Mass Effect 3

Personally, I think it's a shame that there
isn't a happy ending where everyone lives, the reapers are dead, Shepherd lives, Earth, the Citadel, the Normandy and the mass relay network are all still okay, and a new golden age is ushered in for all sentients. Now everyone knows their galactic history and how all advanced civilizations have been culled as part of a galactic reset, maybe we'll all have a chance to ascend to greater heights... or will we....?

It's like Bioware is so enamoured of the sci-fi dark ending, they've forgotten to provide an option for the classic happy ending where everything is successful and the galactic story moves forwards, instead of being stuck in the same loop, or regressing backwards.
 
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:
Personally, I think it's a shame that there
isn't a happy ending where everyone lives, the reapers are dead, Shepherd lives, Earth, the Citadel, the Normandy and the mass relay network are all still okay, and a new golden age is ushered in for all sentients. Now everyone knows their galactic history and how all advanced civilizations have been culled as part of a galactic reset, maybe we'll all have a chance to ascend to greater heights... or will we....?

It's like Bioware is so enamoured of the sci-fi dark ending, they've forgotten to provide an option for the classic happy ending where everything is successful and the galactic story moves forwards, instead of being stuck in the same loop, or regressing backwards.
Click to expand...

Then 300 years in the future. Synthetic make Synthetic that will kill everybody deeming the reapers were right. And we need a new Space jezus stopping this threat.

uugh there are so many ways to cut off shepard's story ME3 ending is not the way i think i deserve in my story. Still think the other 99% of the game is awesome. But i would have loved to seen something like the Assassin creed brotherhood assassin meta game rip off for War assets. And unlock mission and story mission for it. War assets seems more like yeah we need some kind of resources that doesn't really serves a purpose at the end.
 
dragonelite said:
Then 300 years in the future. Synthetic make Synthetic that will kill everybody deeming the reapers were right. And we need a new Space jezus stopping this threat.
Click to expand...

My point was that in the
non-existent happy ending, we prove the reapers and catalyst AI wrong. That by letting the galaxy actually move forwards instead of resetting it every 50k years, we can actually learn to look after ourselves instead of destroying everything with synthetics. The races of the galaxy grow up.

dragonelite said:
uugh there are so many ways to cut off shepard's story ME3 ending is not the way i think i deserve in my story. Still think the other 99% of the game is awesome. But i would have loved to seen something like the Assassin creed brotherhood assassin meta game rip off for War assets. And unlock mission and story mission for it. War assets seems more like yeah we need some kind of resources that doesn't really serves a purpose at the end.
Click to expand...

I think the war assets thing was just a way for Bioware to keep the silly "scan the planets" minigame that makes players fly all over the galaxy and makes it look like there is more going on than there actually is.
 
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:
My point was that in the
non-existent happy ending, we prove the reapers and catalyst AI wrong. That by letting the galaxy actually move forwards instead of resetting it every 50k years, we can actually learn to look after ourselves instead of destroying everything with synthetics. The races of the galaxy grow up.
Click to expand...

Pretty close to that ending does exist... Get your readiness up from 50% so Shephard lives and then pick the merge with robots ending. Most people live, the reapers and synthetics all survive and everyone evolves "grow up". The relays are gone but the post credits stuff shows a hybrid human/synthetic telling a story about the start of their civilization which has clearly survived well. Job done :)
 
PixResearch said:
Pretty close to that ending does exist... Get your readiness up from 50% so Shephard lives and then pick the merge with robots ending. Most people live, the reapers and synthetics all survive and everyone evolves "grow up". The relays are gone but the post credits stuff shows a hybrid human/synthetic telling a story about the start of their civilization which has clearly survived well. Job done :)
Click to expand...

This hurts me.
Have you seen Edi's Camel toe i'm not sure if i want that.
 
After all this ending discussion, Bioware have responded to the ending controversy.

Here is Casey Hudson (Bioware director) full statement.

There’s been a lot of discussion and debate about the conclusion of Mass Effect 3, so I thought I’d share my perspective with you here. I’ll avoid outright spoilers, but I’d still recommend finishing the game and experiencing it for yourself before reading this.

For the last eight years, Mass Effect has been a labor of love for our team; love for the characters we’ve created, for the medium of video games, and for the fans that have supported us. For us and for you, Mass Effect 3 had to live up to a lot of expectations, not only for a great gaming experience, but for a resolution to the countless storylines and decisions you’ve made as a player since the journey began in 2007. So we designed Mass Effect 3 to be a series of endings to key plots and storylines, each culminating in scenes that show you the consequences of your actions. You then carry the knowledge of these consequences with you as you complete the final moments of your journey.

We always intended that the scale of the conflict and the underlying theme of sacrifice would lead to a bittersweet ending—to do otherwise would betray the agonizing decisions Shepard had to make along the way. Still, we wanted to give players the chance to experience an inspiring and uplifting ending; in a story where you face a hopeless struggle for basic survival, we see the final moments and imagery as offering victory and hope in the context of sacrifice and reflection.

We've had some incredibly positive reactions to Mass Effect 3, from the New York Times declaring it “a gripping, coherent triumph”, to Penny Arcade calling it “an amazing accomplishment”, to emails and tweets from players who have given us the most profound words of appreciation we've ever received.

But we also recognize that some of our most passionate fans needed more closure, more answers, and more time to say goodbye to their stories—and these comments are equally valid. Player feedback such as this has always been an essential ingredient in the development of the series.

I am extremely proud of what this team has accomplished, from the first art concepts for the Mass Effect universe to the final moments of Mass Effect 3. But we didn't do it on our own. Over the course of the series, Mass Effect has been a shared experience between the development team and our fans—not just a shared experience in playing the games, but in designing and developing them. An outpouring of love for Garrus and Tali led to their inclusion as love interests in Mass Effect 2. A request for deeper RPG systems led to key design changes in Mass Effect 3. Your feedback has always mattered. Mass Effect is a collaboration between developers and players, and we continue to listen.

So where do we go from here? Throughout the next year, we will support Mass Effect 3 by working on new content. And we’ll keep listening, because your insights and constructive feedback will help determine what that content should be. This is not the last you’ll hear of Commander Shepard.

We look forward to your continued support and involvement as we work together to shape the remaining experiences in the story of the Mass Effect trilogy.

Thanks for taking this journey with us.

Casey Hudson
Click to expand...

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/324/index/10089946
 
Cyan said:
After all this ending discussion, Bioware have responded to the ending controversy.

Here is Casey Hudson (Bioware director) full statement.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/324/index/10089946
Click to expand...

Bioware seems to have lost touch with gamers in general.

They angered core ME fans by going away from the rpg elements of ME1 in ME2 and now they have angered core ME fans with some of the most horrible endings I have ever seen in a franchise. They get it right in so many areas only to turn around and get it really wrong in many others.

I can understand trying to make a bittersweet ending but to do it with a bunch of major plot holes and flimsy premises is beyond me. If anything I believe that the earlier ME3 leaks encouraged them to change the endings and because they were limited by time, they came up with endings that weren't well thought out.

The endings are where they could of made their mark because they weren't limited in any way in terms of trying to maintain a level of coherency needed in earlier parts of the franchise. They could of shown how what seems like a important decision may have no impact at all in the end and how small immaterial decision at the time can have drastic and major consequences.

Instead, the game ends in a whimper instead of a bang.
 
Maybe they should have taken another year to complete it. Two years just didn't seem enough (especially with the little conversation bugs that tell me it wasn't as polished as it could have been), and they also had to make it work on 3 platforms...
 
Ghostz said:
My feeling towards the game itself is apathetic. :p Which is to say it is an average shooter and RPG.
Click to expand...
Well, in some ways Mass Effect isn't a bad, nor even average RPG. It has an appealing morality system and the storyline continues from one game to the next, so the consequences of your decisions evidently have more impact on the world, which gives the franchise tremendous continuity and strength.

Even so, there are problems with the morality system in the way it seems essentially monetized because of the "points", and most of your moral choices not having consequences at all. It's a system that inadvertently encourages detachment from your moral choices when it has little impact on how people interact with you.

There are truly meaningful choices in Mass Effect, that's a great plus, but the main problem is that most of the time good and evil decisions are roughly equivalent when it comes to interactions with your crew and party members. Most of the time being good or evil just means aesthetic choices.

I mean, a good example of this is what one of the fellow forumers here in Beyond3D mentioned when he was complaining about the fact that his choices didn't matter in a particular mission, the outcome was roughly the same regardless of his choices, he had to fight the Reaper after all dialogue options where exhausted.

A modern game like Dragon Age: Origins is the best example of a game with a great morality system. Ethical decisions in the game are creative, surprising and deal with your choices in impactful fashions.

For example, in a quest I ignored a very large dragon denning on the top of a small mountain to avoid a fight. The dragon was taking a nap.

I could wake up the dragon up if I used a gong so the dragon would realize I was there. Instead I chose to avoid the dragon at all costs, because my character was relatively low level then.

I was very happy about evading him without a fight. It was so subtle... seemed meaningless... But then in the ending the game began listing my decisions' outcomes of my time-through the game and the dragon that I didn't fight destroyed a nearby temple to the den. A temple which was critical to some parts of the story.

I preferred Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate 2 model attached to the Dungeons & Dragons system: Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, Chaotic Evil scale. :smile:

You chose that at the very beginning of the game -although some classes like Monks were limited to be Lawful (meaning you follow the rules and laws), whether you selected to be Good, Neutral or Evil-.

Going out of your personality and character had serious consequences, and I loved it. Your personality, your character had standards.

My favourite though was the True Neutral personality. It fits me quite well in real life in some ways -although I am lawful :smile: and honourable, until I am proven wrong-.

But anyways, True Neutral moral alignment allowed me to have many interesting outcomes based on my choices.

Typical D&D style example. Sometimes I could be helping some people, but then, half mission I could realize that helping them could mean the extinction of some species, so I could "betray" them, thus those species had a chance to survive.

In Baldur's Gate 2 you have very important choices at the very beginning of the game. Also very early in the game a person offers you to associate with them and help you in a rescue, but halfway the quest a rival organization of vampires also offer your help. Your choices matter, you can't keep them all happy.

If you side with a faction, you are antagonizing another...

Mass Effect does a decent job in general, but most of your alignments are black and white choices, with no gray area. I enjoyed the choices I had to make in Dragon Age Origins, because they weren't obvious most of the time -nothing except your common sense or intuition told you if you were doing good, wrong, neutral, or just being inquisitive-.

There were times where I felt uneasy doing a certain thing, and many others where I'd second guess myself. That's good role-playing morals to me.

As for the RPG comment... Well, in my humble opinion, things that happen with modern games make me miss the diversity of games that we had in the old days.

I said this before, but anyways... My problem with some RPGs nowadays is no matter how great they are (I really enjoyed Mass Effect and Skyrim), is that they are nothing like the games we used to have. Actually, in fact, by those standards, there is no way Mass Effect would even be considered an RPG.

Sometimes not even Skyrim, when your decisions, personality... can have so little impact on the world, save in some occasions. Although I consider it more purist and faithful to the roots of the genre than ME.

The closest modern game to the classics in that regard is Dragon Age Origins, imo. But I have to admit the poor graphics -except for faces- and the small maps are a handicap this day and age.

Don't get me wrong, Mass Effect is a great game that has a rich and unique universe. Things should evolve, but ME tries to merge two different genres and it still has to find what has got to be a best of both worlds situation where the game can have the entire... uniqueness of games like in Baldur's Gate, Arcanum, etc, without having the forced-upon interface of a shooter like itdid.

I mean, they could combine both without having to resort to just shoot your way through most of the time. I know there are quests that don't involve fighting in ME, but they are scarce.

Like this great article about Baldur's Gate 2 says, violence isn't the solution to everything.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-03-04-retrospective-baldurs-gate-1-and-2

It would be fun being able to make a character who can finish the game being an Adept, for instance, barely entering combat mode... And in doing so you could miss some parts of the game.

You could be a character engaging more in combat, but also missing the part of the map or situations your moral choices were more diplomatic.

For both approaches, one choice eliminates others. Like in Baldur's Gate, Planescape, etc, you can't keep everyone happy.

I can understand that programming an RPG has to be challenging. But that's not the problem. Nowadays I blame it on being more a general lack of creativity.

Mass Effect is still a great game, so someone, somewhere did a good job... But they leave some Bioware fans in the dust just for mass appeal, instead of mass effect. :LOL: :cry:

The apparent success of games like Kingdoms of Amalur, where they took a more gradual learning curve and character evolution and turned it into a pseudo-RPG with amazing combos and realtime trigger-reflex fighting trying to appeal to everyone is fictional.

It is a hit and a miss. I would never want that. I still love the "clumsy" RPG typical fighting, the calm based fun I used to have. The variety of builds and trying to reflect your own or a fictional personality in your choices, and seeing it worked as it was supposed to, is a great thing to have in a game.

I still have high hopes for Mass Effect -if they ever create another ME game- and Dragon Age 3 -Dragon Age 2 isn't as good as 1, btw, I have it, I didn't complete it, it just isn't quite as good-.

I also wish and have faith another Baldur's Gate will see the light of day in the future, although Baldur's Gate 2 was pretty conclusive...

On a different note, seems like Bioware are looking for users feedback for Dragon Age 3...

You’ve most certainly heard the rumors floating around, and unfortunately I can’t really comment on them. However, what I can say is that we’ve been thinking a lot about Dragon Age – what it means, and where it could go.

This past year, we’ve spent a lot of time both going back to the “BioWare vault” of games and re-examining them, and looking at some new possibilities that today’s industry allows.

With that, the next thing for the Dragon Age team members and I to do is hear from you, and not just on the forums, or Facebook, or Twitter
Click to expand...

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/260/index/10245444

I hope they listen...
 
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Wait so they didn't actually plan on how the game would with end? So they just made it up as they went along? That's a sure hallmark of BAD writing there.

....when I say Mass Effect is your average RPG it means it's representative of what your average RPG looks like these days. Which is to say they aren't doing anything ground breaking: it's average. Pure RPGs that aren't MMOs are going away, that's been the trend for years before bioware even went "mainstream".
 
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Ghostz said:
Wait so they didn't actually plan on how the game would with end? So they just made it up as they went along? That's a sure hallmark of BAD writing there.

....when I say Mass Effect is your average RPG it means it's representative of what your average RPG looks like these days. Which is to say they aren't doing anything ground breaking: it's average. Pure RPGs that aren't MMOs are going away, that's been the trend for years before bioware even went "mainstream".
Click to expand...
Maybe it's a passion for an era gone. But in some ways I agree with you, sometimes it's a below average RPG.

I still feel like the old school RPGs deserve the name RPG more than current ones.

Even so, I would say that, on the contrary, RPGs will become even more popular over time. I don't know about JRPGs, where they have you playing a character created by the developer for the story more than having you filling a role. But who knows...

There are times when shooters seem to be fading away. Cliff Blesszinky said that the future of shooters are RPGs. -Epic needs to learn a LOT to make one, sigh- :(:mad:

http://www.gamingunion.net/news/cliff-bleszinski-the-future-of-shooters-are-rpgs--1675.html

God help us! May God have mercy on our souls!
 
AlStrong said:
Maybe they should have taken another year to complete it. Two years just didn't seem enough (especially with the little conversation bugs that tell me it wasn't as polished as it could have been), and they also had to make it work on 3 platforms...
Click to expand...

Yeah agreed. I've seen some quotes from the ipad app http://me3finalhours.com/ and those made it seem like time was a big issue. The Prothean character was supposed to be included as standard and have a more integral role in the plot like I always thought it should have. A living Prothean should, could and would have been huge if they had more time with it. Thessia mission probably could have been even more interesting. Apparently the team was "devastated" upon hearing that they don't have the time to include Javik fully. I think multiplayer ate some of the resources.

The app also made it apparent that they had big difficulties on deciding how the game should end, perhaps a year and some focus group testing would have helped them there to flesh out a better end game sequences, Harbinger I miss you!
 
He didn't address a single criticism head on, complete cop out ...

"each culminating in scenes that show you the consequences of your actions. You then carry the knowledge of these consequences with you as you complete the final moments of your journey."

Some might say the final moments of your journey should be the consequence of your actions and not the price is right.

There are always rails, but a good game writer allows you to forget for a moment they are there ... you failed Casey and you don't even know it. Hopefully at some point the fact that you and Mac Walters killed a profitable franchise (only writers like prequels) will force EA to point out the error in your ways in a way you have to acknowledge (I don't mean I want to see him fired, I want to see him disciplined and learn something ... he obviously didn't learn anything).

"to do otherwise would betray the agonizing decisions Shepard had to make along the way"

That's the stupidest excuse ever. They provided a goody two shoe path through all the games where if presented with a choice you could always save everyone important except for the single exception in ME1 and now all of a sudden difficult choices need to have harsh results ... but those results can not actually be a direct consequence of those choices? WTF?

We made the hard choices to save the universe we loved ... and the writers denied us that because of their pretensions.
 
Can anyone tell me what the original endings were supposed to be? I've tried googling, but all I get is the leaks of the current endings, not the leaks that prompted changing the endings to what they are now.
 
Dr Evil said:
Yeah agreed. I've seen some quotes from the ipad app http://me3finalhours.com/ and those made it seem like time was a big issue. The Prothean character was supposed to be included as standard and have a more integral role in the plot like I always thought it should have. A living Prothean should, could and would have been huge if they had more time with it. Thessia mission probably could have been even more interesting. Apparently the team was "devastated" upon hearing that they don't have the time to include Javik fully. I think multiplayer ate some of the resources.
Click to expand...

:(

Regarding the MP, I thought it was outsourced to another EA studio? Montreal? I suppose figuring out how to integrate it (fairly shallow outcome as it turns out) wasn't going to be easy.

The app also made it apparent that they had big difficulties on deciding how the game should end, perhaps a year and some focus group testing would have helped them there to flesh out a better end game sequences, Harbinger I miss you!
Click to expand...
Aye... At the same time I have to wonder about EA's involvement since it's their payroll - would they have allowed for such a long delay (+50%) and then there'd be scheduling issues with voice actors for rewrites and the sort. Messy stuff.

I bet Harbinger was getting in on Anderson's cereal on the citadel for most of the battle. :D >_>
 
I think the Dark energy was one of the things they were working on, but not something that was fully fleshed out at any time. IMO it would have been great and actually a valid motivation for the reapers.

The leaked script from last year had pretty much the same ending as what we got, but the discussion at the end had more content.
 
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