People who haven't played ME3: What's your take on all this rage?

[Jodah]

i dont get it sure the game wasnt perfect but then again nothing is, and some people are being very OTT about it by winging to bioware over it and saying pretty extreme stuff like "the ending ruined ALL of mass effect for me"

its one of those instances were id like to remind people that its just a game and getting this worked up and upset over one very specific part of one very specific game when the whole point of playing games is to enjoy yourself is pretty ridiculous

The problem is that over the span of several years players have invested hundreds of dollars and hours into the Mass Effect universe only to be dickslapped by Bioware in the end.

And this isn't just that it isn't perfect. It is the sheer amount that is wrong with it. The writers should be ashamed of the ending. The writing in the ending is worse than what many high school students can spit out and these are trained and paid professionals. If they had been writing a book any editor with sense would have laughed them out of his office. The plot holes, deus ex machina, and lack of explanation is just insulting to the gamers that have loyally followed the series for years.

 

[McMullen]

I'm kind of annoyed that I have to keep hearing about it.

Also, it's a good ending if it gets this much emotion out of people. That's my stance on it, anyway.

The Nazi's must have been swell guys to unite so much of the world against them.

Hey, can you wait until at least the fifth post or so to bring Godwin's Law into the thread?

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

I find it kind of dull at this point to be honest. There are way too many threads about it, and plenty of repeat threads. It is even worse than Skyrim.

 

[Aeonknight]

I've pretty much already stated my opinion: Annoyed at all the people overreacting and willing to destroy the company out of pure spite. But then again, if the ending is as bad as everyone says it is, perhaps Bioware wasn't that talented to begin with and does indeed need to come crashing down. I generally don't wish that on any developer, but hey it's what the "fans" want right?

 

[shadow skill]

I've pretty much already stated my opinion: Annoyed at all the people overreacting and willing to destroy the company out of pure spite. But then again, if the ending is as bad as everyone says it is, perhaps Bioware wasn't that talented to begin with and does indeed need to come crashing down. I generally don't wish that on any developer, but hey it's what the "fans" want right?

I personally don't consider them to be particularly talented writers. (I am of the opinion that the down fall really started when Mass Effect 2 squandered a chance to really show how Shepard's death affected the Normandy crew by not basing the game on the actual hunt for Shepard's body. Instead it degenerated into a rather cheap exscuse to change the cast.) But even after they introduced the Halo errrrr Crucible I wasn't expecting them to completely fuck up the very end by insulting my intelligence so blatantly.

 

[blade12444]

play all 3 games , then finish me3. Then you will understand why people don't like it

 

[Neverhoodian]

A part of me sympathizes with the upset parties. Speaking as a "classic trilogy" Star Wars fan, I can understand the feelings of disappointment and betrayal that they must be feeling right now after witnessing their beloved franchise go down the proverbial crapper.

I'd be lying if I said that I don't get a twinge of schadenfreude, though. After years of hearing people say "oh just get over it already" regarding the direction Star Wars has gone, my normally dormant mischievious side has this to say regarding ME3:

Spoiler

Welcome to the club, Mass Effect fans. If it makes you feel any better, there's a lot of truth to the old adage "misery loves company."

 

[OldDirtyCrusty]

I started to play ME2 and it`s been great fun so far. I bought it with some (all?) of the DLC included out of the bargain bin and maybe i`ll do the same with ME3. I try to not support todays DLC policy as good as i can. It seems that Bioware starts to worry a bit about loosing their fanbase and hopefully they do something about it. Maybe we`ll get a better ending DLC so it´s the next cheap game of the year edition i buy someday.
With such an outrage Bioware must`ve fucked up bad and i hate it when endings ruin the entire experience. Maybe i`ll skip it entirely, there are lots of other games waiting to be played.

 

[Loreley]

That's an odd way to read it. I'm making a point that it's a logical fallacy to assume that because something attracts attention it is "good", particularly when that attention is in fact a reaction to how bad it is.

I didn't say attention. I said "emotion," specifically in relation to a video game ending. I didn't say anything is good because it induces negative emotion; I said that this specific ending is good if it managed to make people that upset. It was effective. It drew emotion out of people. It got people talking. It did its job.

That's without having played the game, mind you, and since I haven't been reading about it, I don't know why people are saying it's bad.

Let's try this again without Godwin's Law: If the ending was just a video of a giant pineapple with a Reaper drawn onto it thrown into a trash can, you can bet that would make people upset, but that doesn't make it a good ending. If the ending was ten minutes of watching Shepard dance, that would get people talking too, but that still doesn't make it a good ending. The ending primarily evokes emotion because it's not very well-written, and that hardly enhances any part of a story. Besides, if the only goal is to "shock" with some tired twist, then you're probably thinking with the marketing department in mind rather than the integrity of whatever you wanted to tell. Any publicity is good publicity, right?

Aside from that, since I've played ME I'm not really the one asked here, but hey, one of the ME3 New Ending petition groups raised money for the Child's Play charity, so the protests did something good for someone, at least.

 

[Kapol]

Before I finished the game, it was something that while I figured was overblown, made me worried to see the actual end. People said that it was bad enough to ruin the entire series for them. Since I loved the series, it would have to be something completely horrible to ruin the past games.

Having finished it now, I can say... people are most assuredly overracting. I actually like the concept behind the ending. Mind you, the ending itself wasn't good. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't good. But the idea for an interesting ending with facinating concequences was there. They just really didn't show it right I think. Not to mention pure, blatant plot-holes.

So in closing: Good idea, bad execution.

 

[Asita]

I'm kind of annoyed that I have to keep hearing about it.

Also, it's a good ending if it gets this much emotion out of people. That's my stance on it, anyway.

That's bad logic when the main talking points about that ending are the faux pas it made: Diabolus ex machina, weak character justification, the principle characters acting out of character, the climax introducing new elements that further complicate the situation rather than helping to resolve it, no sense of catharsis, no denoument, no sense of closure, lack of differentiation between the endings (quite literally, they use almost identical footage)...the emotional reaction you refer to exists on a meta-level with the consumer base upset at the fact that the ending exists as a black mark on Mass Effect's otherwise exceptional record.

 

[LetalisK]

That's an odd way to read it. I'm making a point that it's a logical fallacy to assume that because something attracts attention it is "good", particularly when that attention is in fact a reaction to how bad it is.

I didn't say attention. I said "emotion," specifically in relation to a video game ending. I didn't say anything is good because it induces negative emotion; I said that this specific ending is good if it managed to make people that upset. It was effective. It drew emotion out of people. It got people talking. It did its job.

I know the adage of "any press is good press" exists, but I don't think it applies here. It would seem to me talk about how crap the ending is would lead more people to pirating/borrowing it instead of paying for it outright(I know the latter is certainly the case for me). And in the future, gamers will remember this.

That's without having played the game, mind you, and since I haven't been reading about it, I don't know why people are saying it's bad.

I haven't played it either, I'm still going through ME2, but from what I gather from comments and youtube videos I've seen, all the endings are essentially the same, it completely rejects all the build up and decisions you've made thus far, and it violates the core themes Mass Effect had built its series on. Basically, it reeks of laziness and/or being rushed to ship it out. I'm betting on the latter considering how I keep hearing how most of ME3 is incredible, but the ending blows.

Btw, your avatar looks like a Baldur's Gate pic. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Captcha: "happy clappy". You aren't happy when you have the clappy.

 

[krellen]

ME2 killed my love for the series, and confirmation that ME3 is still pretty much a shooter and not an RPG killed my sympathy too. I avoided the hype, and my response to most ME3 things for the past year and a half have been "I really don't care about Mass Effect 3." And I still don't.

That said, I did watch the ending, and it really is stupid as hell.

 

[SwimmingRock]

I find that I hate both sides. The hater side for their utter depravity and depths that they are stooping to to get what they want. The fanboy side for their utter dismissal of any and all criticism under the pretense that the haters just want a "happy rainbow" ending.

Now, this vitriol only extends to the extremists on both sides. People who like the ending and leave it at that, I'm fine with. People who hate the ending and point out it's valid flaws without attacking others or doing stupid stunts are fine as well.

So aboslutely this. I was soured on the franchise by the time I finished ME2 and on board with some of the legitimate complaints of ME3 before and around release. Shit has gotten out of hand, though.

What's more, having read the endings on the ME wiki, which is my substitute for actually playing a game when the gameplay bores me, I find I'm not particularly bothered by the endings. Not great, but not "Oh, my God, burn everything!" bad either. Then you read the threads about people trying to sue them and I can't help but think:"Guys, chill the fuck out."

It's like, I really enjoy squid, you know? And if a restaurant made sub-standard squid, I wouldn't throw a fit or burn the whole place down. I'd just stop going there, man. Metaphors, yo.


EDIT: I've only read the endings and not actually watched video footage of them. I don't know if the execution/presentation is any good.

 

[RedFeather1975]

Don't care for the franchise, but I'm glad ME3 caused this much controversy, as it is entertaining.

 

[isometry]

As soon as I saw how ME 2 dealt with the decisions about Anderson and the Council from the end of ME 1, the illusion that my choices matter pretty much ended. My take on the ending, is that a lot of people held onto faith that their choices would matter, until the game was over and they were forced to face how unpersonalized the series actually was.

All the choices about the fate of the galaxy, as opposed to the Normandy soap opera, are dealt with as cheaply as possible, getting one or two scenes before merging into the same story that the other choices would have led to. Have people ever played real RPGs where choices permanently branch the story? Even Bethesda games do this in a way that ME doesn't come close to.

The other reason I dumped the series, it was obvious all along that they would chop the ending to sell as DLC. If they really did provide the conclusive ending they promised, then who would buy the DLC? Since the ME 2 DLC costs a total of $60 to this day, and they don't make complete/"game of the year" editions, I decided to cut my losses. Not because I can't afford it, but because I consider it exploitative to start a story and continually increase the cost per chapter and drag things out to sell more chapters.

 

[applesandoranges]

edit

 

[Nikolaz72]

I'm kind of annoyed that I have to keep hearing about it.

Also, it's a good ending if it gets this much emotion out of people. That's my stance on it, anyway.

I think this would be the equavelant of saying LOTR had a good ending if they did a 180 and had Frodo say 'no' right at the end and put on the Ring. And Sauron gets so mad he destroys himself and all orcs. But kills the human army and all the main characters with him.


Sure it would be an end, and im 'pretty' sure it would drive out a reaction from people who read the books, heck. Even some who had not read the books. But I would still be on the fence of that being a good ending or not, because after the whole series I would sort of expect Frodo to be a guy that would throw the ring into Mount Doom.

 

[cookyy2k]

I was waiting for it to go cheap before buying, this has made me wait until even cheaper or even consider not buying. ME2 pushed me far in that direction hence the no pre-order and an ending THIS bad is not really something I want to play.

I could get over it if I played the game solely for the gameplay (which I really don't because ME2's sucked), the ME games fall squarely into my story game catagory and I really don't want to screw it over with what the majority feel is a travesty.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Honestly, I'm assuming it's just a bunch of people who are butt hurt over an ending that apparently isn't has "happy" as they wanted it to be. I honestly don't know but that's the gist of it from my accidental quick glances at those kinds of comments. I've managed to keep the ending spoiler free for myself other than it might be sad.

Honestly the only way I could see myself being enraged about the ending like these people (and still I doubt it would ruin the whole trilogy for me) is if Bioware pulled a deus ex machina and had the humans call upon a different super powerful race that had never been heard of before which defeats the Reapers.

IF THAT IS IN FACT WHAT HAPPENS, I'LL BE PISSED BUT LET ME FIND OUT ON MY OWN! DO NOT REPLY CONFIRMING OR DENYING MY WORST CASE SCENARIO!

Sorry for the caplocks but that had to be said. I really don't want anyone spoiling the ending of what is turning out to be my favorite gaming trilogy of all time.

Edit: turns out I can't even read the other posts in this thread because some assholes are drawing comparisons to other series and saying: it would be like in "Harry Potter" or in "Return of the King" only this happens instead. Seriously! Idiot people, the thread is for people who haven't played the game yet. Fuck off and go talk spoilers in a different thread!