ME3 ending standing up against bioware.

[Imp_Emissary]

Two cents eh. I'd say more like five bucks.

Very well done.

The main problem I think most people have with the ending (besides the whole no epilogue thing) is that Mass Effects big story mechanic was having the players choices shape the ending. I mean if you want to get very technical ME2 kinda only had one ending. You and your team go fight the Collecters. That really can't not happen, but depending on what choices you made throughout the game (and the game before it) you changed how it would all unfold. Will all the team make it? Will you save the crew? You get the point.

From what everyone has been saying it kind of sounds like there is this one choice at the end of three that decides what goes down and how, no matter what you did before. I haven't yet gotten to ME3's end so I can't say if I like the ending that was picked for us or not, but if we really didn't have a choice on how the end plays out then that kinda makes all the choice we were given before pointless. And that I don't like.

The entire third game was the ending, and you see the consequences of your choices from the first two games play out in it.

What most people fail to realize I that the "ending" of a story is not the last 5-10 minutes of a game or movie, nor is it the last chapter in a book, it is the entire last act.

Mass Effect 3 showed you the consequences of your action in the ending because the entire game was the ending.

Normally that would be true. Your point is valid. However, in this case there is one problem. "The end" of the end of ME3 makes all the choices meaningless because no matter what choices we make we will always get the same result.

Don't get me wrong. That doesn't make the rest of the game not fun. It doesn't even make what happens at the end a "bad ending". It does however make all that happened before not matter. Besides the choices we make in the first two games not affecting the ending, what about the choices we make on our final run to the finish line? Why don't they change the end at all? When can we see their effects?

My point is, why have me run in a race and tell me to try my hardest to get first place, when at the end where I finally cross the finish I find out everyone gets a trophy the exact same size no matter how well they did?
How do I fully enjoy a journey where I am told throughout to make "important" choices, only to find out that only the last one will make a difference at the end?

On an unrelated note; Love the avatar. Is it from something?

 

[XMark]

I've warmed up to the ending after my initial shock. Really, the only thing that irks me is the Normandy running away in the middle of the battle for no apparent reason.

I'll really just need a reasonable explanation for that part and I'll be satisfied.

As for the fleet, and the state of the Earth and other home planets after the game - sure it's not all gumdrops and lollipops, but whatever state the survivors are left in, it's a hell of a lot better than the state they would have been in without Shepard activating the red/green/blue explosions.

The individual story threads which were started in Mass Effect 1 all get resolved throughout the game itself, and the primary conflict with the Reapers is resolved in the very end, so all in all, everything is resolved, and each part of the resolution is decided by your actions through the series. I'd say that's satisfactory.

Still...

NORMANDY, WHY U RUN AWAY DURING FINAL BATTLE?!

 

[KingofMadCows]

I don't think it's a big deal either way.

It's not like this is the first time where a franchise has been ruined by poor decisions. At least the rest of ME3 is pretty good. At least it didn't turn out to be like Command and Conquer or Might and Magic.

As for all the people wanting it to be changed, so what? It's not like the first time that's happened either. Ever heard of a character named Sherlock Holmes? Arthur Conan Doyle gave Holmes an epic heroic death battling Professor Moriarty. However, his fans refused to believe that Holmes died, they came up with all sorts of theories about how Holmes survived and they pressured Doyle to bring Holmes back. Guess what happened? He brought Holmes back. In fact, half the Sherlock Holmes stories were written after Doyle brought him back.

 

[TheCowman]

Eh, I liked my ending.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Normally that would be true. Your point is valid. However, in this case there is one problem. "The end" of the end of ME3 makes all the choices meaningless because no matter what choices we make we will always get the same result.

Don't get me wrong. That doesn't make the rest of the game not fun. It doesn't even make what happens at the end a "bad ending". It does however make all that happened before not matter. Besides the choices we make in the first two games not affecting the ending, what about the choices we make on our final run to the finish line? Why don't they change the end at all? When can we see their effects?

My point is, why have me run in a race and tell me to try my hardest to get first place, when at the end where I finally cross the finish I find out everyone gets a trophy the exact same size no matter how well they did?
How do I fully enjoy a journey where I am told throughout to make "important" choices, only to find out that only the last one will make a difference at the end?

On an unrelated note; Love the avatar. Is it from something?

The choices were only ever made to affect what you got to fight the Reapers. Their affects past that are irrelevant because they were never made to go past that.

Secondly there are 3 high level choices that DO affect thing post-game
-Saving/killing the Rachnai
-Curing/not curing the Genphoage
-How you handled the Geth/Quarrian conflict
Those things will continue to affect those species regardless of the ending.

So no, not all of your choices mean nothing.
.
.
.
Also my avatar is from the manga Battle Angel Alita
It is set 500 years into the future after a meteor caused a global winter, humanity rebuilt, went to the stars, had a war, and the space colonies decided to stop contact with Earth to keep any one of them from getting too powerful off of earth's resources.

The setting starts off in the city of Scrap on Earth which sits below a flying city that is connected to a space city via a orbital elevator, though most people have no idea what it is because they have regressed technologically, and noe one has made constant with the flying city in memorable history though the people on the ground still are forced to grow crops for them, it goes to the badlands, the flying city, and into space eventually.

The story begins with a cyborg doctor Ido finding the remains of a cyborg in the vast scrapheap surrounding the city and he rebuilds her, finds her brain has survived hundreds of years of stasis, though she has lost all her memory, names her Alita, and through a series of events finds that she knows the legendary lost Cyborg martial arts of Panzer Kunst.

The story focuses on Alita trying to figure out her past, and how she is responsible for the Earths messed up state.

There are cyborgs, cyborg martial arts, mad scientists who keep themselves alive forever through nano-machines, there is one vampire, though she is actually a mutant, there is a guy who speaks and see in in radio waves, A genetically created werewolf like being, LOTS OF BLOOD. It has pretty much everything

 

[psicat]

This is one of the best piece I've read on this entire ME3 controversy, and one that fully expresses my opinion on the matter.

http://escort-mission.com/2012/03/19/why-retake-mass-effect-makes-me-furious/

 

[applesandoranges]

edit

 

[Imp_Emissary]

The choices were only ever made to affect what you got to fight the Reapers. Their affects past that are irrelevant because they were never made to go past that.

Secondly there are 3 high level choices that DO affect thing post-game
-Saving/killing the Rachnai
-Curing/not curing the Genphoage
-How you handled the Geth/Quarrian conflict
Those things will continue to affect those species regardless of the ending.

So no, not all of your choices mean nothing.
.
.
.
Also my avatar is from the manga Battle Angel Alita
It is set 500 years into the future after a meteor caused a global winter, humanity rebuilt, went to the stars, had a war, and the space colonies decided to stop contact with Earth to keep any one of them from getting too powerful off of earth's resources.

The setting starts off in the city of Scrap on Earth which sits below a flying city that is connected to a space city via a orbital elevator, though most people have no idea what it is because they have regressed technologically, and noe one has made constant with the flying city in memorable history though the people on the ground still are forced to grow crops for them, it goes to the badlands, the flying city, and into space eventually.

The story begins with a cyborg doctor Ido finding the remains of a cyborg in the vast scrapheap surrounding the city and he rebuilds her, finds her brain has survived hundreds of years of stasis, though she has lost all her memory, names her Alita, and through a series of events finds that she knows the legendary lost Cyborg martial arts of Panzer Kunst.

The story focuses on Alita trying to figure out her past, and how she is responsible for the Earths messed up state.

There are cyborgs, cyborg martial arts, mad scientists who keep themselves alive forever through nano-machines, there is one vampire, though she is actually a mutant, there is a guy who speaks and see in in radio waves, A genetically created werewolf like being, LOTS OF BLOOD. It has pretty much everything

We will have to agree that we don't completely agree, but I think it is better that way. Makes things more interesting like that. I will remember what you have said for later contemplation.

On to a more mutually interesting topic. This Alita. Never heard of her, but the wrold she seems to be "put" in sounds very.....amusing. The lore seems to take and change various staple creatures from mythology.

The lich that removed its blood into a phylactery to keep itself "alive"(Mad scientists+nano-machines), vampires+werewolfs(genetic mutants), and of last but not least angels(Cyborgs with combat training) Or at least thats the image I am getting from what you wrote.

Also, Alita in this image seems to be in a state of disrepair. I assume this is an earlier pic then? She seems a bit sad, no?