Mass Effect 3 ending SPOILERS!

[Seneschal]

I have to say, I like (or rather, I appreciate) the endings. I found it gratifying that the galaxy could not be saved quickly and cleanly by the McGuffin weapon, and that galactic society must be almost undone completely if it's to break the cycle.

Everyone seems to forget the races still have FTL travel. From the ME Wikia:

With a mass effect drive, roughly a dozen light-years can be traversed in the course of a day's cruise.

This means that the Milky Way (~110,000 light years) can be crossed in about 25 years (not accounting for stopping to discharge the drive core). Besides, the very nature of colonization and fabrication technology (the omni-tool is an all-purpose fabricator) means that most space colonies and habitats DON'T depend on interstellar trade to supply them with food. Self-sufficiency is almost guaranteed, so the only thing they have to face is isolation. Not that much of a downer, is it?

But the problem is that ship travel are still very much limited by fuel supplies, so unless someone goes through with the painfully slow method of building a long line of fuel depots, travel can pretty much only happen within local clusters.

Also, many of the species' heavily populated homeworlds are hit very hard by Reaper attacks, and without supplies from the outside, rebuilding is going to be an extremely difficult process.

Their ships are all fuelled by hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, so I don't think it would be a problem. They'll just have to hop between systems with gas giants, all of which are an (almost) unlimited source of both hydrogen for their rockets and helium-3/deuterium for their fusion reactors. And while they refuel, they can discharge their drive core into the gas giant's magnetic field.

It will require a lot more time and a bit of lateral thinking for the galactic races to adapt, yes, but it's definitely not something that would stop them. They'll still have it better than most other sci-fi franchises - heck, their travel speed is double that of Star Trek! (end-to-end of the galaxy in ~20 years, as opposed to the 70 years (without shortcuts) that the USS Voyager needed to get back from the Delta Quadrant, a trip of 70,000 ly). And if Star Trek has a prolific interstellar civilization, I don't see how the citadel races are doomed.

 

[Bebus]

It is a terribly sad thing to do, but I won't be 'finishing' ME3 again unless they fix the ending (I say fix rather than change because those endings were not just unsatisfactory, they were broken in ways many more detailed posts than mine have described).

The game was perfect. I will play again and when I see Shepard limping towards the console, I will shut it off and imagine a better ending.

If they do release a paid-for DLC to rectify the problem, I am slightly ashamed to say I will buy it the second it is released. But unless it wraps up the game properly (I don't want a happy ending, just one that actually makes sense, and gives some kind of satisfaction), this wonderful game will be the last time Bioware get my custom.

 

[lade]

I believe in earning my happy ending, which is why I devoted many hours of gameplay to this game with an aim to shape my shepard and by extension the galaxy into one , where I hoped to see my character beat the bad guys and get the girl or something close enough to that.

I was P****d when I saw in the last 20 minutes the fruition of all my hardwork and nearly smashed my copy in fury.I'm happy I didn't though , especially now that I've had time to think it through.I admit I still hate the options presented to me but I understand hy they had to be.

As the prothen cipher on thessia pointed out, certain events ae cyclical from emergence of advanced civilizations to wars and everything in between, but a major problem that constantly emerges is the creation of AI, what everyone agreees is a big no no, as in the case of the zhatil and metacon wars AI have proven to be an immense threat to organic life , and all that is required for potentially universal extinction of organic life , is for an advanced ,malevolent and capable enough race of Ai to emerge among advanced presingularity galactic civilizations especially if the manage to destroy their organic contemporaries and continue to gro and develop unchallenged.

True the reapers are AI, and the do the nasties but their actions are controlled restrained even in comparison to what could emerge.Shepard's choices put against the larger picture aren't so great

He/She can destroy the reapers and hope for the best, with no assurance beyond blind hope that a race won't open pandor's box(AI creation) after the reapers close it after the wipe out and reset each cycle.While every fiber of my being demands their deaths for all they have done.I MUST look at the bigger picture , in the war beteen organics and Machines, we only REALLY get to lose once.

This makes the reapers a necessary evil as they serve as the vanguard for organic life against possible AI genocide and to protect younger race from predation by more advanced races.The protheans don't come of as entirely noble and I shudder ith fear at what the yahg unchecked can become.While the current cycle is passable in terms of the characters of the advanced species, this is not alays they case.


So I replayed the final chapter of the game and chose control, better to have the reapers and not need them than to need the reapers ad not have them.

My two cents on the ending

 

[wicket42]

From Lady Levias on the BSN

Anyone else keeping track of @masseffect's tweets? (twitter.com/#!/masseffect)

So far these have stood out:

User 1: "I still want to believe you guys are sneaky trolls and have something going on you don't tell us yet. Can I get a cryptic reply?"
@masseffect: "The sun, it shines. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1PBptSDIh8 "


User 2: "You are either a massive sadist or a beacon of hope."
@masseffect: "Can't it be both?"


User 3: "I kinda feel lost after that ending...not what I expected and left me feeling everything done was for nothing."
@masseffect: "We know it's a lot to take in! But hang in there. Your decisions matter."


User 4: "Are you holding something back, that could quell the large amount of frustration from the community, a tiny hint would be enough."
@masseffect: "Mike Gamble already said on his twitter, if the fans knew what was in store, the reaction would be different."


User 5: "I loved 98% of ME3..but something has to be up w/ ending..too much talent at BW for that business. Keep my saves?"
@masseffect: "We're keeping our saves, that's for sure."


User 6: "Fans are people too. Playing with their minds isn't that nice as it may look like to people from Bioware."
@masseffect: "We're not playing with anyone's minds, we are answering what questions we can and recording what feedback we receive."


So my thought is... what are they getting at here?

 

[oddball121]

Either the greatest piece of storytelling ever done in the medium, or the greatest piece of trolling that will be remembered for all time.

 

[boag]

From Lady Levias on the BSN

Anyone else keeping track of @masseffect's tweets? (twitter.com/#!/masseffect)

So far these have stood out:

User 1: "I still want to believe you guys are sneaky trolls and have something going on you don't tell us yet. Can I get a cryptic reply?"
@masseffect: "The sun, it shines. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1PBptSDIh8 "


User 2: "You are either a massive sadist or a beacon of hope."
@masseffect: "Can't it be both?"


User 3: "I kinda feel lost after that ending...not what I expected and left me feeling everything done was for nothing."
@masseffect: "We know it's a lot to take in! But hang in there. Your decisions matter."


User 4: "Are you holding something back, that could quell the large amount of frustration from the community, a tiny hint would be enough."
@masseffect: "Mike Gamble already said on his twitter, if the fans knew what was in store, the reaction would be different."


User 5: "I loved 98% of ME3..but something has to be up w/ ending..too much talent at BW for that business. Keep my saves?"
@masseffect: "We're keeping our saves, that's for sure."


User 6: "Fans are people too. Playing with their minds isn't that nice as it may look like to people from Bioware."
@masseffect: "We're not playing with anyone's minds, we are answering what questions we can and recording what feedback we receive."


So my thought is... what are they getting at here?

Yes ive been following them and they keep being criptic, but this sounds a lot like DLC. Specially since there are rumors about DLC for the multiplayer as well.

 

[Erttheking]

From Lady Levias on the BSN

Anyone else keeping track of @masseffect's tweets? (twitter.com/#!/masseffect)

So far these have stood out:

User 1: "I still want to believe you guys are sneaky trolls and have something going on you don't tell us yet. Can I get a cryptic reply?"
@masseffect: "The sun, it shines. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1PBptSDIh8 "


User 2: "You are either a massive sadist or a beacon of hope."
@masseffect: "Can't it be both?"


User 3: "I kinda feel lost after that ending...not what I expected and left me feeling everything done was for nothing."
@masseffect: "We know it's a lot to take in! But hang in there. Your decisions matter."


User 4: "Are you holding something back, that could quell the large amount of frustration from the community, a tiny hint would be enough."
@masseffect: "Mike Gamble already said on his twitter, if the fans knew what was in store, the reaction would be different."


User 5: "I loved 98% of ME3..but something has to be up w/ ending..too much talent at BW for that business. Keep my saves?"
@masseffect: "We're keeping our saves, that's for sure."


User 6: "Fans are people too. Playing with their minds isn't that nice as it may look like to people from Bioware."
@masseffect: "We're not playing with anyone's minds, we are answering what questions we can and recording what feedback we receive."


So my thought is... what are they getting at here?

Yes ive been following them and they keep being criptic, but this sounds a lot like DLC. Specially since there are rumors about DLC for the multiplayer as well.

It sounds like Bioware is challenging Valve for the title of "world's biggest cooperate troll"

"Fingers crossed"

God I hope they have a miracle up their sleeves, and I hope they announce whatever they're talking about soon.

 

[Raesvelg]

Well the whole fact that the Mass Relays are a way to railroad species to evolve in a specific way in terms of technology. Now that doesn't make sense sense to me that they are doing this cycle to prevent life from evolving to a point where they create aggressive AI and yet they are railroading technology, so are the Reapers forcing life into a position where they create AI thus creating a self fulfilling prophesy? Or am I giving it to much thought and Bioware just didn't put much logic in to this.

So it's not so much conflicting with cannon as the logic of the Reapers make little sense in context of the canon.

That one's easy, actually. The mass relay network was left out there so that new civilizations followed predictable paths of technological evolution, yes, but just in the general sense to give the Reapers a military advantage when the time came to harvest.

The development of synthetic life is posited as inevitable in the ME universe, so giving civilizations a head-start, technologically-speaking, might shave a few thousand years off their lifespan before it's time to harvest them, but it also ensure that the Reapers will know more-or-less what to expect when they come pouring through the Citadel to start with the aforementioned harvest.

It's much the same logic as having the Citadel lying around; predictable technology, predictable center of government, etc etc, basically trying fairly hard to set the parameters any given civilization is going to be operating within.

 

[boag]

From Lady Levias on the BSN

Anyone else keeping track of @masseffect's tweets? (twitter.com/#!/masseffect)

So far these have stood out:

User 1: "I still want to believe you guys are sneaky trolls and have something going on you don't tell us yet. Can I get a cryptic reply?"
@masseffect: "The sun, it shines. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1PBptSDIh8 "


User 2: "You are either a massive sadist or a beacon of hope."
@masseffect: "Can't it be both?"


User 3: "I kinda feel lost after that ending...not what I expected and left me feeling everything done was for nothing."
@masseffect: "We know it's a lot to take in! But hang in there. Your decisions matter."


User 4: "Are you holding something back, that could quell the large amount of frustration from the community, a tiny hint would be enough."
@masseffect: "Mike Gamble already said on his twitter, if the fans knew what was in store, the reaction would be different."


User 5: "I loved 98% of ME3..but something has to be up w/ ending..too much talent at BW for that business. Keep my saves?"
@masseffect: "We're keeping our saves, that's for sure."


User 6: "Fans are people too. Playing with their minds isn't that nice as it may look like to people from Bioware."
@masseffect: "We're not playing with anyone's minds, we are answering what questions we can and recording what feedback we receive."


So my thought is... what are they getting at here?

Yes ive been following them and they keep being criptic, but this sounds a lot like DLC. Specially since there are rumors about DLC for the multiplayer as well.

It sounds like Bioware is challenging Valve for the title of "world's biggest cooperate troll"

"Fingers crossed"

God I hope they have a miracle up their sleeves, and I hope they announce whatever they're talking about soon.

I would be surprised if it came out as a Patch instead of DLC, and that it was just a way to fuck over pirates.

regardless I dont want to replay ME3 right now, the only thing ive been doing is Multi.

 

[AD-Stu]

the motivation for reapers stated in me3 contradicts the first game. try to recall sovereign's words: organics are pathetic, a genetic mutation, rudimentary creatures etc.

Ah yeah nice one I forgot all about what Sovereign said, well that proves the Reapers where a poorly retconned mess. I know ME1 and ME3 do not share all of the writers but come at least have a little consistancy.

See, I could forgive that on the basis that if the Reapers weren't the ones in control, then it's perfectly feasible that the God-Kid lied to them about their reason for being - they think they're just out to eliminate pathetic genetic mutations without knowing that their real purpose is actually to "save" them.

What grinds my gears is that there was absolutely no reason to retcon them in the first place - as other people have pointed out, they were much scarier and much more effective when we didn't know why they were turning up every 50,000 years to wipe everybody out. I never asked for an answer to that question, and I don't think it ever needed one.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

[Illusive Man]
*smokes cigarette and breaths out slowly*
"Shepard. By now you should be reading this in my voice, which may speed up the process. We need you to infiltrate Bioware and retrieve or create an alternate DLC for Mass Effect 3"

[Shepard]: DLC?

[Illusive Man]: Downloadable Content. It would appear not too many humans are pleased with the ending of Mass Effect 3 *smokes some more* Cerberus believes that it is in the best interest of our species to rectify this terrible mistake.

[Shepard]:

-I'll do it, but because I want to help humanity not Cerberus
-Where do I start?
-I'm gonna twist Bioware's Quads!

[Illusive Man]: Good to hear. And Shepard... You better still be reading this in my voice.

That was awesome!

Anyway, I'm starting to believe that Bioware indoctrinated us into believing the ending is real. It obviously isn't.
Reapers know how Shepard thinks, and Bioware knows how we think. So they trolled us with blue and red endings because they know that we think blue is supposed to mean good, and red is supposed to mean bad.
But throughout the entire game controlling the Reapers was considered a bad choice. It's Illusive Man's choice. He was indoctrinated into believing that he can control the Reapers. And so were we when the choice was presented with a blue color. Is it really likely that someone who can write a really awesome story suddenly f*cks it up with a million plot holes in the last 10 minutes? I don't think so.
Blue ending is obviously not a good ending. When your EMS is over 5000, Shepard wakes up in a pile of rubble after choosing the red ending which players were indoctrinated into believing is the bad ending. Not to mention that the Citadel explodes in the red ending. No one can survive that. Yet somehow Shepard is alive and well. He's obviously still one Earth.

 

[Erttheking]

From Lady Levias on the BSN

Anyone else keeping track of @masseffect's tweets? (twitter.com/#!/masseffect)

So far these have stood out:

User 1: "I still want to believe you guys are sneaky trolls and have something going on you don't tell us yet. Can I get a cryptic reply?"
@masseffect: "The sun, it shines. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1PBptSDIh8 "


User 2: "You are either a massive sadist or a beacon of hope."
@masseffect: "Can't it be both?"


User 3: "I kinda feel lost after that ending...not what I expected and left me feeling everything done was for nothing."
@masseffect: "We know it's a lot to take in! But hang in there. Your decisions matter."


User 4: "Are you holding something back, that could quell the large amount of frustration from the community, a tiny hint would be enough."
@masseffect: "Mike Gamble already said on his twitter, if the fans knew what was in store, the reaction would be different."


User 5: "I loved 98% of ME3..but something has to be up w/ ending..too much talent at BW for that business. Keep my saves?"
@masseffect: "We're keeping our saves, that's for sure."


User 6: "Fans are people too. Playing with their minds isn't that nice as it may look like to people from Bioware."
@masseffect: "We're not playing with anyone's minds, we are answering what questions we can and recording what feedback we receive."


So my thought is... what are they getting at here?

Yes ive been following them and they keep being criptic, but this sounds a lot like DLC. Specially since there are rumors about DLC for the multiplayer as well.

It sounds like Bioware is challenging Valve for the title of "world's biggest cooperate troll"

"Fingers crossed"

God I hope they have a miracle up their sleeves, and I hope they announce whatever they're talking about soon.

I would be surprised if it came out as a Patch instead of DLC, and that it was just a way to fuck over pirates.

regardless I dont want to replay ME3 right now, the only thing ive been doing is Multi.

I only ever got up to Rannoch to be honest, when I saw the endings I just couldn't find the heart to keep playing. The multiplayer is a little odd to me, on one hand I feel the urge to play it, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. It's weird.

Also, god I hope that you're right.

 

[Shock and Awe]

I guess I'm the minority when I say I actually liked the ending. It makes sense, you destroy the source of the relays and the relays go with them, I would call it the cost of freedom. Also, the Normandy is hardly stranded, nothing said their comm systems were out. If Shepard survived in your story he is also likely to be recovered seeing as people will certainly be rooting around in the Citadel's wreckage. I also loved how the end was pretty much the ultimate choice. Secure a future of organics, combine them with machines for the "ultimate evolution", or choose self determination. I thought it was a cool way to do it.

 

[Bmagada]

Yeah I can see bioware dropping a gotcha moment, but only after they want to try and act like they didn't screw the pooch so fundamentally bad in the first place. Its the only way to go and not act like they fucked it up. Even if that was they're plan, its flawed because then I have to pay more money for an ending that it should have had in the first place. This is some pretty unforgivable shit. Yeah its an artistic medium, but this is what happens when you sell an epic story with a shit ending, people get mad. People have invested a shit load of their time and money. As if the first two games, merch, and DLC weren't already lining their pockets. Would it have been so hard to tack 5-10 minutes on to maybe idk, explain things?


No you can't make everyone happy Bioware, but making absolutely no one happy is just a cheap way to go out.

 

[Spongebobdickpants]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H_A7SeawU4&feature=g-all-u&context=G2d8a2a9FAAAAAAAAAAA

This video summarises my feelings to a tee

 

[nauticalmandems]

As a space opera, the ending (RGB) does work in some ways, sci-fi this apocalyptic does tend to follow through on it's promise and end just as dark as they can with leaving a small ray of hope for the (distant) future.

Now putting aside all plot holes, in-universe inconsistencies, and thematic arguments for and against the endings. The real problem is that ME is not a traditional work of sci-fi; it is a video game. A sci-fi video game grounded in traditional sci-fi tropes, with some genuinely unique imaginings, but a video game nonetheless.

The point is that the final ending to an epic three part series, which requires at least 60 hours to play through all three, should reflect my decisions and actions as a gamer. This is not a linear game, choices have been given and made across all three games, some being more important than others (and some later becoming meaningless), no two people have played through all three games in the same way. It was a personal adventure, something which gamers invested heavily in, we each owned our own versions of Shepard; I played the ME 1 and 2 about a dozen times each to get all different outcomes.

But not this time, when we were told that our actions would matter more than ever, at a seemingly epic end to an epic trilogy, every player was given one of three very similar and disappointing endings. I did not play these games to sit through a poorly conceived and half arsed conclusion. I was prepared for any outcome, no matter how grim, as long as it was MY outcome, a result of MY actions. Filling up a meter and selecting what color you would like your ending is an insult to every player who has invested their time, money and energy into these games.

I could write down my ideal ending but that would ultimately be pointless. We simply deserved better.

 

[Erttheking]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H_A7SeawU4&feature=g-all-u&context=G2d8a2a9FAAAAAAAAAAA

This video summarises my feelings to a tee

That guy puts it just perfectly. Free DLC, damn. Wouldn't that be nice?

 

[nauticalmandems]

Nothing is free with EA. Ever

We don't even own the games anymore, we rent them, or parts of them, and pay for the rest in installments.

Everything about ME3 has pretty much summed up the major problems with the current games industry.

 

[Erttheking]

Nothing is free with EA. Ever

We don't even own the games anymore, we rent them, or parts of them, and pay for the rest in installments.

Everything about ME3 has pretty much summed up the major problems with the current games industry.

"sigh" yeah I suppose that you have a point there.

On a side note HOLY CRAP 1000 replies! I never knew that this thread would get this big.

 

[Darkmantle]

I feel like these shitty endings are a scam to get us to buy new DLC -.-

also, I can't believe the shit ending got past the testers, or even the drawing board.