Why I think the ME3 fans are actually mad

[KingofMadCows]

I think a lot of fans are upset that Bioware sort of tried to reset franchise after they finished Mass Effect 2.

Look at the ending of Mass Effect 2:


There is the sense that your team's bond is unbreakable and they're all fully committed to the cause of stopping the Reapers. You really get the feeling that they're going to seriously prepare for the Reaper invasion and they'll be ready to face the Reapers when the time comes.

Then Bioware decide to release "The Arrival" DLC and have ME3 follow that, which just wipes out the entire ME2 ending. The loyal team that were willing to sacrifice their lives for you suddenly abandon you and go their separate ways. The destruction of the Collectors apparently meant nothing since it didn't even slow the Reapers. I guess Shepard forgot to give everyone info on how to go through to Omega 4 Relay so they can verify his story and the galaxy remains totally unprepared for the Reaper invasion.

They also did that to the Reapers. Sovereign and the Reapers weren't just portrayed as extremely powerful in Mass Effect 1 but also as very cunning and insidious. The Reapers may boast about how powerful and unstoppable they are but they know they have weaknesses and they take steps to prevent their enemies from finding out about them and exploiting them.

The Reapers always wipe out evidence of their existence so no one can find out about them and prepare for their invasion. They put the Relays and the Citadel in place to be discover so organics develop the way they want and don't create new technology that could threaten them. Sovereign hid its existence from the galaxy and planned the invasion of the Citadel using stealth and sabotage. As powerful as the Reapers are, they don't rely on brute force and often use trickery and underhanded tactics.

Again, that began to change in "The Arrival" where they had a Reaper artifact that gave people visions of their contingency plan to invade the galaxy. That makes no sense. The Reapers have always tried to hide their existence from the rest of galaxy. Why would they leave information not only about their existence but also about an important secret back up plan?

Then the Reapers in ME3 show none of the intelligence or deviousness that Sovereign had. They just stomp around like Godzilla throughout the galaxy.

 

[ResonanceSD]

That's why I am mad about about the whole situation really. I feel like Bioware just threw away something amazing for some quick cash.

EA? Short term gain in exchange for losing thousands of fans? No, pull the other one. They've never done that!

 

[Denariax]

On a side note I stopped paying attention to the Mass Effect series since the very beginning. Seriously, to me it was nothing but a side freakshow of Knights of the Old Republic on more of the army focus. I couldn't get into it. Mind I love story in games, but simply having a dialogue wheel doesn't make for good story (Dragon Age 2?). There was no emotion put into any of the facial features which tore me out of the experiences Bioware has ever had to offer.

That being said, I actually feel depressed after all this. Sure, I disliked and nearly despised it, but this isn't just 'a bad ending'. Everything up to that point had a purpose (in ME1 at least, I barely tinkered with ME2 and never bothered buying ME3. If anything ME now stands for Mirrors Edge.) And in the end they take away everything that the entire rest of the series stood for, for a generic half-baked ending someone in amateur film class could come up with, and absolutely no deviation from it aside from a few color swaps?

I kind of knew something was up when they announced multiplayer, and even worse when I saw that they were taking out gameplay for the sake of more generic cutscene. But seriously, the ending was more disappointing than Duke Nukem Forever was throughout, and I even played that.

And don't get me wrong I 'love' story in games. Alice was my favorite from last year; Legacy of Kain and TLJ stories are my personal favorite games pretty much ever. I'm just hoping it sinks in to Biodrones and Bioware that art is still art, but shit thrown at paper is not.

 

[JediMB]

Wanting an ending changed is not entitled and immature. Oh sorry then, I suppose the whole planet will change their standards so as not to hurt your feelings. Is everything OK now?

Frankly? No, it's not entitled or immature.

Your belittling of the OP is quite immature, however.

 

[Krantos]

I've started reading [Forbes] stuff more since this whole thing has started, and it really calls into question the quality of stories we have here at the escapist. Ever notice how the last paragraph or so is just the authors opinion on the bit? Yeah, not that great.
.

Pretty much the same with me. I'd forgotten what actual professional journalism is like. I think the big problem is "game" journalists seem to think they're all opinion columnists. They fail to grasp that most of the time people want honest, objective reporting.

I've been searching for a story (non-ME3 related) The Escapist and Forbes have both covered to compare, but haven't found a good one yet.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Pretty much the same with me. I'd forgotten what actual professional journalism is like. I think the big problem is "game" journalists seem to think they're all opinion columnists. They fail to grasp that most of the time people want honest, objective reporting.

I've been searching for a story (non-ME3 related) The Escapist and Forbes have both covered to compare, but haven't found a good one yet.

Its kinda hard to do objective reporting about something whose qualities are purely subjective.

 

[Don Savik]

I think a lot of fans are upset that Bioware sort of tried to reset franchise after they finished Mass Effect 2.

Look at the ending of Mass Effect 2:


There is the sense that your team's bond is unbreakable and they're all fully committed to the cause of stopping the Reapers. You really get the feeling that they're going to seriously prepare for the Reaper invasion and they'll be ready to face the Reapers when the time comes.

Then Bioware decide to release "The Arrival" DLC and have ME3 follow that, which just wipes out the entire ME2 ending. The loyal team that were willing to sacrifice their lives for you suddenly abandon you and go their separate ways. The destruction of the Collectors apparently meant nothing since it didn't even slow the Reapers. I guess Shepard forgot to give everyone info on how to go through to Omega 4 Relay so they can verify his story and the galaxy remains totally unprepared for the Reaper invasion.

They also did that to the Reapers. Sovereign and the Reapers weren't just portrayed as extremely powerful in Mass Effect 1 but also as very cunning and insidious. The Reapers may boast about how powerful and unstoppable they are but they know they have weaknesses and they take steps to prevent their enemies from finding out about them and exploiting them.

The Reapers always wipe out evidence of their existence so no one can find out about them and prepare for their invasion. They put the Relays and the Citadel in place to be discover so organics develop the way they want and don't create new technology that could threaten them. Sovereign hid its existence from the galaxy and planned the invasion of the Citadel using stealth and sabotage. As powerful as the Reapers are, they don't rely on brute force and often use trickery and underhanded tactics.

Again, that began to change in "The Arrival" where they had a Reaper artifact that gave people visions of their contingency plan to invade the galaxy. That makes no sense. The Reapers have always tried to hide their existence from the rest of galaxy. Why would they leave information not only about their existence but also about an important secret back up plan?

Then the Reapers in ME3 show none of the intelligence or deviousness that Sovereign had. They just stomp around like Godzilla throughout the galaxy.

Well obviously it was all a dream in Shepard's mind because......

...space....magic....

space magic. yea, lets go with that.

 

[Krantos]

Its kinda hard to do objective reporting about something whose qualities are purely subjective.

Not talking about reviews. Talking about actual news reports. Read some of the non-Mass Effect related articles Forbes has up and compare them to the news stories written here on the escapist. There's a big difference.

The Escapist staff can't report something without adding their own opinion at the end (it creates questions about reliable reporting but that's another topic). When I want news I don't want the writer's opinion. I just want the facts. Let me make my own opinion about it. When I want an opinion, I'll Watch/read Yahtzee's stuff or Extra Credits.

 

[Feylynn]

This has continued, in my mind, because fans legitimate critiques have been openly derided by the gaming media

Yeah that is part of the problem. It'd be one thing if people just disagreed like the internet always does, but I'm sick of going to my favorite sites and listening to some of my favorite people do nothing but insult me.

Makes it hard to just stop caring when Penny-Arcade, Movie Bob, and basically anyone with a voice on the internet snaps to default "Entitled stupid fans" just to 'salt the wound'.

 

[KingofMadCows]

I think a lot of fans are upset that Bioware sort of tried to reset franchise after they finished Mass Effect 2.

The non-existent preparedness of the galaxy is partly explained: Apart from no one wanting to officially believe (read: publicly endorse) the soul crushing theory (it was theory to everyone but Shepard) of the Reapers actually existing and coming, Shepard had to surrender herself and the Normandy SR2 to the Alliance for associating with Cerberus and just generally having to answer for all the Jack Bauer/A-Team shit pulled while operating outside the law (most notably: crashing an asteroid into a mass relay and killing 300,000+ Batarians in the process).

As for the Reapers, you're right. Why mess with the established fact that they're just all coming slowly but surely from dark space? Why contrive a scenario wherein you stop them speeding up their return, just to return that status quo? But it was just DLC, and Shadow Broker was fucking awesome, so it could be excused.
It did however set the very interesting precedent that destroying a mass relay would eradicate a star system, which itself got fucked with in ME3's ending.

If only the ending had been well done and satisfying, it would be easy to forget about such minor fumbles in an otherwise excellent experience... If only...

But that completely goes against Mass Effect 2. ME2 was all about how even though no one else believed in the Reaper threat or the Collector threat, Shepard does and so does her team.

Success against the Collectors should only serve to strengthen their resolve and their belief in the mission to stop the Reapers. The ending of ME2 clearly implies that Shepard and her team are preparing for the Reaper invasion. Whether or not they can rally others to their cause is open to question but Shepard and her team should be prepared.

Having "The Arrival" break up the team and force Shepard back to earth just completely ruins the ending of ME2 and the significance of the suicide mission against the Collectors.

 

[JediMB]

The destruction of the Collectors apparently meant nothing since it didn't even slow the Reapers. I guess Shepard forgot to give everyone info on how to go through to Omega 4 Relay so they can verify his story and the galaxy remains totally unprepared for the Reaper invasion.

Well, destroying the Collectors wasn't as much about slowing down the Reapers as it was about saving the colonies and finding out why they were being harvested. It was all supposed to be foreshadowing for the Reapers' "master plan" to harvest the human race (and only the human race) for its utility in Reaper form.

Then they took the concept of organics being turned into Reapers in ME3, and twisted it into something that didn't make sense.

 

[CleverCover]

Snip

Wait....did I miss something? I don't...what does debating have to do with masterbation?
I'm so confused... Um...ok...sound it out slowly...
'two minutes later ....oh.

Ok, that was kind of funny...

 

[Therumancer]

To start with, I am a big Mass Effect fan, but since I lost my saves and need to replay the first two to get my Shepard back I did not buy ME3 at the beginning, and then I started hearing the news, as all of us have.

I think this issue comes down to more than just the ending, even though most people admit that the ending is terrible. I think the reason this has been so bad, and gone on for so long, is a sense of a lack of respect.

There's a sense of a lack of respect from Bioware itself, that it rushed a bad ending in its game and that it may very well try to sell DLC to make it better. This impression is not improved from Bioware statements that they would not do exactly what they did, or by putting out day 1 DLC.

But that's not the reason this flame war has gone on since the game has come out. This has continued, in my mind, because fans legitimate critiques have been openly derided by the gaming media, in what some have called a conspiracy and what I think is more likely to be just an emotional disconnect with fans.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/03/22/gaming-journalisms-problem-isnt-being-beholden-to-companies/

Instead of getting statements along the lines of "yes, the ending was bad for reasons X,Y, and Z" fans got called entitled and derided as immature children. Yes, some of them have acted like that but in characterizing the entire group as acting like that gaming journalism has gone too far. And if fans are getting disrespected by the mainstream media, gaming companies, AND gaming media, why shouldn't they be mad about that?

There are many people who say the attacks against Bioware threaten gaming as an art form, all the while claiming that we as gamers should seek no validation from non-gamers. I don't think validation from non-gamers is necessarily all that important, but I think respect from within the gaming community in general IS. Because if game companies are going to just treat us like walking wallets, then why should we treat them as artists? And if game journalism doesn't watch out for consumers against the exploitations of the companies, why shouldn't we think that the two are in league together?

Well, one thing to consider is that the guy at Forbes confesses to be a bright eyed, and bushy tailed newbie game reviewer. All reviewers are more or less with the fans when they start out and it's when they start dealing with the industry directly, and receiving the perks, that the problems graually begin to start... which this guy pointedly says he does not.

Also this guy is on another planet from other game reviewers, which is probably why he doesn't see things from the same perspective that we do in terms of that corruption. He works for Forbes, the game industry has little or no direct sway over his employer as it's not dependant on game advertising. It has a set support base, and any interest a video game reviewer brings them is just icing on the cake. EA threatens Forbes or something and they
are liable to get laughed at because Forbes plays with big companies all the time. The thing is that MOST gaming reviewers are employed by sites or periodicals that are dependant on the industry they are supposed to be reviewing or making criticisms of for their survival. IGN, Gamespot, and others simply are not able to survive, never mind pay those reviewers, if the industry goes hostile and starts blackballing them. If EA gets seriously pissed at your average gaming magazine, it has to take that seriously, it's not able to just flip them the bird and tell them to go get bent, yet in theory Forbes can do exactly just that kind of thing, and actually if EA pissed them off and Forbes decided to start blasting them in it's other articles they would probably do more damage to EA given their rep and influance than EA could do to them.... as I said, another planet entirely. If this guy winds up selling out it's probably going to be more along the lines of them paying him directly to do puff pieces, rather than being able to leverage his employer by threatening to cut advertising.

See, one of the big points that comes up in regards to the game reviewers over ME3 is that none of them really address the issues around the ending, rather than commenting on fan reaction to the ending, and this is one of the reasons why your seeing such hostility towards reviewers here. Gaming news sources calling gamers "entitled whiners" rarely bother to even address or acknowlege the monetization of the ending, or the issues of Bioware's promises and how they ere not only broken, but the attitudes that came out in those leaked interviews from the $3 app. This means that in most cases they do not know what they are talking about, or are trying to spin PR by ignoring a lot of the what surrounds the issues.

What's more the game review system is in a spot right now, seeing as these reviewers all came out with their perfect or near perfect review scores, I can understand how they can't reverse positions after the unexpected backlash without being put into a situation where they have to admit they sold out to begin with.

The thing about Mass Effect 3 is that unlike that Forbes Article implies, it was not a great game up until the last 5 minutes... though that 5 minutes did ruin the whole series to the point where it should have tanked the ending. It did a lot of things well, but to be honest it was just a halfway decent TPS with some excellent cinematics and writing, counter balanced by some horrible cinematics and writing. You'll notice everyone seems to skirt around the issue of "Leng" when it's brought up.. Leng being an incredibly poorly written and designed character that does not fit in with the game, and who winds up beating Shepard in fights after losing the boss battle "JRPG style" in order to move the plot along in sequences that are even worse than quicktime events. That's not good writing, and it's not good game design and as several of the biggest "money moments" in the game rely on this, the game really deserved to get slammed for that in the ratings even before the ending. With ME3 it's probably most fair to say that the writig for the supporting stories and lesser plot events was excellent, but the major plot points and central structure, including the ending, was absolutly horrendous. Bioware blew not just the ending, but the whole bit at the end of Thessia that acted as the climax for Act 2, that only doesn't get more criticism because the actual finale was just so much worse.

The thing is that we as gamers can tell that the scores reviewers were giving here, did not match the product, and that's a problem when these guys were supposed to be in touch with us.

Maybe the entire review industry isn't corrupt, but really insulting the fans and siding with EA over something like this is hardly doing a lot to inspire the confidence of the people that are supposed to listen to them.

 

[KingofMadCows]

The destruction of the Collectors apparently meant nothing since it didn't even slow the Reapers. I guess Shepard forgot to give everyone info on how to go through to Omega 4 Relay so they can verify his story and the galaxy remains totally unprepared for the Reaper invasion.

Well, destroying the Collectors wasn't as much about slowing down the Reapers as it was about saving the colonies and finding out why they were being harvested. It was all supposed to be foreshadowing for the Reapers' "master plan" to harvest the human race (and only the human race) for its utility in Reaper form.

Then they took the concept of organics being turned into Reapers in ME3, and twisted it into something that didn't make sense.

But none of that mattered since the Reapers were going to be there in a few months anyway.

So what if you saved the colonies? They'll just be destroyed or harvested by the Reapers.

So what if you stopped the Collectors from building that Reaper? 10,000 more Reapers were on the way and one extra Reaper won't make much of a difference.

So they revealed the Reaper's plan to harvest the humans, what did they do with that information? Nothing.

All those accomplishments are either erased or diminished by "The Arrival" DLC and the decision for ME3 to follow that instead of the ending of the main story.

Also, when the Collector base was destroyed, Harbinger says to the Collector General, "we will find another way." Another way to do what? Clearly the Collectors were supposed to be a part of the Reaper's plan but I guess Mass Effect 3 just forgot about that.

 

[JediMB]

Wanting an ending changed is not entitled and immature. Oh sorry then, I suppose the whole planet will change their standards so as not to hurt your feelings. Is everything OK now?

Frankly? No, it's not entitled or immature.

Your belittling of the OP is quite immature, however.

Who's belittling anybody here? I'm agreeing with him here.

Looks like sarcasm to me.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Also, when the Collector base was destroyed, Harbinger says to the Collector General, "we will find another way." Another way to do what? Clearly the Collectors were supposed to be a part of the Reaper's plan but I guess Mass Effect 3 just forgot about that.

The Collectors were ordered to start the reproduction cycle early so they could get the new reaper done faster, and to find ways to weaken the other races, which is why they studied them so much.

The Reaper's saying "finding another way" is them talking about making the new reaper, and finding new ways to weaken the races and or get things to fight the races with.

Which they did with the Rachni queen, and the whole asari mutant spawner etc. etc.

that seemed kinda obvious.

 

[JediMB]

You'll notice everyone seems to skirt around the issue of "Leng" when it's brought up.. Leng being an incredibly poorly written and designed character that does not fit in with the game, and who winds up beating Shepard in fights after losing the boss battle "JRPG style" in order to move the plot along in sequences that are even worse than quicktime events. That's not good writing, and it's not good game design and as several of the biggest "money moments" in the game rely on this, the game really deserved to get slammed for that in the ratings even before the ending. With ME3 it's probably most fair to say that the writig for the supporting stories and lesser plot events was excellent, but the major plot points and central structure, including the ending, was absolutly horrendous. Bioware blew not just the ending, but the whole bit at the end of Thessia that acted as the climax for Act 2, that only doesn't get more criticism because the actual finale was just so much worse.

I can definitely agree in principle that games shouldn't be doing "failure-through-cutscene" boss battles anymore. It was at least mildly annoying in Final Fantasy IX (and really frustrating if you were attempting to steal all the goodies Beatrix was carrying on her), and creative developers should have no problem coming up with alternative scenarios.

That said, I think the Kai Leng thing worked because it made me hate the character even more, and that sort of drowned out my feelings on the game mechanic itself. That's why it was so goddamn satisfying to finally kill him off in the Cerberus base.

But, yes, it's easy to forget about the Thessia climax because of how the ending turned out. Just like it's easy to forget that the whole scenario of the Citadel being moved to the Sol system doesn't make any sense, and that the introduction of the Crucible was questionable to begin with... even if it hadn't degenerated into a nonsensical retcon Deus Ex Machina.