Poll: Discussion on the Extended Cut Content of Mass Effect 3: Featuring Harbinger!

[MiracleOfSound]

My biggest problem isn't the choices themselves but how contrived the ABC choice system itself feels.

To me the ending should have been unique a result of how you played the 3 games and not included a 'final choice' moment.

 

[SpectacularWebHead]

Choose refusal.

Head cannoning that the Yagh fuck up the reapers in the next cycle.[/quote

Oh, we had this discussion with andrew and kitty. When you nearly spoilt it for us.
(I still haven't shot the starchild, is that refusal?)

Um, I did destruction, because I want Shepard alive (Maybe) and because fuck you Illusive man and starchild, I do what I want.

 

[Aerosteam]

Synthesis = Saren = Bad
Control = The Illusive Man = Bad
Destroy = Anderson = Good
Refusal = Critical mission failure = Bad

In the Destroy Ending, Shepard can live.

Also, on my "Worst playthrough of all time", I need to kill as many people as I can. This ending kills both EDI and the Geth. (The Quarians died after Rannoch.)

 

[AbstractStream]

As much as it broke my heart to kill EDI and the Geth in order to destroy the Reapers, I picked Destroy and I would do it again. It was my mission from the start and it's what everyone else wanted (maybe not the Geth if they were given the choice). Also, yes. I wanted my Shepard to live, so there's that.

 

[bossfight1]

First time I chose refusal through dialogue and found that it sucked. Then I reloaded, waded through the dialogue and got to the Catalyst again and, just for fun, shot him. He replied by shoving the Refusal ending in my face again.

So after a few table-flipping minutes I reloaded for the THIRD time, got to the Catalyst and chose Destroy, just for the hope of reuniting with Tali in the future. Honestly, Bioware, when you make characters as amazing as this, and then suddenly and abruptly cut us off from them, we were more than likely to be up in arms. Would it really have caused you to cough up blood to make an ending of Shepard living with their love interest, rather than fancy up the whole synthetics vs organics nonsense that STILL doesn't make sense?

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

snip

Or you know, some sort of middle ground rather than your extreme and sarcastic recommendation?

If your EMS isn't high enough in the EC, then you actually see your squadmates get killed by Harbinger's blast during the mad rush to the conduit. It wasn't a "slow and painful" death, just a quick explosion while Shepard watches his/her friends perish. It's a powerful scene and not as depressing or over the top as what you said.

It was originally sarcastic and stuff but I actually, re-reading it, think that it would be pretty amazing as an ending to watch all of these characters die as I said

 

[AOprinciple]

It seems like control is hands down the most beneficial option.

1) You reform the reapers entirely, gaining the benefit of their accumulated knowledge, technology, and absorbed culture and insight of the all the previous cycles, turning an enemy into an ally. There just isn't a reason to destroy them when you have to destroy EDI and the Geth in the process.

2) Shepard lives. No, he isn't organic anymore, but who says you can't reverse the process? The game makes it fairly clear that, in whatever form, the locus of consciousness that is Shepard continues to exist, and if the technology to transform an organic mind into a synthetic one is available, why can't you do it the other way around? And if not now then why not in the future at some point? Segueing into reason #3...

3) It has all the benefits of synthesis without the drawback. Why can't Shepard induce synthesis after becoming a Reaper? It was made clear that the technology was available and the option was viable. Just make sure that the organics who undergo synthesis are willing to do so. You circumvent the moral difficulty of forcing synthesis on everyone else.

There just isn't really a reason to pick any option other than Control or Refuse.