Well, Retake Mass Effect 3 is pretty much over. What have we learned from this experience?

[Montezuma's Lawyer]

I learned that overall, gamers are the most entitled little children on the planet.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I learned that there are a great many gamers that need to go die in a fire.

EDIT: Or at the very least get a 2X4 (as in a plank of wood) to the upside of the head.

This. So much this.
This entire ME3 ending outrage was beyond pathetic.

Indeed. I still haven't even played ME3 and TBH I don't care how bad ME3 ending is, the general response to the endings made me ashamed to call myself a gamer!

Let's see of you still feel that way when you get there.

Well I guess we'll never know 'cause I have no intention of playing that game. Also I couldn't afford it right now even if I wanted to. Also didn't I say I don't care how bad the ending(s) are? There is nothing that justifies throwing a temper tantrum like a bunch of 3 year olds and organizing a revolution over a FICTIONAL PROPERTY!! That is beyond pathetic, that has to be worth it's own private circle of hell.

 

[tensorproduct]

I learned that there are a great many gamers that need to go die in a fire.

EDIT: Or at the very least get a 2X4 (as in a plank of wood) to the upside of the head.

This. So much this.
This entire ME3 ending outrage was beyond pathetic.

Indeed. I still haven't even played ME3 and TBH I don't care how bad ME3 ending is, the general response to the endings made me ashamed to call myself a gamer!

Let's see of you still feel that way when you get there.

Well I guess we'll never know 'cause I have no intention of playing that game. Also I couldn't afford it right now even if I wanted to. Also didn't I say I don't care how bad the ending(s) are? There is nothing that justifies throwing a temper tantrum like a bunch of 3 year olds and organizing a revolution over a FICTIONAL PROPERTY!! That is beyond pathetic, that has to be worth it's own private circle of hell.

Can't agree enough dude. I'm a fan of the games and I don't think that the ending is any good. I'm also a fucking grown up.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I learned that there are a great many gamers that need to go die in a fire.

EDIT: Or at the very least get a 2X4 (as in a plank of wood) to the upside of the head.

This. So much this.
This entire ME3 ending outrage was beyond pathetic.

Indeed. I still haven't even played ME3 and TBH I don't care how bad ME3 ending is, the general response to the endings made me ashamed to call myself a gamer!

Let's see of you still feel that way when you get there.

Well I guess we'll never know 'cause I have no intention of playing that game. Also I couldn't afford it right now even if I wanted to. Also didn't I say I don't care how bad the ending(s) are? There is nothing that justifies throwing a temper tantrum like a bunch of 3 year olds and organizing a revolution over a FICTIONAL PROPERTY!! That is beyond pathetic, that has to be worth it's own private circle of hell.

Can't agree enough dude. I'm a fan of the games and I don't think that the ending is any good. I'm also a fucking grown up.

"Welcome to the newly instituted 37th Circle of Hell for the unreleasable dipshit fanboy. For the rest of eternity you will be forced to play ET: The Extra Terrestrial on the Atari 2600."

EDIT "...while being forced to listen to nothing but Justin Beiber and the Jonas Brothers."

 

[tensorproduct]

We are consumers.

If you lie to a consumer, you have to be prepared for a backlash.

If you are told that the car you're buying is in perfect condition and upon purchase you find out its fuel consumption is 50% higher than what was promised and there's a corpse in the trunk, you would be pretty damn angry. Pissed off.

...snip...

The ending is terrible as a whole. The premise is terrible, the execution is terrible and follow-up is terrible.

This is an important issue: do you think that the ending should be changed because it didn't keep to the promises that Bioware made, or because you think that it's terrible? These are related, but distinct, points.

I've seen a lot of people on this forum and over at social.bioware throw around the word "objectively" followed by words like terrible, bad and carcinogenic; apparently in complete ignorance of the meaning of the word objective. The quality of any story is inherently subjective, otherwise you fall to telling people that they are wrong for liking (or disliking) the things they like.

If your complaint is just that you thought the ending is bad, I don't disagree, but I also think you're shit out of luck in this argument. Want to get a refund, good luck (honestly, you'll need a crowbar and TNT to get that back off EA). Want to boycott Bioware, good for you, there are plenty of great devs out there deserving of your gaming cash. Anything else... why is your opinion more important than somebody who liked the ending, or disliked it for different reasons than you did, or wrote the ending in the first place?


As for promises that Bioware made (excepting the usual disclaimers like "huh, you believed marketing hype ya n00b", and I really wanted to avoid discussing specifics), but what promises did they not follow through on?

There will be a wide variety of endings. Sure, every ending is just a different coloured magical space laser. Except that's not true, cheap as it is, depending on on your WA the magical space laser might be red and destroy the earth and literally everything else in the galaxy or it might be green and do something completely unexplained or it might be blue and the reapers just up and bloody leave without killing anybody else. These are wildly different outcomes. That these are only distinguished by a fairly crappy cinematic is kind of shitty on Bioware's part, no doubt.

Your choices in previous games will have an impact on the game's outcome. Well, the differently coloured ending cinematics are the same regardless of what choices you made, right? Right. Except that the galaxy as a whole is completely different depending on what you did. With one Shepard the Krogan were on the verge of a new dawn under Eve's leadership with the genophage cured, but with another I had to shoot Mordin in the back because Wreav couldn't be trusted. Once, she brokered a near miraculous peace between the Quarians and the Geth, but he sacrificed the entire migrant fleet because they were the ones that started the war. Even with the relays destroyed, these are hugely different results for the galaxy.

The ending will be completely free of plotholes and wrap up every storyline of the last three games. Well, yeah, they completely failed to bring one hundred hours of story and game together perfectly at the end. Can't disagree with you there.
Honestly, the only plot hole at the end that I had a problem with was the Normandy taking a mass relay jump with the whole squad aboard... that shit made no fucking sense whatsoever.

Let's see of you still feel that way when you get there.

Yeah, I love this.

"I DIDN'T PLAY IT BUT IT CAN'T BE THAT BAD, I MEAN COME ON!"

And then people finish it.

I secretly think anyone who isn't against the ending either never played all of the ME games, or didn't care about the plot.

I like to think that I have disproved this assertion with my little nerd-out above. For the record, I think that the end (Starchild, Deus Ex choices) was a good idea with awful execution.

 

[josemlopes]

***** more.

EA won (lost I guess) that Golden Poo award, got loads of hate mail and the internet bitching about ME3 ending, now they announced that the new multiplayer DLC for ME3 will be free, in no fucking way they were planning in releasing it for free before the shit hit the fan (get it? Shit hitting fans... , I'l try harder next time)

 

[tensorproduct]

Another thing that I learned... some people can't see the obvious name when it's staring them in the face.

Retake Mass Effect
like Take Mass Effect Back
like Take Back Mass Effect
like Take Back Earth
like the game in question's tagline.

Honestly, the RTM people missed an open goal here.

 

[Dendio]

I learned that the forums can act as a sort of culture. Posting on only one forums can lead to situations where you essentially are preaching to the choir.

This leads to one assuming everyone thinks the way they do. The lack of questions at pax focused on the star child and shepards last breath among other inconsistencies lead me to believe that most people dont care about such issues.

 

[ralfy]

It has less to do with distrust, ending a trilogy, giving an ending that gamers want to see, etc. It has to do with a space opera adventure game involving RPG elements. With that, the C&Cs made throughout the game has to significantly affect the ending besides other aspects of the game (such as the difficulty of accomplishing certain missions, etc.).

At least this is what I think adventure-RPG gamers were looking for in ME3. Those looking for examples can look at the endings of ME1 and 2.

 

[Thomas Knapp]

I learned that the forums can act as a sort of culture. Posting on only one forums can lead to situations where you essentially are preaching to the choir.

This leads to one assuming everyone thinks the way they do. The lack of questions at pax focused on the star child and shepards last breath among other inconsistencies lead me to believe that most people dont care about such issues.

Oh no, because all the questions were OBVIOUSLY pre-screened, and that it was done with malicious intent to prevent all of the Retakers from making their anger clear for the world to see!

Seriously, that was a post I saw on the Bioware Social Network to explain why no one raised a stink at PAX. I wasn't aware that you needed to be called upon to raise a stink if you wanted to. Either the people of the Retake moment don't know how to protest... or the ending really doesn't bother anyone enough.

 

[tensorproduct]

posted in another thread

About your RTM questions, I apologize as I must've missed it for some reason.

They promised 16 different endings, your choices being shown in the ending and coherent ending.

We have 9 that are basically 3 colors with variations, your choices don't matter (only your war asset number changes the "destroy or preserve" outcome) and there are many, many problems with the ending that other people already explained better than I did.

Did you see the thread where someone found out that they had voices for the Geth armies, Zaeed, Jacob, Grunt and I think one more person in-game, but abandoned them for some reason? We were supposed to have something like the suicide mission from ME2, where we would command armies to strike enemies in key locations, fight with the allies we gathered over the course of the trilogy and have an actual battle for Earth. Not that "kill 5 banshees to get to the illogical cutscene" crap.

Thanks for coming back to me on this.

As I said above, the ending of the series does vary wildly depending on your choices throughout the game. The cutscene at the end doesn't, but the state of the galaxy does. It does quite a lot actually. If you care about the characters and the universe (and I assume you do) then I don't see how you can disregard such differences.
I gave examples above, but here's another: if you keep the Quarians alive (either by betraying Legion or brokering peace) then you get the migrant fleet to help with the final assault on earth. So, when the relays are destroyed and all of the fleets are stranded in Sol, now the Quarian live ships can provide food for the Turians and any other dextro-amino acid based DNA species that there. This is a huge difference for the ending.

Of course, the cutscene at the end doesn't go into more detail on this or a million other things which I would very much like to see. On the other hand, I think that part of the fun of this sort of story is imagining how things might play out, once the main plot has been completed.

The issue of some voices not making it into the game strikes me as completely irrelevant. Dialog is always cut from games. Unless you honestly think that every single line written and recorded must be included then... I just don't know why you would bring it up.

My main problem with the Retake Mass Effect movement is that it attempts to elevate the opinion of a portion of the fanbase (and there is nothing at all to indicate that this is anything but a vocal minority) above all others. My question for you is: why should your opinion of the ending count more than that of people who genuinely liked it, or people who disliked it but for different reasons or even than the people who wrote this story in the first place?

 

[Emiscary]

The gaming media is to be ignored. Seriously, that was my lesson of the day. It's now painfully obvious they do not serve my interests nor do they care what I think. So, I'm done listening to what they have to say.

Besides, social media and word of mouth in the information age basically invalidates conventional news coverage anyways.

 

[Awexsome]

Between the sliding scale of Bioware/EA being complete pricks and screwing the customer and the customer being the whiny child...

The latter was more accurate.

Bioware made a subpar ending for a great game and great series. And people freaked the fuck out.

The "entitled" label was well earned by the movement because of the attitude it took. People will say it was only a minority that was the ones metabombing, sending death threats and declaring it the worst game ever and demanding nothing less than a complete overhaul of the ending else it would still be the worst game ever, but it won't make it true. The majority of that movement are the type of fans that give gaming a bad name.

 

[Dendio]

Between the sliding scale of Bioware/EA being complete pricks and screwing the customer and the customer being the whiny child...

The latter was more accurate.

Bioware made a subpar ending for a great game and great series. And people freaked the fuck out.

The "entitled" label was well earned by the movement because of the attitude it took. People will say it was only a minority that was the ones metabombing, sending death threats and declaring it the worst game ever and demanding nothing less than a complete overhaul of the ending else it would still be the worst game ever, but it won't make it true. The majority of that movement are the type of fans that give gaming a bad name.

This post is a bit too severe. Death threats or some of the other hyperbole you throw out there was by far the work of one or two crazies. Any organized movement has the 1 or 2 crazies. The bottom line is that people love Mass effect. The ending to a beloved series was subpar. People got together and found peaceful ways to protest.

The majority of the movement shared theories, celebrated all they loved with the series and gave cupcakes/ toys for kids. Mass effect is beloved, and it was a good thing to see gamers display reasonable influence on the media through peaceful protest.

Im actually proud of the retake movement. Mass effect fans showed that they will fight for what they believe in and were able to gain a free extended cut out of the ordeal.

 

[Abedeus]

posted in another thread

About your RTM questions, I apologize as I must've missed it for some reason.

They promised 16 different endings, your choices being shown in the ending and coherent ending.

We have 9 that are basically 3 colors with variations, your choices don't matter (only your war asset number changes the "destroy or preserve" outcome) and there are many, many problems with the ending that other people already explained better than I did.

Did you see the thread where someone found out that they had voices for the Geth armies, Zaeed, Jacob, Grunt and I think one more person in-game, but abandoned them for some reason? We were supposed to have something like the suicide mission from ME2, where we would command armies to strike enemies in key locations, fight with the allies we gathered over the course of the trilogy and have an actual battle for Earth. Not that "kill 5 banshees to get to the illogical cutscene" crap.

Thanks for coming back to me on this.

As I said above, the ending of the series does vary wildly depending on your choices throughout the game. The cutscene at the end doesn't, but the state of the galaxy does. It does quite a lot actually. If you care about the characters and the universe (and I assume you do) then I don't see how you can disregard such differences.
I gave examples above, but here's another: if you keep the Quarians alive (either by betraying Legion or brokering peace) then you get the migrant fleet to help with the final assault on earth. So, when the relays are destroyed and all of the fleets are stranded in Sol, now the Quarian live ships can provide food for the Turians and any other dextro-amino acid based DNA species that there. This is a huge difference for the ending.

Of course, the cutscene at the end doesn't go into more detail on this or a million other things which I would very much like to see. On the other hand, I think that part of the fun of this sort of story is imagining how things might play out, once the main plot has been completed.

The issue of some voices not making it into the game strikes me as completely irrelevant. Dialog is always cut from games. Unless you honestly think that every single line written and recorded must be included then... I just don't know why you would bring it up.

My main problem with the Retake Mass Effect movement is that it attempts to elevate the opinion of a portion of the fanbase (and there is nothing at all to indicate that this is anything but a vocal minority) above all others. My question for you is: why should your opinion of the ending count more than that of people who genuinely liked it, or people who disliked it but for different reasons or even than the people who wrote this story in the first place?

See the problem here is that endings AREN'T wildly different. You ASSUME that Quarians have all the food they need, but also food to spare to another race. ALL ASSUMPTIONS. We have nothing to base that on.

And that dialog cut out is VERY IMPORTANT. It suggests that at least an hour or two of story/gameplay was cut out due to deadlines. It's not something like a random quest cut out - it's just another proof that they were very, very late with game and EA doesn't like to postpone games to get quality, they want fast money.

If your argument is that "we can imagine the rest", then we should have very little reasons to actually play games - read the back of the box and imagine the rest...

 

[tensorproduct]

My main problem with the Retake Mass Effect movement is that it attempts to elevate the opinion of a portion of the fanbase (and there is nothing at all to indicate that this is anything but a vocal minority) above all others. My question for you is: why should your opinion of the ending count more than that of people who genuinely liked it, or people who disliked it but for different reasons or even than the people who wrote this story in the first place?

See the problem here is that endings AREN'T wildly different. You ASSUME that Quarians have all the food they need, but also food to spare to another race. ALL ASSUMPTIONS. We have nothing to base that on.

And that dialog cut out is VERY IMPORTANT. It suggests that at least an hour or two of story/gameplay was cut out due to deadlines. It's not something like a random quest cut out - it's just another proof that they were very, very late with game and EA doesn't like to postpone games to get quality, they want fast money.

If your argument is that "we can imagine the rest", then we should have very little reasons to actually play games - read the back of the box and imagine the rest...

Well, you're right, I am assuming that difference. Though I think it's a perfectly reasonable assumption.
There are a tonne of differences that I'm not assuming though. The genophage being cured or not; the result of the Quarian/Geth war; and ultimately the survival of Earth itself (in at least one of the endings the world is destroyed by space magic). Whether or not the Rachni survive might not make a difference to the final battle (which was disappointing) but it sure as hell makes a difference to the Rachni.

I'll need to look into it further, and I'm not in a position to do so right now, but based on the characters you quoted I wouldn't expect that it was all that vital to the story. Zaeed, Jacob and Grunt were never central to the plot. More Geth speech could be very interesting in light of the choice of cupcake colour...

Imagination is part of enjoying any story.

Still, the important question is why the opinion of those who want the ending changed should outweigh those who enjoyed the ending, or those who didn't like it but don't think it should be changed, or those who wrote it?

Another question is just what ought to be changed? The Retake Mass Effect movement does not represent a united front of complaints. From what I've read, the complaints seem to fall into four broad (not mutually exclusive) categories:

1) Not enough closure. The game just kind of ends, without any sort of farewell tour of the characters and cultures, New Vegas style. This is the complaint that it looks like Bioware have chosen to deal with in the forthcoming DLC.
2) Plot holes and inconsistencies. These range from big to small, like why exploding mass relays didn't annihilate the surrounding star systems, or how did Andersen get so far ahead of Shepard on the Citadel.
3) Not enough variety in the endings. Three different colours of space magic and then credits roll is very disappointing. It's possible that the DLC will address this as well.
4) Disappointment in the revelation of what the Reapers are and why they do what they do, and how the Crucible is to deal with them.

Not everyone who played the game was annoyed by all (or even any) of these. So, which ought to be changed (assuming that the minority who want it changed have more rights to it than everybody else)?

 

[Abedeus]

My main problem with the Retake Mass Effect movement is that it attempts to elevate the opinion of a portion of the fanbase (and there is nothing at all to indicate that this is anything but a vocal minority) above all others. My question for you is: why should your opinion of the ending count more than that of people who genuinely liked it, or people who disliked it but for different reasons or even than the people who wrote this story in the first place?

See the problem here is that endings AREN'T wildly different. You ASSUME that Quarians have all the food they need, but also food to spare to another race. ALL ASSUMPTIONS. We have nothing to base that on.

And that dialog cut out is VERY IMPORTANT. It suggests that at least an hour or two of story/gameplay was cut out due to deadlines. It's not something like a random quest cut out - it's just another proof that they were very, very late with game and EA doesn't like to postpone games to get quality, they want fast money.

If your argument is that "we can imagine the rest", then we should have very little reasons to actually play games - read the back of the box and imagine the rest...

Well, you're right, I am assuming that difference. Though I think it's a perfectly reasonable assumption.
There are a tonne of differences that I'm not assuming though. The genophage being cured or not; the result of the Quarian/Geth war; and ultimately the survival of Earth itself (in at least one of the endings the world is destroyed by space magic). Whether or not the Rachni survive might not make a difference to the final battle (which was disappointing) but it sure as hell makes a difference to the Rachni.

I'll need to look into it further, and I'm not in a position to do so right now, but based on the characters you quoted I wouldn't expect that it was all that vital to the story. Zaeed, Jacob and Grunt were never central to the plot. More Geth speech could be very interesting in light of the choice of cupcake colour...

Imagination is part of enjoying any story.

Still, the important question is why the opinion of those who want the ending changed should outweigh those who enjoyed the ending, or those who didn't like it but don't think it should be changed, or those who wrote it?

Another question is just what ought to be changed? The Retake Mass Effect movement does not represent a united front of complaints. From what I've read, the complaints seem to fall into four broad (not mutually exclusive) categories:

1) Not enough closure. The game just kind of ends, without any sort of farewell tour of the characters and cultures, New Vegas style. This is the complaint that it looks like Bioware have chosen to deal with in the forthcoming DLC.
2) Plot holes and inconsistencies. These range from big to small, like why exploding mass relays didn't annihilate the surrounding star systems, or how did Andersen get so far ahead of Shepard on the Citadel.
3) Not enough variety in the endings. Three different colours of space magic and then credits roll is very disappointing. It's possible that the DLC will address this as well.
4) Disappointment in the revelation of what the Reapers are and why they do what they do, and how the Crucible is to deal with them.

Not everyone who played the game was annoyed by all (or even any) of these. So, which ought to be changed (assuming that the minority who want it changed have more rights to it than everybody else)?

I am not sure it's that much of a minority. Did you see EA stocks? They keep getting lower and lower. They went from 19.57 in February to hit 14.76 three days ago. There was a spike after ME3's release, when it went to 17,46, but it hasn't seen that number ever since.

http://investing.money.msn.com/investments/charts?symbol=US:EA#all=on&period=3m&interactive=on&symbol=US:EA

If it was that minor of a case, those numbers would go... up? After so many successful reviews and sales, if only a minority of playerbase was angry and got refunds, then this wouldn't be a problem. And EA's stock is dropping lower and lower.

About your arguments - who cares if Krogan are cured? Those that came to Earth will either starve or eat other races, and those left on Tuchanka have a big rocky planet to die on with supplies, scientists, and if they somehow survive they will eventually repopulate the planet just so it gets overcrowded again. Which will bring another nuclear war...

Earth is in ruin and forced to maintain several alien races and their armies for unknown amount of time and any colony of any race that isn't self-reliant is fucked in the butt. They'll all die once a major epidemic breaks out or they run out of food or supplies.

I don't really see the point in this discussion. It's more tiring than pointing out contradictions in the Bible to a fundamentalist, who claims half the stories are metaphors and the other half is outdated.

 

[tensorproduct]

I am not sure it's that much of a minority. Did you see EA stocks? They keep getting lower and lower. They went from 19.57 in February to hit 14.76 three days ago. There was a spike after ME3's release, when it went to 17,46, but it hasn't seen that number ever since.

http://investing.money.msn.com/investments/charts?symbol=US:EA#all=on&period=3m&interactive=on&symbol=US:EA

If it was that minor of a case, those numbers would go... up? After so many successful reviews and sales, if only a minority of playerbase was angry and got refunds, then this wouldn't be a problem. And EA's stock is dropping lower and lower.

I'm trying to think of a way to establish what proportion of players are on board with RTM. Given that the game sold in the millions (3.5m according to Wikipedia), I very much doubt that there were millions of people actively complaining about it. Of course, there will be many who would like it changed but kept quiet...

As for the stock price. I'm pretty sure that that would be more accurately explained by the colossal amount of negative press for EA over the last two months, as well the fact that their release schedule doesn't look so healthy right now. A lot of that bad press was around ME3, but that only supports that the complaints were loud, bot that they were coming from a majority.

About your arguments - who cares if Krogan are cured? Those that came to Earth will either starve or eat other races, and those left on Tuchanka have a big rocky planet to die on with supplies, scientists, and if they somehow survive they will eventually repopulate the planet just so it gets overcrowded again. Which will bring another nuclear war...

Earth is in ruin and forced to maintain several alien races and their armies for unknown amount of time and any colony of any race that isn't self-reliant is fucked in the butt. They'll all die once a major epidemic breaks out or they run out of food or supplies.

So, is that your problem with the ending, that it's too much of a downer?

I don't really see the point in this discussion. It's more tiring than pointing out contradictions in the Bible to a fundamentalist, who claims half the stories are metaphors and the other half is outdated.

I'm inclined to agree. I really am interested in understanding why the ending resulted in so much wailing and gnashing of teeth, because while it is easy (and fun) to just dismiss the RTM people as whiny, crybabies it's not particularly productive.

That's why I asked you to continue the discussion, but I'm really no closer to understanding why you think that it needs to be changed beyond the fact that you didn't like it.

Feel free not to reply if you think that this isn't going anywhere. I would start a new thread if I didn't think that it would just result in an epic flamewar.

 

[pure.Wasted]

As I said above, the ending of the series does vary wildly depending on your choices throughout the game. The cutscene at the end doesn't, but the state of the galaxy does. It does quite a lot actually. If you care about the characters and the universe (and I assume you do) then I don't see how you can disregard such differences.
I gave examples above, but here's another: if you keep the Quarians alive (either by betraying Legion or brokering peace) then you get the migrant fleet to help with the final assault on earth. So, when the relays are destroyed and all of the fleets are stranded in Sol, now the Quarian live ships can provide food for the Turians and any other dextro-amino acid based DNA species that there. This is a huge difference for the ending.

Of course, the cutscene at the end doesn't go into more detail on this or a million other things which I would very much like to see.

Ding ding ding. Emphasis mine.

I think I know what Casey Hudson meant when he said that the endings would vary wildly. It's close to what you're talking about now. "Maybe you killed the Quarians, or you didn't." "Maybe you killed the Geth, or you didn't."

But that's wrong. Those aren't the ending. You do those throughout the game, and ME3 the game is not the ending. The ending of ME3 is the ending.

The last 5, 10, 15 minutes, hour, two hours - however long - are the ones that had to combine everything, accout for everything. Because that's the ending. Not the stuff leading up to it, not the stuff I have to imagine, but what the game is showing me on my screen. This needs to be the series' finest hour, where every single choice you made comes together to give you the most different experience possible, because there's no need to worry about the consequences varying so wildly that they'll make further development impossible. There's no need for further development. And after all that, the game doesn't just try and fail, it doesn't TRY. It sits back on its laurels for the entirety of the 2 hour final mission, apparently happy with what it's already done before this, and literally the only difference at this point will be whether you can have a single brief conversation with every surviving character, and a couple of random shots of Quarian or Geth troops. That's it.

Going into this I was expecting the ME2 ending on crack. If they could pay off so many different choices in the MIDDLE game, there is no reason they couldn't have in a game that requires no sequels. That's the ending ME3 deserved - and they, I imagine, unintentionally promised to deliver. A brief relevant cutscene and an epilogue would function. But what we actually got?...

I can't think of a single reason this didn't happen, except for deadlines.