ME3: Real Ending Discussed.

[Daygall65]

Now I do not know if this has been covered here, a quick search revealed nothing so I figured I'd share this.

[link]http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/06/20/mass-effect-3-series-former-lead-writer-reveals-original-ending-ideas/?ns_campaign=article-feed&ns_mchannel=ref&ns_source=steam&ns_linkname=0&ns_fee=0#null[/link]

Now isn't this interesting... An ending where happy things might happen if you do everything right, there is no pulled from the depths of writer lazy hell little deus ex crap with space ghost child, and I don't get tooty fruity frootloop endings...

I know it probably WASN'T all EAs fault, or Biowares, can't blame one without blaming the other... SO I'LL BLAME BOTH FOR ALLOWING THIS MAN TO LEAVE!

Now I'll go cry in a corner... Cause there was a good ending... Just the guy that was in charge of it... So much feels...

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

That would've been nice. What're the devs' problems with happy endings these days? I don't recall the last game I played that had one in it. All dark and broody shit to fake drama.

 

[King Billi]

Not so much of an ending as it is "here are a couple of other ideas we were throwing around that may have been interesting but ultimately weren't fleshed out in any way."

Sounds to me like they never actually had a clear idea how the were going to end this whole thing at all, it really was just mostly made up as they went along.

 

[B5Alpha]

Always wondered what happened to Drew. He was lead writer in the first two games then he just disappears into thin air. There were plenty of Dark Energy foreshadowing hints in ME2, but then the third game never fleshed that out. Now that I know he was fired I probably won't buy another EA game, and definitely nothing from Bioware.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

That would've been nice. What're the devs' problems with happy endings these days? I don't recall the last game I played that had one in it. All dark and broody shit to fake drama.

Dishonor Low Chaos.

 

[Daygall65]

Not so much of an ending as it is "here are a couple of other ideas we were throwing around that may have been interesting but ultimately weren't fleshed out in any way."

Sounds to me like they never actually had a clear idea how the were going to end this whole thing at all, it really was just mostly made up as they went along.

Always wondered what happened to Drew. He was lead writer in the first two games then he just disappears into thin air. There were plenty of Dark Energy foreshadowing hints in ME2, but then the third game never fleshed that out. Now that I know he was fired I probably won't buy another EA game, and definitely nothing from Bioware.

@ King Billi
Not fleshed out by him you mean, I highly doubt that once he was gone, the original ideas where given even a parting wave before being stuffed out the nearest airlock and the new team took over and said "OOOH GOODY LOOK AT WHAT WE HAVE TO PLAY WITH" and you got a bunch a chimpanzees pounding on a piano that George Gershwin just got pulled off of while in the middle of playing Rhapsody and Blue. So what we got was a beautiful lead in and crescendo but then, a bunch of whining poo flinging monkeys for our ending... If Drew was so willing to talk about those ideas, then that means those are the 2-3 that stuck with him the most, and as the lead writer would have been the ones he followed though on....

@ B5Alpha The Dark Energy hints I found in 2 I only found 2, and their wasn't really much there. Though I appreciate the sentiment about not buying from EA, I'd think your full thought would be "Not buying from EA or Bioware again, while it's under the EA umbrella"

This is why you don't change lead writers half way through a story...

 

[Tom_green_day]

I know it probably WASN'T all EAs fault

Well actually Bioware did say EA had nothing to do with it, so I doubt it was at all EA's fault.
But one thing bugs me about the ending, not relating to content. They say they ran out of time to make it good. Surely, since this was the end of an epic space odyssey, they'd do the ending FIRST? I mean, in all other modes of fiction the story is not made in order, surely Bioware should have started with the ending and then done everything else?

 

[King Billi]

Not fleshed out by him you mean, I highly doubt that once he was gone, the original ideas where given even a parting wave before being stuffed out the nearest airlock and the new team took over and said "OOOH GOODY LOOK AT WHAT WE HAVE TO PLAY WITH" and you got a bunch a chimpanzees pounding on a piano that George Gershwin just got pulled off of while in the middle of playing Rhapsody and Blue. So what we got was a beautiful lead in and crescendo but then, a bunch of whining poo flinging monkeys for our ending... If Drew was so willing to talk about those ideas, then that means those are the 2-3 that stuck with him the most, and as the lead writer would have been the ones he followed though on...

I'm not going to speculate on the capabilities or motives of people I don't know, people you seem content to merely dismiss as chimpanzees pounding on a piano. I do find it interesting though that you're so quick to accept that this other ending would undoubtedly be good even after the same guy discussing it said this...

?I find it funny that fans end up hearing a couple things they like about it and in their minds they add in all the details they specifically want. It?s like vapourware ? vapourware is always perfect, anytime someone talks about the new greatest game. It?s perfect until it comes out. I?m a little weary about going into too much detail because, whatever we came up with, it probably wouldn?t be what people want it to be.?

Personally the most notable thing I took from this article was how supportive Drew Karpyshyn seemed to be of the original ending and the people who picked up where he left off. Dosen't it just seem so uncommonly decent when there are already so many fans willing to be insulted "for" him and with so many examples of other people in the industry shifting blame to each other for various controversies. The mere fact that this guy remains supportive of a work which he had no involvement in when so many people would be behind him if he wanted to trash it speaks volumes of his awesomeness as a person I think.

 

[Gatx]

Just from the bits and pieces of what he said, none of that would've necessarily made a BETTER ending (in fact it just sounds kind of like Gurren Lagann) than what we had since the problem wasn't with the ideas and themes that were presented ME3, it was HOW they were presented.

@ B5Alpha The Dark Energy hints I found in 2 I only found 2, and their wasn't really much there. Though I appreciate the sentiment about not buying from EA, I'd think your full thought would be "Not buying from EA or Bioware again, while it's under the EA umbrella"

This is why you don't change lead writers half way through a story...

Well, despite the few in-game hints leading into a focus on dark energy, the other ending would've meant that overall story actually tied back into the goddamn name of the series. Mass Effect fields power everything from space magic to interstellar travel to toothbrushes, so it'd make sense if it actually served as a focal point of the story rather than just sort of a background lore thing.

That said though the AI thing did have a good connection in the series throughout when you think about it - the biggest one being EDI, and then I guess there's the Geth. It just wasn't handled well. At all.

 

[ThriKreen]

Always wondered what happened to Drew. He was lead writer in the first two games then he just disappears into thin air. There were plenty of Dark Energy foreshadowing hints in ME2, but then the third game never fleshed that out. Now that I know he was fired I probably won't buy another EA game, and definitely nothing from Bioware.

Wasn't fired.

Transferred to Bioware Austin to work on Star Wars: The Old Republic.

After awhile, decided he had enough and retired from video games to focus on writing books and golf. Lots and lots of golf.

 

[Joccaren]

Yeah, the Escapist had an article on this a while back.

Additionally, from other information regarding the Dark Energy ending, it wasn't really that much less space magic, nor less tragic. From memory the options were something along the lines of Refuse the Reapers, telling them you'd find your own solution - potentially ending all life in the galaxy if/when you fail, sacrifice humanity to try and save the rest of the galaxy, or let the cycle continue on and the Reapers keep harvesting.

The true happy endings have been written by fans such as myself. The Dark energy ending? Nah, it was... Weird...
Plus they all need some form of plot magic to tie the story together. The lead-up to 3 wasn't well planned, and 3 itself was poorly executed - and really that was its main problem.

 

[xPrometheusx]

That would've been nice. What're the devs' problems with happy endings these days? I don't recall the last game I played that had one in it. All dark and broody shit to fake drama.

Right? Why can't we just have everyone walk into the sunset? WHY COULDN'T BOOKER AND ELIZABETH GO TO PARIS IRRATIONAL???

You know, I read something about this awhile ago, the dark energy thing. I actually read a really, really detailed version of that plot-end. See, the Reapers were wiping out societies and allowing new ones to grow for a couple of reasons. One was that they were conserving the universe, that somehow, the continued use of Element Zero was tearing it apart, so every time a cycle reached a certain technological point, they had to be wiped out lest they continue ripping apart the fabric of reality... or something. The prematurely expanding sun in ME2 was a clue to this, it was originally intended to be a result of Element Zero usage, or biotics, or whatever. They were running out of time to find a solution for this problem, but the human genetic code held the answer... somehow. That's why they built the human reaper, which, keep in mind, there's no evidence to support that they did for any other species in the X number of cycles that they'd culled. It was going to be used to "fix" this problem. It's also why the collectors were called "collectors." Over thousands of years they'd been known to take samples from every race, slaves or prisoners or whatever. Why do they do this? It's never explained. Also, you know how Harbinger is always saying "We are your salvation through destruction"? That's why. IT MAKES SO MUCH MORE SENSE.

But the coolest part was this: that was the final choice for Shepard. You would've had to decide: destroy the reapers and stop the humans from being culled and hope to find a solution by themselves before generally bad things happened, or LET the humans be harvested, and save the galaxy. What an ultimatum, huh? *Hell, that puts a WHOLE new spin on giving the Illusive Man the space station - you might have a shot at it if you preserved the collectors' knowledge, and he'd be the face telling you NOT to sacrifice all of humanity.

Instead...

What I REALLY read from this article was that no one at bioware had the foresight to write the ending to the story before they pumped out TWO (2) multi-million dollar titles. Not sure how that WASN'T going to end in failure.

 

[AD-Stu]

Interesting article, pretty much just confirms stuff he's already said in other places though.

@ B5Alpha The Dark Energy hints I found in 2 I only found 2, and their wasn't really much there.

Yeah, there aren't a lot of them. Off the top of my head:

- Tali's loyalty mission on Haestrom was the biggest one, that whole sub-plot revolved around dark energy
- Gianna Parisini mentions her next job is looking into all the suspicious research people are doing on dark energy after you meet her on Illium
- Dark energy figures in the Arrival DLC too (though to be fair, not everyone would have played that)

Who knows if that was the writers playing it really softly-softly or if they were just hedging their bets on ways the ending could go. As it is players are only guaranteed to come across one of those three references. It was a doozy though, and one of the big "WTF happened with that?!?" things that was just never mentioned again in ME3.

 

[MHR]

^ They could have gotten creative and iterated on it until a good ending came of it. There's really no excuse for what we got. The Gurren Lagann ending was much better than ME3 and it was a very similar story.

Maybe instead of shepherd outright siding with the reapers he could go with a half measure. Tell the reapers just to F off and bother other galaxies. One galaxy existing with life is probably one drop in the bucket of whatever problem would come of the dark energy buildup.

You know, options that might make some sense. Shepherd wouldn't outright sacrifice humanity.

With the current endings, they didn't have to end up being outright evil or depressing. If shepherd took control of the reapers he wouldn't have to destroy all synthetic life, HE COULD JUST STEER THE REAPERS INTO THE SUN. Bam, happy ending from being smart and maybe the player feels like they were geniuses for picking the right answer.

And I agree with the others above. I was told in writing class in MIDDLE SCHOOL that if you're going to write a novel you should already decide upon the ending or at least know the direction that it's going. It doesn't matter if ME3 happened years ago or yesterday, it's still a shitty ending.

 

[Goofguy]

I think the Escapist had an article on this a few weeks back. Anyway, some of those sound like promising ideas but without them being fleshed out, there's no way we'll ever know if they'd have been better alternatives. There's a damn good chance they would have been better but hey, what's done is done.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Here's an easy idea. Instead of cutting a prothean character from the game to sell him as DLC, make him be the Catalyst and let him sacrifice himself in the end to save the galaxy. He kept yapping on about being the voice of vengeance. Let him be that. Heroic end for the last prothean and an awesome fuckin' victory for everyone. See? Not that difficult. And it would make sense seeing how protheans were working on the Crucible. They wouldn't even have to explain anything. We could safely assume that it was designed with prothean sacrifice in mind. That way they could have also avoided trivializing the Reapers by revealing their origin and motivations. Some fuckin' writers.

Not EA's fault? Who do you think gets to decide what should and shouldn't be DLC? Give me a break. If they really didn't have the time to put Javik in the full game they could have released the DLC as free update for everyone. But nooooooo. It had to be $10.
And they had the time and resources to make all those pointless side quests and multiplayer but they had no time to make the prothean character a part of the retail game? Is that how stupid they think we are?

 

[Daygall65]

The part that really erks me the most, is the slide in writing quality at the end, it really stinks of "Oh hell now what..... How do we... OH I GOT IS, GOD! YA GOD IS GOOD... Umm and lets make it that kid from the beginning of the game so Shepard can be crushed by a vision of his own perceived inadequacies"

It just feels like has been mentioned before, that they got to the end of 3 and realized they didn't have an ending, and then to top it all off, the lead writer for the series wasn't working on that project...

A whole bunch of crap came together all at once that on the whole if had happened only one of, or through out the series, it might not has stunk so bad.

In regards to my chimps slapping at keyboards comment, it has to do with the jarring tone shift from ME1-2 to 3. The complete shift from "ok shit's goin down, but we got this... barely. COME WITH ME MY RAG TAG BAND OF FRIENDS AND MISFITS!" To... Who the hell are these people... Where are my ME2 guys that I spent time getting loyal, learned about them and their skills so that NONE of them died in the final mission... The only characters I connected with in ME3 out of my squad mates was Kaiden, and Mordin... And Mordin died T_T

The ending wasn't planned, it was slapped together, all of ME3 feels like an amalgamation of a shit tone of good ideas, with no cohesive direction until all of a sudden *Then end, and we love you"

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Now I do not know if this has been covered here, a quick search revealed nothing so I figured I'd share this.

I know it probably WASN'T all EAs fault, or Biowares, can't blame one without blaming the other... SO I'LL BLAME BOTH FOR ALLOWING THIS MAN TO LEAVE!

This article was discussed a while back. Not as much as I would have expected, but a little.

That's what I like to call the Kyubey ending, since both the Reapers and Kyubey are dealing with Entropy and Heat Death.

I far prefer it to the one the actual game had.

 

[Griffolion]

That would've been nice. What're the devs' problems with happy endings these days? I don't recall the last game I played that had one in it. All dark and broody shit to fake drama.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you seriously insinuating on the internet that a story may possibly have a happy ending? Madness! Heresy!

Honestly, though, I kinda thought the ending to ME3 (the best one, at least) was kind of happy. Most people get saved, and life can rebuild after the war, as is seen in the "Sheperd" epilogue with the grandparent and child. I'd count that as a general win, even though Sheperd "dies".

But I do get what you're saying. It seems these days that if a games story/ending isn't ultra grim-dark, then it's not a legitimate ending for whatever reason.