights her way to Shepard only to discover him injured and talking nonsense. She's can then join his mind the way she did in the first game (not while having sex, but like she did when she tried to help him sort out the Prothean beacon images) and she could then detect the Reaper indoctrination. At that point she could go into his mind and try and free him from the Reaper influence while field medics work on Shepard's body.

You see, whether or not you romanced Liara isn't the question. She has always cared deeply for Shepard regardless of your choices. So her doing all this, especially after LOTSB makes sense. Furthermore, the game add on could be presented in real time just as the last part of the Arrival was in which you've got an hour or so to get Shepard back in shape mentally, etc. to rejoin the fight and finish. After the conclusion of this, Shepard could wake up hit the beam and a new ending could take place.

Another possibly easier way to do things would be to have some of Shep's team make it to the Citadel and fight their way toward Shepard, in at the end they find Shep halucinating and being manipulated by the Illusive Man. At that point they have to destroy the Illusive man and even potentially fight Shepard or at least talk him down from making a given choice. Choices to kill Shep and allow him to live could be numerous and occur in a lot of different ways. That's probably the easiest thing to do. I think using any of these methods the Crucibal needs to be changed to a device that sends out a master signal recovered long ago by the Protheans, possibly even Javik or one from his time who added it to the Crucibal design as each cycle added to it. Either a signal that repells the Reapers for some reason or destroys them and only them. It should travel through the relay network to reach everything and every Reaper, but not destroy it. It could even counter the effects of indoctrination.

I don't know, just thinking outloud.

Hopefully a more satisfying ending than what we got that allows for the Mass Effect universe we've invested so much time in, know and love to continue. Even if this contiuation only allows Shepard to exist in a cameo type role going forward at best.

Thoughts?
 
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PureBooYah said:
That is my ending, my Shep is still on the ground...Since I made a bunch of choices that apparently didn't matter, I'm going to make one more choice, my game ends right there. It's the only explanation to why my squad mates magically teleport back to the Normandy.
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The game is much more tolerable when you emotionally detach yourself from the ending, isn't it? :) The continuity issue with the Normandy really makes me think that the ending was supposed to be different but was switched. Speaking of which, I wonder what the leaked script has for an ending?


Dan_D said:
I'm a little more clear headed this morning after completing Mass Effect 3 earlier today. I went to bed pretty angry about the game's endings. The ending I got was so terrible that I immediately researched other possible endings to see if I got everything horribly wrong somewhere along the way and as it turns out I didn't. They say the game has six endings, I'm going to tell you now, it doesn't. the game doesn't really even have more than 1 ending from a practical standpoint and that Shepard's fight was all for nothing. He might has well have let the Reapers win. The end result is about the same.
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There are three different endings, RGB! I find it sad that even the ending movie files are differentiated by color.
 
PureBooYah said:
Am I the only one that thinks there was only one choice?
- I spent 3 games trying to destroy the Reapers so I'm not choosing the "Blue" ending.
- I've also spent 3 games not buying in to all of the Reapers crap that they tell you so I'm not choosing the "Green" ending. Even though this is the "everyone is happy ending," why would I make a choice based on what the creator of the Reapers tells me "might" happen. "Jump into this beam and all the problems will be solved"...fuck you buddy, how do I know you're not trying to indoctrinate me or the entire universe if I do this.
- So that left me with the only logical choice IMO and that was to destroy them and all synthetic life which didn't leave me satisfied either since I just spent an hour before that "freeing" the geth.

edit, this...

That is my ending, my Shep is still on the ground...Since I made a bunch of choices that apparently didn't matter, I'm going to make one more choice, my game ends right there. It's the only explanation to why my squad mates magically teleport back to the Normandy.
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I tend to agree with this point of view. My thoughts below.

in my opinion, Shepard never made it to the beam. In two of the endings, Shepard "dies" and the machines live in one way or another. The only ending in which Shepard "lives" is when he's gasping for air in the rubble ( CONCRETE ) after choosing to "destroy" synthetics. There is also, apparently, gravity.

Now think about that. Number one, the Citadel is not made out of concrete. And number two, he's not floating in space as you would expect after a space station blowing up.

My answer is that the whole thing was a hallucination. He got hit with the reaper beam and then they tried to indoctrinate him. The hallucinations where the machines live were the Reapers indoctrination. The hallucination where he destroys the machines is him breaking the indoctrination, and then likely dying shortly after. In all three cases, he imagines his squad mates ( including those you took with you that got beamed in the face by the Reaper ) flying off to some world to live out their days.
 
I choose to believe the following, whether its right or not. It allows me to still enjoy the franchise.

If you synthesize or control the reapers, you have effectively lost the game. The reapers effective indoctrinated you, and led you down a path that allows them to continue dominating the galaxy, killing you and laying waste to the civilization.

Only by destroying the reapers do you successfully complete you mission and end their cycle of dominance. Additionally, the Mass Effect relays and all Synthetic life do not end. Only the repears do. The threat of everything stopping was only their indoctrination gaining a foothold on you, By destroying them you effectively save galactic civilization as you should have. This is why this ending - and only this ending - shows sheperd living and moving the rocks - he won.
 
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Dan_D said:
I'm going to tell you now, it doesn't. the game doesn't really even have more than 1 ending from a practical standpoint and that Shepard's fight was all for nothing. He might has well have let the Reapers win. The end result is about the same.
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I will agree with the 1 ending statement but I wholly disagree with the 2nd part. Yes your choices throughout the game don't matter - the fact that you have an options at the end is what I don't agree with. The 3 'options' at the end of the game is the problem for me. The game should have taken your previous decisions and forced you to one of the choices.

The other issue I have is that the ending is too final. There is no replayability with this game at all.
 
SilverSliver said:
I tend to agree with this point of view. My thoughts below.

in my opinion, Shepard never made it to the beam. In two of the endings, Shepard "dies" and the machines live in one way or another. The only ending in which Shepard "lives" is when he's gasping for air in the rubble ( CONCRETE ) after choosing to "destroy" synthetics. There is also, apparently, gravity.

Now think about that. Number one, the Citadel is not made out of concrete. And number two, he's not floating in space as you would expect after a space station blowing up.

My answer is that the whole thing was a hallucination. He got hit with the reaper beam and then they tried to indoctrinate him. The hallucinations where the machines live were the Reapers indoctrination. The hallucination where he destroys the machines is him breaking the indoctrination, and then likely dying shortly after. In all three cases, he imagines his squad mates ( including those you took with you that got beamed in the face by the Reaper ) flying off to some world to live out their days.
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Yes, exactly

Cali3350 said:
I choose to believe the following, whether its right or not. It allows me to still enjoy the franchise.

If you synthesize or control the reapers, you have effectively lost the game. The reapers effective indoctrinated you, and led you down a path that allows them to continue dominating the galaxy, killing you and laying waste to the civilization.

Only by destroying the reapers do you successfully complete you mission and end their cycle of dominance. Additionally, the Mass Effect relays and all Synthetic life do not end. Only the repears do. The threat of everything stopping was only their indoctrination gaining a foothold on you, By destroying them you effectively save galactic civilization as you should have.
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Yeah, definitely, these reasons are why I feel the "Red" choice is the only one my Shep would make and thinking about it that way does makes me feel better about how the game ended...if I didn't think it was all a hallucination.
 
kcthebrewer said:
I will agree with the 1 ending statement but I wholly disagree with the 2nd part. Yes your choices throughout the game don't matter - the fact that you have an options at the end is what I don't agree with. The 3 'options' at the end of the game is the problem for me. The game should have taken your previous decisions and forced you to one of the choices.

The other issue I have is that the ending is too final. There is no replayability with this game at all.
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That's why I laughed when the "look forward to DLC" message box popped up after the credits. Yeah right. They're out of their mind if they think I'll buy DLC for multiplayer. The only thing I'll spend anymore money on is an alternate ending to this game.
 
PureBooYah said:
That's why I laughed when the "look forward to DLC" message box popped up after the credits. Yeah right. They're out of their mind if they think I'll buy DLC for multiplayer. The only thing I'll spend anymore money on is an alternate ending to this game.
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Now this I can sign off on right now even though I haven't seen any spoilers. I'm not going to spend money for more MP content. I like the MP. It's fun but it's not something I'm going to throw a bunch of money at.
 
I haven't played it yet so I am not reading the spoilers, but I have a hard time believing that the ending could be worse than the terminator at the end of ME2. I already have to block that out of my memory, because it essentially destroys the believability of the universe for me.
 
wow finished last time, and those endings suck. what a let down. your choices dont matter and you don't even get to see whats happens, worse the last scene is the same regardless of choice, which is retarded.

The gameplay kinda sucked. the game is barely an RPG anymore. they much gutted everything. you cant sell or break down items, no hacking, no bypass. limited weapons, limited gear. Though the up until the ending i thought the writing and voice acting were excellent, it felt more like an interactive movice than a video game.

Bioware needs to back and play Baldur's gate, kotor or dragon age again, because i think they have forgotten that the make video games with great stories, not interactive movies.
 
My thoughts on the ending I actually liked:
The 'blue' ending. It all works out pretty well. The Reapers are pacified and given new orders by Shepard, the Citadel is intact, Earth survives, all galactic fleets and scientists are in the Sol system to repair or reinvent the gates. Maybe Shepard's final act was to give the Reapers morality. Reapers can hang around as galactic police against genocidal AI. Or maybe they can put their husk armies to work rebuilding earth.

And no one turns into a goddamn robot. Green ending comes too close to the whole geth thing about 'letting you choose your own path'. If synthesis is the end state, people should get there on their own. Red ending is too destructive and will just lead to a repeat of the AI singularity problem.
 
Ritorix said:
My thoughts on the ending I actually liked:
The 'blue' ending. It all works out pretty well. The Reapers are pacified and given new orders by Shepard, the Citadel is intact, Earth survives, all galactic fleets and scientists are in the Sol system to repair or reinvent the gates. Maybe Shepard's final act was to give the Reapers morality. Reapers can hang around as galactic police against genocidal AI. Or maybe they can put their husk armies to work rebuilding earth.

And no one turns into a goddamn robot. Green ending comes too close to the whole geth thing about 'letting you choose your own path'. If synthesis is the end state, people should get there on their own. Red ending is too destructive and will just lead to a repeat of the AI singularity problem.
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You Fool, you fell into their trap! Indoctrination!
Or thats how I choose to see it. :D
 
I finished the game last night - talk about a letdown. It's been in the back of my mind all day so far here at work.

The more I think about it, the more the ending seems like a direct setup for a sequel of some sort. Shepard's story is over, but they have a clean slate for "rebuilding" the Mass Effect universe in other forms. The galactic infrastructure eventually gets re-built and your major choices carry over into that (saved the Krogan? They now have an enormous population and are a dominate force in the universe, etc.). Perhaps they even have you play the next game as the child in the "Stargazer" sequence at the end.

There were rumors of an MMO - not sure that will happen, but this would be a perfect starting point for it. The way they coded SWTOR could possibly handle each person's individual save data with having story instances for each person. I definitely wouldn't want it to be an MMO though. The ME universe has always been about the story (until now I guess).
 
SilverSliver said:
I tend to agree with this point of view. My thoughts below.

in my opinion, Shepard never made it to the beam. In two of the endings, Shepard "dies" and the machines live in one way or another. The only ending in which Shepard "lives" is when he's gasping for air in the rubble ( CONCRETE ) after choosing to "destroy" synthetics. There is also, apparently, gravity.

Now think about that. Number one, the Citadel is not made out of concrete. And number two, he's not floating in space as you would expect after a space station blowing up.

My answer is that the whole thing was a hallucination. He got hit with the reaper beam and then they tried to indoctrinate him. The hallucinations where the machines live were the Reapers indoctrination. The hallucination where he destroys the machines is him breaking the indoctrination, and then likely dying shortly after. In all three cases, he imagines his squad mates ( including those you took with you that got beamed in the face by the Reaper ) flying off to some world to live out their days.
Click to expand...

Cali3350 said:
I choose to believe the following, whether its right or not. It allows me to still enjoy the franchise.

If you synthesize or control the reapers, you have effectively lost the game. The reapers effective indoctrinated you, and led you down a path that allows them to continue dominating the galaxy, killing you and laying waste to the civilization.

Only by destroying the reapers do you successfully complete you mission and end their cycle of dominance. Additionally, the Mass Effect relays and all Synthetic life do not end. Only the repears do. The threat of everything stopping was only their indoctrination gaining a foothold on you, By destroying them you effectively save galactic civilization as you should have.
Click to expand...


Just found this which shows our take on the ending
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynYgr1rqEec

The more I look at it this way the more happy I am with the "ending" and could even possibly play through the game again with my other Sheps.
 
MajorMullet said:
I finished the game last night - talk about a letdown. It's been in the back of my mind all day so far here at work.

The more I think about it, the more the ending seems like a direct setup for a sequel of some sort. Shepard's story is over, but they have a clean slate for "rebuilding" the Mass Effect universe in other forms. The galactic infrastructure eventually gets re-built and your major choices carry over into that (saved the Krogan? They now have an enormous population and are a dominate force in the universe, etc.). Perhaps they even have you play the next game as the child in the "Stargazer" sequence at the end.

There were rumors of an MMO - not sure that will happen, but this would be a perfect starting point for it. The way they coded SWTOR could possibly handle each person's individual save data with having story instances for each person. I definitely wouldn't want it to be an MMO though. The ME universe has always been about the story (until now I guess).
Click to expand...

I've been thinking about it all day too. And in some way, no matter what your view of the ending is, it's proof of just how effective the series is and how strong many of us feel about it. I know it's certainly not the only game (or game series) to make strong emotional responses from players, but it's the first one I personally have played in a looong time to pull such strings in me.

As for the sequel, I don't see it happening at all. I actually think there is some merit to what Dan_D said about the BW devs canning the universe to keep it from becoming the next Call of Duty and having the publisher shit all over the world they created. I think some people need to remember that BW consists of actual human beings who wanted to make a creative piece of art and gaming, not evil trolls who exist solely to rape us of our money.
 
Colonel Sanders said:
I've been thinking about it all day too. And in some way, no matter what your view of the ending is, it's proof of just how effective the series is and how strong many of us feel about it. I know it's certainly not the only game (or game series) to make strong emotional responses from players, but it's the first one I personally have played in a looong time to pull such strings in me.

As for the sequel, I don't see it happening at all. I actually think there is some merit to what Dan_D said about the BW devs canning the universe to keep it from becoming the next Call of Duty and having the publisher shit all over the world they created. I think some people need to remember that BW consists of actual human beings who wanted to make a creative piece of art and gaming, not evil trolls who exist solely to rape us of our money.
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Thats a cop out though. They don't want to can the universe. They do want a 'fresh' beginning with it though. They pretty much they went the Akira route with this game but without anything really leading up to the conclusion. If they had put in just like 1 or 2 quests adding some more lore about why the organics were being destroyed, it would have made the ending much better. I can accept the choices at the end but something rubs me wrong.

How the ending was handled made no sense - which leads me to believe that the ending wasn't 'real'. Like I stated earlier - Ash was with me on the ground going to the beam - I saw her corpse next to the beam when I entered. Then she shows up exiting the Normandy when Joker is outrunning the blast. There is something missing. I am hoping they are going to release a free DLC to actually complete the game because if they leave it there, it would be incomplete.
 
I'm 23 hours in and am enjoying it a lot...so the ending discussion will have to wait for me...I just finished the missing Krogan scout mission in the Rachni relay...I saved the Rachni in ME1 and am happy with the conclusion to their story...was this mission an exclusive to those that saved the Rachni Queen?...I don't see how they can tell this story any other way
 
kcthebrewer said:
Thats a cop out though. They don't want to can the universe. They do want a 'fresh' beginning with it though. They pretty much they went the Akira route with this game but without anything really leading up to the conclusion. If they had put in just like 1 or 2 quests adding some more lore about why the organics were being destroyed, it would have made the ending much better. I can accept the choices at the end but something rubs me wrong.

How the ending was handled made no sense - which leads me to believe that the ending wasn't 'real'. Like I stated earlier - Ash was with me on the ground going to the beam - I saw her corpse next to the beam when I entered. Then she shows up exiting the Normandy when Joker is outrunning the blast. There is something missing. I am hoping they are going to release a free DLC to actually complete the game because if they leave it there, it would be incomplete.
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I could see them making a DLC about what happened during the time you were beaming up and encountering TIM/glowy brat. Maybe there was some kind of massive time lapse, where your time in the beam is actually 30 minutes or an hour, and the rest of your crew operates under the pretense that you're dead. You can play one (or more) of the other crew members as they rescue those on the ground and escape.
 
Sycraft said:
Disappointed Sycraft is disappointed. I'm very much recommending to anyone who hasn't bought it, don't. Apparently Casey Hudson went and got all emo or some shit before he made this game. Whatever the case, the endings just make it crap in my opinion. The game itself was decent up until the final push, but the plot was way too dark the whole time and then got darker, and darker near the end. Prior to the final push I'd say it was the worst of the three games, but still good. After the final push I'd say don't buy it.

In Bioware RPGs, story is everything and the big story in this one sucks.

They need to go back and take some college writing classes and learn about the three act heroic epic, which is what the Mass Effect trilogy was written as. Act three is supposed to start dark, with shit going bad, and the the hero works to triumph and overcome, culminating the in big battle and an epic end. It is not supposed to just get worse and worse.

Particularly since, as Dan noted, nothing you do matters really. I mean it can be the difference between the really shitty ending and the shitty ending, but that's all. All your work and achievement and everything sucks. Total cock-slap to the fans, and a complete fail of writing a good epic.
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I agree with all but the idea that the story shouldn't have gotten progressively darker. I just didn't like their delivery or narrative. It was heavy handed in a really contrived way. I don't mind a story that doesn't really "end well", I just want it to be well written and properly fleshed out.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
I agree with all but the idea that the story shouldn't have gotten progressively darker. I just didn't like their delivery or narrative. It was heavy handed in a really contrived way. I don't mind a story that doesn't really "end well", I just want it to be well written and properly fleshed out.
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That's sort of how I feel about it. I don't think that the ending was a particularly AWFUL ending, it's just that a game that's prided itself heavily on YOUR DECISIONS MATTER going a route where all the endings are essentially the same is disappointing.

If it had been ONE of three or four different endings, that would have been fine.
 
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