Poll: A social/national stereotype experiment in regards to ME3 and its ending.

[SpectacularWebHead]

I am french, and even though the extended endings aren't bad at all, i would have prefered an Indoctrination Theory ending...

Any post that starts with "I am french" is automaticly 20% cooler than any post that starts with "I am american"

When you said a social experiment to do with ME3, I thought you were gonna put reapers in america or something.

 

[Dakkagor]

This is the kind of poll you get when you don't take the time to read why people hate the ending. It is not solely about winning or losing the game or your character. I'm tired of having to read this same drivel.

I'm Australian, I hated it because the writing sucked.

FYI: I liked "The Road" which was abysmally dreary and forlorn.

Edit: Apparently I am echoing everyone else here, perhaps that should show the magnitude of lack of effort you have made at understanding why people dislike it before painting Americans a certain way.

At the same time, I am painting Brits a certain way, and attempting to do so in both cases as inoffensively as possible. I am only working from my personal experience. Most of my friends (Brits) think that the ending was either ok or good. A lot of people online (And alot of those posting on predominantly American forums) dislike it. I quite deliberately avoided many of the rants online
A: because I like mass effect and didn't want my experience spoiled by the negativity (and I very nearly didn't pick up the game because of that negative reaction)
B: because I didn't want to be exposed to spoilers, as I didn't have the money to pick up the game at release and had to wait for it to come down in price.
C: because I don't generally put much stock in the average persons opinion on-line, because the average person on-line seems to be a drooling idiot. Have you looked at some of the posts on youtube on this subject, or the various controversy's that have revealed exactly how misogynistic this community can be?

And the whole post was put forward as a hypothesis seeking empirical evidence. It was a theory, nothing more, with an attempt at scientific rigour. I find American history and culture fascinating, studying it for a module at university, and am a bit of a amatuer history buff, so I was simply curious if my idea had any weight to it.

So far, the answer is no. In which case, I will respectfully withdraw my hypothesis and look again.

 

[Comocat]

I picked American/Hated but I think the poll options aren't the best. ME is a video game so hating something like that seems like misplaced priorities. I do however think the endings was poorly executed and incredibly stupid.

 

[Kevlar Eater]

America, and I hated the ending, extended cut or not. I don't care about fatalistic or tragic endings, as long as it made any kind of sense. This ending did nothing but fill my head with more questions than the EC could possibly answer. Take a look at the Headscratchers section of ME3 in TvTropes, you'd have wasted at least an hour looking through just about everything in that page.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

I am french, and even though the extended endings aren't bad at all, i would have prefered an Indoctrination Theory ending...

Any post that starts with "I am french" is automaticly 20% cooler than any post that starts with "I am american"

When you said a social experiment to do with ME3, I thought you were gonna put reapers in america or something.

Don't overestimate frenchmen, some of us aren't that great neither lol...

ps: i see what you did right there with the "I am American"

Spoiler

 

[Ruzinus]

I think you misunderstand the usual complaints about the ending.

While, yes, some people were upset that the ending was sad, most people did not feature that among their complaints. It's like a few people said that and then everyone who liked the ending just latched onto it as if it was what the majority of complaints were about.

The ending being sad is fine. Even if I didn't want a sad ending, I recognize it as legitimate storytelling. The vast majority of complaints came down to 2 things.

To play the broken record one time: What bothered people about the ending was

a) It felt like player choice didn't matter, and everything before that choice was reduced to ending A, ending B, ending C - something that Bioware had VERY specifically promised would not happen.

b) This is the most important problem with the ending: IT WAS BULLSHIT.


There were a number of other complaints that were smaller but also legitimate. Bioware addressed all of those with the EC, and to some extent the first of the two big ones. It's still 3 rote choices, which remains a slap in the face because it was so absurdly specifically promised that that wouldn't happen, but at least the variables now have some effect on the surrounding cutscenes.

But the biggest problem remains - It's bullshit. The bullshit is a bit less painful now because they at least make an attempt to explain it, but it's still bullshit. I have to give big props to whatever writer it was that came up with "Some previous race actually built these random choice functions into the crucible," explanation, because I'm pretty sure that's about the closest they can come to not bullshit - but it's still miles away.

Oh, and a sum up of the poll - At the time I posted 46% of American takers said they hated the ending, and 38% of British takers said they hated the ending. With this small a sample size, 8% difference isn't really enough to conclude anything.