Mass Effect 3 SPOILERS THREAD

BW-"We didn't want it to be forgettable, so we made it shitty so people would get riled up over it."

Nice.
 
Monkey God said:
BW-"We didn't want it to be forgettable, so we made it shitty so people would get riled up over it."

Nice.
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I actually theorized that was the case in earlier threads. I think there is some truth to that. I think they pissed us off so that they could sell us DLC more than anything. I'll admit, if they release a DLC tomorrow for $10 that gives me a better end and some real closure to the story, I'll buy it without hesitation.

It's a shitty tactic but I'll gladly suffer for it in this instance. I won't touch another BioWare / EA game again if that's the deal, but I will finish this one.
 
I hope this is NOT the end of Shepard. Maybe I'm just a romantic or just a wuss but I prefer a happier ending seeing Shep and Liara or whichever chick he's banging, sitting on a beach somewhere enjoying retirement. After all the countless hours we all have invested in building and shaping our Shepards, I don't want to see him dead at the end of it. At least give 1 possible "happy ending".
 
Monkey God said:
BW-"We didn't want it to be forgettable, so we made it shitty so people would get riled up over it."

Nice.
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I think its partially true. I'm sure the guys that did the Sopranos stupid ending thought the same thing. "We want people to talk about it and remember it." I guarantee you if they could do it over after seeing all the outrage and ridicule, they'd do it different so its not remembered as "the best show with the worst ending".

I think Bioware thought they'd go down as deep, thoughtful artists but instead they're just pissing everybody off and really souring what is possibly the greatest video game franchise ever.

I'd be willing to bet that if they could do this over, they too would have come up with something better.
 
MaZa said:
Good point. ME2 definetly ends with Arrival DLC, not with Collector Base. But differece is that both DAII and ME2 still has a proper ending without DLCs. DLCs merely served as a bridge to next game. However ME3 should be the end for Shepards trilogy, it should contain actual ending to it all. DLCs here should be about expanding the game sideways before the end, not at the end unless they turn the game into SimCity clone after Reapers are destroyed and you are rebuild everything.

...actually that would be badass now that I think about it... :cool:


But no, as good as this game is at first (HUGE upgrade over ME2 in gameplay and story terms) it simply FAILS at the end. If this is truly the end for the Shepard trilogy then its just epic fail and we wasted a good portion of time during the 5 years of our lives...

If the end is all indoctrination hallucinations (very likely theory with lots of evidence), then it still fails because 1. its very confusing and it required a lot of brainpower from different people to figure out and 2. a pure shameless ripoff because THEY SOLD A STORY BASED RPG WITH THE WHOLE ENDING CHAPTER MISSING. :mad:
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Indeed, my biggest hope is that BW did this on purpose until all regions get the game and then they'll release DLC (I don't care if it's free or pay, just give me something). According to the wiki Japan's release is set for tomorrow, so hopefully we hear something after that.

I'm also hoping that all this talk about them wanting it to be "unforgettable" means they have a trick up their sleeve. And the other articles mentioning that they're "happy" with the ending means that this isn't the ending and they'll release something else that they are actually happy about. Not to mention the tweet when the game released about how we should definitely save our ME3 saved game files, so if this was actually the end, I don't see why anyone would say that.
 
One thing I remember is a line between Liara and Shep (I think) on the Asari homeworld where Shep says something along the lines of "When will we wake up".
 
Did anyone manage to get Tali to commit suicide after her fleet is wiped out by geth? Did anyone shoot Mordin in the back to prevent a genophage cure? Those have to be the two most dramatic moments in the game and I doubt many people went that route.
 
Ritorix said:
Did anyone manage to get Tali to commit suicide after her fleet is wiped out by geth? Did anyone shoot Mordin in the back to prevent a genophage cure? Those have to be the two most dramatic moments in the game and I doubt many people went that route.
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I killed Tali and the migrant fleet completely by accident because I did the fighter base mission before the last priority Rannoch mission (which you can't even access anymore after outcome clusterfuck). Yeah, that was intense. I felt pretty helpless watching all that debris streak across the sky. On a fucking side mission no less. I actually went back a few hours and switched the order of those missions, and the outcome was much much better.

Funny anecdote about that scene: It happened for me over the weekend while my wife was hanging out in the same room I was playing, and she's learned enough about the various main characters and races over the years to appreciate how crazy that was. So, later that day a friend comes by who hadn't received the copy he ordered yet, and we were chatting vaguely about the fact there were some crazy moments in the new game, and my wife goes "Yeah Tali and all of her people die!!" and just totally spoiled the fuck out of a huge moment to him. :D

Anyway, regarding the ending: I'm not completely outraged, but I'm definitely disappointed. I only had about 3500ish effective points (and chose synthesis), so apparently i didn't get the best ending which may or may not be better (hah, doesn't sound like it). I really didn't want to screw with multiplayer (at least yet). This was kind of a "junkie getting his fix" play through..I'll be more thorough later.
 
enlightenedby42 said:
Anyway, regarding the ending: I'm not completely outraged, but I'm definitely disappointed. I only had about 3500ish effective points (and chose synthesis), so apparently i didn't get the best ending which may or may not be better (hah, doesn't sound like it). I really didn't want to screw with multiplayer (at least yet). This was kind of a "junkie getting his fix" play through..I'll be more thorough later.
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I had over 6000 effective points (I had stopped looking after I hit 6k and found out it was the same as htting 4k). For the most part, the (current) ending was the same for me :/
 
kcthebrewer said:
I had over 6000 effective points (I had stopped looking after I hit 6k and found out it was the same as htting 4k). For the most part, the (current) ending was the same for me :/
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Ending after 3K wont change. At 4K you just get that stupid easter egg that hints Shepard MAY be alive if you choose Reaper destruction.
 
enlightenedby42 said:
I killed Tali and the migrant fleet completely by accident because I did the fighter base mission before the last priority Rannoch mission (which you can't even access anymore after outcome clusterfuck). Yeah, that was intense. I felt pretty helpless watching all that debris streak across the sky. On a fucking side mission no less. I actually went back a few hours and switched the order of those missions, and the outcome was much much better.
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What's the best order for the Rannoch missions?
 
I killed Tali and the migrant fleet completely by accident because I did the fighter base mission before the last priority Rannoch mission (which you can't even access anymore after outcome clusterfuck). Yeah, that was intense. I felt pretty helpless watching all that debris streak across the sky. On a fucking side mission no less. I actually went back a few hours and switched the order of those missions, and the outcome was much much better.
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Daymn! I want to see that outcome! That and Tali's suicide. On my first try I managed to get Geth killed despite attempting for peace. "Does... this unit... have... a soul?" dialog pierced something inside me. It hurt. :(
 
Personally I would have created endings like this:

Low score: You Lose. The Crucible fails to do anything. The fleets around Earth are shattered and flee. Long montage of Reapers harvesting the universe. Fade to black, credits roll, then at the end a Yahg scientist unearths Liara's time capsule 50,000 years later, describing Shepard and how to build the Crucible.

Medium to High score: The Crucible turns out to be a giant fuckoff space cannon. It fires once, blows up some Reapers, then breaks. The remaining Reapers scatter. Earth is saved, but the remaining fleets have to carefully liberate one planet at a time. At the lower score levels, the only surviving races are those with the highest fleet scores. So humans, turian, maybe krogans if you saved them. As your score gets higher other races get added in score order.

Max score: You Win. The Crucible works perfectly. It and your fleet is large enough to outright win the battle at Earth. Most of the Reapers die there, then its just mop-up at the other planets. A few Reapers go into hiding, but no species goes extinct.
 
Ritorix said:
Personally I would have created endings like this:

Low score: You Lose. The Crucible fails to do anything. The fleets around Earth are shattered and flee. Long montage of Reapers harvesting the universe. Fade to black, credits roll, then at the end a Yahg scientist unearths Liara's time capsule 50,000 years later, describing Shepard and how to build the Crucible.

Medium to High score: The Crucible turns out to be a giant fuckoff space cannon. It fires once, blows up some Reapers, then breaks. The remaining Reapers scatter. Earth is saved, but the remaining fleets have to carefully liberate one planet at a time. At the lower score levels, the only surviving races are those with the highest fleet scores. So humans, turian, maybe krogans if you saved them. As your score gets higher other races get added in score order.

Max score: You Win. The Crucible works perfectly. It and your fleet is large enough to outright win the battle at Earth. Most of the Reapers die there, then its just mop-up at the other planets. A few Reapers go into hiding, but no species goes extinct.
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Sounds good to me. Much better than the mess we have now anyway. And add two variations where Shepard either lives or dies (maybe has to sacrifice himself) depending on what you have done in all 3 games. And the god damn closure what happens to your crew and such!
 
Ritorix said:
Personally I would have created endings like this:

Low score: You Lose. The Crucible fails to do anything. The fleets around Earth are shattered and flee. Long montage of Reapers harvesting the universe. Fade to black, credits roll, then at the end a Yahg scientist unearths Liara's time capsule 50,000 years later, describing Shepard and how to build the Crucible.

Medium to High score: The Crucible turns out to be a giant fuckoff space cannon. It fires once, blows up some Reapers, then breaks. The remaining Reapers scatter. Earth is saved, but the remaining fleets have to carefully liberate one planet at a time. At the lower score levels, the only surviving races are those with the highest fleet scores. So humans, turian, maybe krogans if you saved them. As your score gets higher other races get added in score order.

Max score: You Win. The Crucible works perfectly. It and your fleet is large enough to outright win the battle at Earth. Most of the Reapers die there, then its just mop-up at the other planets. A few Reapers go into hiding, but no species goes extinct.
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This is how I would have done it. Reapers can be destroyed conventionally as we saw with Sovereign in ME1, it's just VERY hard to do and takes a lot of ships to do it.
 
Ritorix said:
Personally I would have created endings like this:

Low score: You Lose. The Crucible fails to do anything. The fleets around Earth are shattered and flee. Long montage of Reapers harvesting the universe. Fade to black, credits roll, then at the end a Yahg scientist unearths Liara's time capsule 50,000 years later, describing Shepard and how to build the Crucible.

Medium to High score: The Crucible turns out to be a giant fuckoff space cannon. It fires once, blows up some Reapers, then breaks. The remaining Reapers scatter. Earth is saved, but the remaining fleets have to carefully liberate one planet at a time. At the lower score levels, the only surviving races are those with the highest fleet scores. So humans, turian, maybe krogans if you saved them. As your score gets higher other races get added in score order.

Max score: You Win. The Crucible works perfectly. It and your fleet is large enough to outright win the battle at Earth. Most of the Reapers die there, then its just mop-up at the other planets. A few Reapers go into hiding, but no species goes extinct.
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With an ending like that, they wouldn't even need an ending. That's probably the most boring, safe, and stereotypical fan-service set of endings you could possibly imagine. A shot of the Crucible powering up and then fade to black would leave a lot of people ASSUMING that ending. I'm surprised you didn't add an epilogue where Shep settles down and starts a family with his love interest and becomes a Blasto fan fiction author.

Anyway, as a bit of an aside not related to your post directly:

Disliking the ending is fine, there are a huge number of issues with it, but when I see people asking Bioware in all seriousness to give them another ending I can't help but go "WTF?" Putting aside the obvious impossibility of making an ending that'll please everybody... Nobody asks book authors for another ending after one they don't like, and you'd be laughed out of a discussion forum for trying. And this is no different because it has "choice." The choices you get to make, or not make, are also creative decisions. An artist, musician, game developer, cares very little about whether you like his stuff. He's creating it for the people who DO like it and want to purchase it, whoever they may be. The opening, the ending, the impossibly perfect shape of Miranda's ass. These are all creative decisions.

Gamers hate their "artform" being shat on by the press, legislators, etc. but they themselves don't even treat it or the artists that create it with the same respect that fans of other creative arts do. So hate the ending, but respect that Bioware has the right as creators to end their series however they'd like. That includes controversially.
 
NKDietrich said:
Gamers hate their "artform" being shat on by the press, legislators, etc. but they themselves don't even treat it or the artists that create it with the same respect that fans of other creative arts do. So hate the ending, but respect that Bioware has the right as creators to end their series however they'd like. That includes controversially.
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Of course they have the right to end it any way they want, and we have a right to tell them to piss off and not buy the "better ending DLC" edition later, because that's all this likely is, a money grab. I refused to install Origin because of EA's bullshit, but I gave in because I was such a ME fan. I should have known better. Even after buying the $70 OMG edition, I still feel like I got ripped off. BW and EA can go fuck themselves.

Its this shady, DLC-heavy, weak shit like this that makes me want to give up PC gaming altogether.
 
Monkey God said:
Of course they have the right to end it any way they want, and we have a right to tell them to piss off and not buy the "better ending DLC" edition later, because that's all this likely is, a money grab. I refused to install Origin because of EA's bullshit, but I gave in because I was such a ME fan. I should have known better. Even after buying the $70 OMG edition, I still feel like I got ripped off. BW and EA can go fuck themselves.

Its this shady, DLC-heavy, weak shit like this that makes me want to give up PC gaming altogether.
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Yep, and that's all fine. As long as people don't think they are entitled to some free DLC that gives them "better" endings, then they are being reasonable in their criticism.
 
enlightenedby42 said:
I killed Tali and the migrant fleet completely by accident because I did the fighter base mission before the last priority Rannoch mission (which you can't even access anymore after outcome clusterfuck). Yeah, that was intense. I felt pretty helpless watching all that debris streak across the sky. On a fucking side mission no less. I actually went back a few hours and switched the order of those missions, and the outcome was much much better.
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I played the Geth fighter base mission before the Priority Rannoch mission and Tali, the Geth, and the Quarian fleet all survived. I assumed taking out the fighters first would help me retake Rannoch, which it did. In my play-through, anyway.
 
TexasAg05 said:
I played the Geth fighter base mission before the Priority Rannoch mission and Tali, the Geth, and the Quarian fleet all survived. I assumed taking out the fighters first would help me retake Rannoch, which it did. In my play-through, anyway.
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In general you want to complete every quest you can before doing priority missions. The only exception to this rule is the "From Ashes" DLC mission which gives you Javik. I don't know about starting out, but this mission is pretty easy if you imported a Shepard from ME2. You'll already be level 31 or whatever when you start the game.
 
NKDietrich said:
I'm surprised you didn't add an epilogue where Shep settles down and starts a family with his love interest and becomes a Blasto fan fiction author.
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Damn I forgot the house full of little blue children, thanks. ;)
 
Dan_D said:
In general you want to complete every quest you can before doing priority missions.
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Yeah, that's what I did, which is why I was confused that it went badly for Enlightened, unless he mistyped or didn't get the Paragon speech options. There are a few ways you can screw Tali over, even if you get all the quests done first based on your conversation options, it looks like.
 
TexasAg05 said:
Yeah, that's what I did, which is why I was confused that it went badly for Enlightened, unless he mistyped or didn't get the Paragon speech options. There are a few ways you can screw Tali over, even if you get all the quests done first based on your conversation options, it looks like.
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The Tali + Legion Geth / Quarian war and the dialog choices in them have to be handled delicately. Apparently this can and usually does go badly. You have to have enough paragon and renegade options to successfully resolve the confrontation that happens here as well. Another reason why you do not want to do these missions early. You need to do your side quests as those are a lot of your reptuation / paragon points right there.
 
TexasAg05 said:
Yeah, that's what I did, which is why I was confused that it went badly for Enlightened, unless he mistyped or didn't get the Paragon speech options. There are a few ways you can screw Tali over, even if you get all the quests done first based on your conversation options, it looks like.
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That's why I was confused that it went badly too. I know that was the deal, because I was able to go back, reverse the order, and get the paragon options to stop the Quarian attack.

I found this on the Bioware forum, fwiw:

Geth vs. Quarians
In order to achieve peace between the two races, you need to get 5 to 7 points. These points are based on your ME2 and ME3 decisions. If you have 4 points or below, you cannot achieve peace.

-Rewrote the Heretics (0 points)
-Destroyed the Heretics (+2 points)
-Tali is NOT exiled (+2 points)
-Tali has been exiled/You did not do the Loyalty Mission (0 points)
-Resolved Legion/Tali conflict either using the Paragon or Renegade options (+1 point)
-N7 Mission: Save the Admiral on Rannoch in ME3 (+1 point)
-N7 Mission: Destroy Geth Squadron on Rannoch in ME3 (+1 point)
-Completed Legion's Mission in ME3 (or no peace)
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Speaking of paragon renegade - I was pissed that in my first playthrough, I had enough Paragon points to choose EVERY paragon option. I imported a full Paragon ME1+2 save game...and yet right at the end, the very last Paragon conversation option is blanked out (talking to the Illusive Man). Seemed kinda shitty to not have any heads-up that I might be short somehow.
 
TwistedAegis said:
Speaking of paragon renegade - I was pissed that in my first playthrough, I had enough Paragon points to choose EVERY paragon option. I imported a full Paragon ME1+2 save game...and yet right at the end, the very last Paragon conversation option is blanked out (talking to the Illusive Man). Seemed kinda shitty to not have any heads-up that I might be short somehow.
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I had this issue as well.
 
Dan_D said:
I did not have this problem.
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Did you have both renegade AND paragon options there? I was really puzzled, because throughout the game it seemed like I had access to every Paragon AND Renegade conversation option. Then at the end, I had neither. I don't know if it was a bug, or the Paragon/Renegade conversation points needed got severely watered down in ME3.
 
I had the conversation choices grayed out at the end as well. I wonder if one or the other is only available if you make EVERY paragon or EVERY renegade choice?

My paragon was maxed and I only had about 10% renegade.
 
I was about 70/30 paragon/renegade, full reputation bar, and had both options available in the chat with TIM. Go figure.
 
I read that to enable the final paragon/renegade options with the Illusive Man you have to had used them in each confrontation with him. So if you're paragon for instance you have to have taken that dialog choice every time you get a chance to talk to TIM. Otherwise they won't all be enabled at the end.

I used the paragon choice every time and was able to pick it each time at the end.
 
I think those conversation options were dependent upon past choices in ME2, not your paragon/renegade rating. I had both of the options on the left unavailable, and I was as snowy white a paragon as one can be.
 
TwistedAegis said:
Did you have both renegade AND paragon options there? I was really puzzled, because throughout the game it seemed like I had access to every Paragon AND Renegade conversation option. Then at the end, I had neither. I don't know if it was a bug, or the Paragon/Renegade conversation points needed got severely watered down in ME3.
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I had both paragon and renegade choices available to me. In fact the whole game has been that way. I had about 50% paragon points when I started the game having imported all the way back from ME1. I have a tiny sliver of renegade points though. I know BioWare wants to get away from the whole paragon is good and renegade is bad. More like paragon is one way and renegade is closer to getting the job done at any cost. Shepard's personality has common traits either way. He/she is not a bad person even in renegade form. The motives are still the same, the difference is really methods. Being a Council Spectre affords Shepard latitude in getting things done and sometimes Shepard employs intimidation tactics or even violence to get what he or she needs.

But paragon vs. renegade doesn't seem to matter as much in this one and you need far fewer points to get various options. But your reputation needs to hit a certain level for some options to be taken in either direction. My paragon bar was maxed all the way out when I got to that point in the game during my initial playthrough.
 
Paradoxex said:
I think those conversation options were dependent upon past choices in ME2, not your paragon/renegade rating. I had both of the options on the left unavailable, and I was as snowy white a paragon as one can be.
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This could be too. I was successfully able to talk Saren into shooting himself in the head in ME1. Given the theory of indoctrination going around and the credence to it, having completed that task in ME1 may be a reflection of why my Shepard could talk the Illusory Ullusive Man into doing the exact same thing.

I doubt they'd use the same precise plot device again given the generally good writing in the series.
 
MajorMullet said:
I read that to enable the final paragon/renegade options with the Illusive Man you have to had used them in each confrontation with him. So if you're paragon for instance you have to have taken that dialog choice every time you get a chance to talk to TIM. Otherwise they won't all be enabled at the end.

I used the paragon choice every time and was able to pick it each time at the end.
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That could be it as well. If a paragon or renegade option exists in a conversation I always choose one of them.
 
KatalDT said:
http://kotaku.com/5893123/mass-effect-3-director-didnt-want-you-to-forget-the-games-ending
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Jesus...but still - this COULD all be a huge setup.

TwistedAegis said:
Speaking of paragon renegade - I was pissed that in my first playthrough, I had enough Paragon points to choose EVERY paragon option. I imported a full Paragon ME1+2 save game...and yet right at the end, the very last Paragon conversation option is blanked out (talking to the Illusive Man). Seemed kinda shitty to not have any heads-up that I might be short somehow.
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had that issue as well, pissed me off. the word is that you ALWAYS have to choose the paragon / renegade option EVERY TIME you talk to TIM in the entire game...starting with his first encounter on mars.
 
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