no they don't. Actually, that ending there, makes WAY more sense than the silly endings you normally get, and the relays are intact, so there goes your theory right out the window.SajuukKhar said:
Mass Effect 3 "Change The Ending" Petition (almost certainly spoilers)
- Thread starter MiloP
- Start date
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To you. Some of us don't buy into the philosophical arguments behind the Relays' destruction.SajuukKhar said:
You say that as I'm the one proposing it, but I'll bite anyways:SajuukKhar said:
That's debatable, the story is about Shepherd and the Reapers, and while the relays do stem from Reaper-tech, their destruction is hardly a necessity for the story to have proper closure. This objection additionally rings hollow due to how the Reapers themselves surivive two of the three existing endings. With that in mind, the survival of the Mass Relays are no worse than what's already on the table. Regardless, however, the proposal touches on a key feature that leads to the hollow feelings with the endings as-is.
Namely: As things exist, every ending entails you going along with a path chosen by the Catalyst, and thereby the Reapers. With any choice you make, the villain wins in some form. Even the destruction option accomplishes its goal by throwing Galactic Civilization back to the dark ages. What that proposal brings to the table is the capacity for true choice, the ability to actually defy the Reapers as you did in the prior entries in the series
Most of us don't.RedEyesBlackGamer said:
But I doubt SajuukKhar is willing to be moved from this point.
That's a good one, the best I have seen thus far is.spectrenihlus said:
The citadel turns into a giant hand giving you the finger then deletes all save files, this better than the real ending.
At least then you know what is going on.
That's different. Broken Steel was correcting an error that existed mainly in gameplay, that you were cut off from it and the sandbox world.fi6eka said:
The problem here isn't that we want more, we want better.
Funny thing is though, both Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 ended after the credits and didn't let you keep playingKnight Templar said:
I never understood why people were so butthurt over Fallout 3, and I am glad Obsidian had the balls not to violate the series by adding a broken Steel ending to New Vegas.
No, bioware is going to make this because they know that their fans are oblivious enough not to realise that feces in written form isn't worth 10$.MiloP said:
I like this petition because it might help the people who still buy bioware games understand that their sheep-like actions are fucking it up for consumers everywhere.
captcha: public good. this is relevant.
Except those endings don't because they totally ignore the continued galactic enslavement thing the Mass relay network was caused to do.Darkmantle said:
If the Reapers no longer exist then that problem doesn't really matter anymore, does it? The Mass Relays are there so the Reapers could ensure that galactic civilization develops along the paths they desire. Other than that though...SajuukKhar said:
However they were not made by Bethesda, whose previous titles allowed this.SajuukKhar said:
Because there wasn't an indication that the final quest would end the game. Sure, giving up your life would end things, but sending in another shouldn't.
People were also pissed they couldn't send in the Ghoul who was bound to follow any order you gave and was improved by rads, or the super mutant who was immune to radiation.
The difference there is they made it clear that it would end things, the company did not have a history of letting you play past the ending and the game itself gave you a notice that the end game was coming and there wouldn't be any turning back.
But this is really off topic.
The relays never enslaved the galaxy, their presence simply made certain technological paths far more convenient by virtue of their demonstration of the base-concept, meaning that subsequent technology develops around that concept due to the evident functionality. This made technological progress predictable and all but ensured that at any given point the Galaxy's general arsenal would have precious few things that could ever blindside a Reaper. Removing the relays would not change the fact that technology had already advanced along those lines and would likely continue to do so due to the proof of concept already being well-known.SajuukKhar said:
How is it galactic enslavement? If the enslavers are dead, are you still a slave?SajuukKhar said:
Personal copy-pasta, GO!
---
Mass Effect has, since it's beginning, been an experiment into the concept of continuitous player agency - that is, that players will have the decision to make large or small changes to the story and it's details as it progresses along it's narrative arc, and that these decisions will be respected over the course of the trilogy. This has been the expectation from day one and thus far has been the most successful of Bioware's forays into continuitous player agency. Dragon Age followed a similar idea thread but did not center on a central character which the player maintains agency over, rather it is a set of different tales and different characters placed in the same World Setting in which player agency has ripple effects on that setting.
One of the problems of course, with any game that focuses on Player Agency, is that the same thing will mean different things to different people. People have expectations based on 'their' story, and the way you avoid stepping on 'their' story is to maintain player agency and give them the free will to choose their outcomes. This creates certain limitations on you as the author - you must maintain contingency plans for every player agency point you provide. Certain narrative and organizational devices can make this much easier, such as a binary 'morality' system (paragon/renegade points) and condition flags (companion loyalty/approval). This allows you to frame the narrative arc that your players will undergo while providing the illusion of complete choice. While this form of Player Agency is by design limited (your arc of control is more akin to 180 degrees than 360 degrees of movement, if you follow) it is an effective way of allowing your players to exercise their agency over the narrative while still establishing a general story arc which you can follow and plan for.
Over the past three games Bioware has done what, in my opinion, can be considered a masterful job of faithfully representing the continuity of player agency, referencing player choices in meaningful and meaningless ways via datapoints. Mass Effect 3 was the penultimate example of this, borrowing choices from the previous two games to almost completly form the narrative arc of the third - that is, your choices have finally become the definition of the setting (wether or not you saved the council, the rachni, etc) influences the characters that appear and how events play out in these games. Mass Effect 3 is exceptionally well polished (barring some frustrating bugs and annoying UI and quest tracking issues) and represents the continuity nerds wet dream - a universe of their own creation, the punultimate choose your own adventure.
However...
In the last 10-15 minutes of the game there was an abrupt genre convention shift (more in line with the metaphysical pulp sci-fi of the 1900's than the Space Opera / Military Drama we had thus far experianced), a fundamental violation of one of the tenants of the Writer-Reader contract. This abrupt genre shift has left fans feeling disoriented, confused, and dissapointed - which swiftly leads to bitterness and anger. Their suspension of disbelief and expectations have not been adequatly serviced, and thus the ending causes the story of Mass Effect - from beginning to end, from 1-3 - to fail. Many are now observing plot holes and inconsistancies - those plot holes were always there, but were forgiven. However a bad ending damns a story, it causes a blowback in the reader where their tension and emotional involvement does not achieve catharsis and they're left to take it out on the author.
And this is why, I, and many thousands of other individuals have been so upset by the ending to Mass Effect 3. Our genre expectations and player agency have been violated, the finale of the story is uninfluenced by the continuity of our decisions and follows an unfamiliar narrative trend.
---
Mass Effect has, since it's beginning, been an experiment into the concept of continuitous player agency - that is, that players will have the decision to make large or small changes to the story and it's details as it progresses along it's narrative arc, and that these decisions will be respected over the course of the trilogy. This has been the expectation from day one and thus far has been the most successful of Bioware's forays into continuitous player agency. Dragon Age followed a similar idea thread but did not center on a central character which the player maintains agency over, rather it is a set of different tales and different characters placed in the same World Setting in which player agency has ripple effects on that setting.
One of the problems of course, with any game that focuses on Player Agency, is that the same thing will mean different things to different people. People have expectations based on 'their' story, and the way you avoid stepping on 'their' story is to maintain player agency and give them the free will to choose their outcomes. This creates certain limitations on you as the author - you must maintain contingency plans for every player agency point you provide. Certain narrative and organizational devices can make this much easier, such as a binary 'morality' system (paragon/renegade points) and condition flags (companion loyalty/approval). This allows you to frame the narrative arc that your players will undergo while providing the illusion of complete choice. While this form of Player Agency is by design limited (your arc of control is more akin to 180 degrees than 360 degrees of movement, if you follow) it is an effective way of allowing your players to exercise their agency over the narrative while still establishing a general story arc which you can follow and plan for.
Over the past three games Bioware has done what, in my opinion, can be considered a masterful job of faithfully representing the continuity of player agency, referencing player choices in meaningful and meaningless ways via datapoints. Mass Effect 3 was the penultimate example of this, borrowing choices from the previous two games to almost completly form the narrative arc of the third - that is, your choices have finally become the definition of the setting (wether or not you saved the council, the rachni, etc) influences the characters that appear and how events play out in these games. Mass Effect 3 is exceptionally well polished (barring some frustrating bugs and annoying UI and quest tracking issues) and represents the continuity nerds wet dream - a universe of their own creation, the punultimate choose your own adventure.
However...
In the last 10-15 minutes of the game there was an abrupt genre convention shift (more in line with the metaphysical pulp sci-fi of the 1900's than the Space Opera / Military Drama we had thus far experianced), a fundamental violation of one of the tenants of the Writer-Reader contract. This abrupt genre shift has left fans feeling disoriented, confused, and dissapointed - which swiftly leads to bitterness and anger. Their suspension of disbelief and expectations have not been adequatly serviced, and thus the ending causes the story of Mass Effect - from beginning to end, from 1-3 - to fail. Many are now observing plot holes and inconsistancies - those plot holes were always there, but were forgiven. However a bad ending damns a story, it causes a blowback in the reader where their tension and emotional involvement does not achieve catharsis and they're left to take it out on the author.
And this is why, I, and many thousands of other individuals have been so upset by the ending to Mass Effect 3. Our genre expectations and player agency have been violated, the finale of the story is uninfluenced by the continuity of our decisions and follows an unfamiliar narrative trend.
If you still wear their chains and go down the path they set for you how can you be free?Darkmantle said:
Who said anything about chains? The use of Mass Relays only had a negative effect in that it streamlined one potential line of technology, the one that the Reapers had already trod and thus were most familiar with.SajuukKhar said:
he's nothing but a memory nowPinochetIsMyBro said:
also, plz don't tell me EDI goes too
I like her and I like joker's my bro too, it would break me if he lost her
As Soverign said in ME1Asita said:
the use and dependance of the Mass Effect relay leads civilizations down the path the Reapers cahse for them.
the Mass Effect relays are tools of limiting species technological development by creating a dependency on outside technology and exploiting the races assumptions that since they will always be there there is no reason try try to make more.
The study of the Mass Relays, the citadel, and the Keepers was almost totally banned and attempts to study them were met with imprisonment and death.
It restricts the technological development of races by forcing them down a dead end path the reapers set out.
the Mass Relay system works in this way regardless of if The reapers are physically present or not.
I think ultimately the problem is that there are too many choices over the broad course of the game's history for them to have given them all justice in the ending. I mean think about it. You just brought up the whether or not to rewrite the Geth, which was a choice I had FORGOTTEN about, and you were upset that it wasn't impactful to the ending of the game.Palfreyfish said:
I mean, just think about all the choices you make in Mass Effect 1 and 2 and even 3. To give all of them justice in an ending, it would take DISCS. The game would be like 5 discs. Instead, they did two things with your choices.
1: Your choices earn you war assets, you get enough and it's determinative over whether or not Earth is destroyed in the end and if Shepard lives. I'd say those are pretty important things.
2: Your choices also play out over the course of the ENTIRE game. For example, earning Mordin's Loyalty has no real impact on the end of the game, but it is determinative of whether or not Eve dies synthesizing the Genophage. Hell, if you save that Asari woman on Virmire you get an email stating she blows up a building killing a bunch of people. The choices you make do play out in the game, they just don't all have their own special, meaningful impact on the ending.
Here is the thing. The races have tried not using Mass Effect tech for ftl travel. None of them panned out.SajuukKhar said:
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Gagarin_Station
So what if the reapers developed it. It works.
And with the reapers gone the whole leading down the path to the reapers is a moot point.