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How do you feel about the ending?  

471 members have voted

  1. 1. How do you feel about the ending?

    • I love it.
      45
    • I like it as-is.
      59
    • I like the indoctrination theory.
      56
    • I like it, but the lack of closure bothers me.
      100
    • I dislike it, but I may like it with some elaboration and clarification.
      63
    • I dislike it, and hope they make a new ending.
      35
    • I dislike it, and believe the indoctrination theory.
      43
    • I hate it.
      70


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I was satisfied with the ending to the series but was confused by the reversed paragon/renegade options making me enjoy the indoctrination theory as well. The leaked ending also had some merit and I would have been happy with that also. What I'm not happy with is that my favourite game series is also loved by some of the most ungrateful whingy cry babies concievable. I enjoyed every minute of the series and loved the story Bioware crafted for me. I am just ashamed to be lumped with all these complaining sheep that can't accept a games conclusion gracefully.

 

It is not loved by ungrateful whiny cry babies. That's why the the ending recieved such negative reviews. You don't trash talk n degrade something u "supposedly love" like that. I agree with though, this was an amazing trilogy. Im sad that its over but excited to see what bioware has in store for the ME universe.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I love finishing a game, being able to add another game to the list of completions is always great. However Mass Effect 3 really pushed it, and not just because it was late and I was tired. Even with the Extended Cut installed and basically going full Paragon and getting peace with everyone, the ending still lacked substance and any real impact. It wouldn't have been that hard to show us what happens postgame to the planets we went to and how they are rebuilding. Maybe BioWare knew there was no way in hell they could live up to the expectations the fans set for themselves and they wanted to show it. Either way, with Muzyka and Zeschuk gone, BioWare are a shadow of their former self. Look no further then Dragon Age 3 to prove that.

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Maybe BioWare knew there was no way in hell they could live up to the expectations the fans set for themselves and they wanted to show it.

 

i have wondered this as well. though i think that it falls more on the players expectations then it does on bioware. it is their story after all. i think the personal nature of the game, mainly the save import and the level of impact certain decisions have on the story resulted in something unprecedented. regardless of the players having these choices, the narrative was always going in a certain direction regardless. the level of involvement the players had in comparison to those that actually created the story is miniscule at best. the way i see it is its not your story or my story or anyone elses. its theirs and we chose to experience it. just like with any other fictional story be it movie, video game, tv series, book, etc. i think people should stop pretending that because of the choices they made that they had anything to do with the stories creation. its a slightly personal gameplay feature at best. albeit unique and new to video games. im not saying anyone has to like what the story is, but this is what it is. if we complained to the creators of everything we didnt like at the level that some of these "fans" did then it will become pointless for anyone to create a fictional story outside of because they want it. the point of creating things like this is to put it out there so people can experience it regardless of what others may think. thats what art it. the only difference in this case is that while it is art, it is also a video game. it is also a product. so the real question is where is the line drawn? several claims to groups like the FTC and the BBB were made and they found nothing nothing to be fraudulent about the game. sure some choices didnt matter as much as we wanted them to but if you want to be realistic about it, thats life. you could be stressing over a decision that in the long run means nothing. the journey varied and i felt like for the most part that i got to make decisions that reflected what i would do in that situation. they didnt always turn out the way i thought, but again thats life. in the end the story went in a direction that showed us that things werent what they seemed when it came to the reapers and i dont see anything wrong with that. id rather have something like that and be left with a moral choice than to just stop the bad guys because they are "the bad guys" and then move on to the next game. thats what separated this series from all other games for me. the choices you do get to make can be intense, regardless of whether or not they mattered. this game basically allows you to be racist, selfish, compassinate, tolerant, intolerant, etc when it comes to others. its about the relations between varying species and cultures and it even comes to different forms of life because of the organic/synthetic conflict. to me this is much better than just stop evil machines that evil just because. i never understood why so many people automatically assumed that. when i really think about it, itmakes no real sense for machines to be evil.

 

in the long run i think the only thing that will suffer from this GROSS overreaction to the ending is the future of the mass effect universe. thanks to the "fans" for that.

Edited by edgecrusherhalo
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  • 2 weeks later...
I like it, but I don't really care about it. I will admit, it still needs improvements. The Epilogue is fine, but the entirety of Thessia to Earth needs a fucking revamp.

 

Where's the neutral option? Oh right, this is ME3, there are no more options.

 

i noticed that too. throughout the game there is virtually no real neutral options. i think they did that because of the reputation system. being able to have access to and make certain decisions requires having a high reputation regardless of whether or not you went paragon or renegade and going neutral wouldnt advance that. i like the idea of the reputation system, but i dont like that it dropped the neutral dialogue options.

 

as for the endings, i dont think its the normal paragon/renegade/neutral scenario. this is caused by people looking at whats happening very differently. the way that i have come to see whats happening shows me that there is a neutral option, and thats what i have picked. as for the other two they are kind of a gray area of paragon or renegade but i wouldnt call either of them neutral. and the fourth one is just plain being oblivious to whats really going on as far as im concerned. i think im thinking about it more than most people which is why i am in the minority with the way that i view things and what my choice is.

 

in the end, i think the personal nature of the story and its decisions means that you cant pinpoint a "right" ending choice and id like to think they made it that way on purpose because thats something that the series has always done when it comes to its choices.

Edited by edgecrusherhalo
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The problem isn't a right or wrong "choice". The problem is the choices were changed on a last minute "Speculations from everyone" whim and then terribly executed. I'm fine having Space magic like the Synthesis ending, Bioware can prance around with it all they want.

 

The point is Mac fucked up when he thought it was going to be philosophically enlightening to customers that leaving the endings Ambiguous, or specifically without detail and poor writing, would fly well when people want closure and clear reasoning to know why are we leaving, why are we on a new Garden of Eden, why are you the Catalyst? Then when you have Bioware explicitly telling people they're not going to resort to a Deus Ex Machina for ME3 (Crucible), and then have a variety of endings that are more than plain labels or colors (picture I posted early), all you're going to receive is a lot of angry fans.

 

I got my time out of ME3 and money's worth. Now I get to enjoy sitting back and remind people how far Bioware sank in pit and fucked up for everyone.

Edited by incinerator950
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i dont think its quite that simple. obviously they wouldnt do something that they thought might make people angry, but i also think they had a time constraint due to the combination of having to change the ending because of the leak and EA running things. i get it being vague so that its up to players to make their own mind up about whats going on, but i think it was TOO vague. when it comes to sentient machines, i think you have to address their creation/creators in some way. they arent just going to be evil "because", not to mention thats lazy storytelling. having a villain with no motives is a bad idea. artificial intelligences get created with a purpose or to do something, like every one in this series. and in sci-fi in general that happens almost exclusively. they dont get made just for the sake of it.

 

the thing i never understood is, that vagueness led SO many people to immediately mistrust the catalyst and assume it has some sinister intention. i think it still being referred to as "starchild" and godchild" is ridiculous. even before the EC i had come to the conclusion that it had to be a machine. meaning that organics created it, and with a purpose. this is in no way a traditional villain so to assume that it is and apply that logic to it is ridiculous. and some people still have that "hope" that we will find out that it is lying. the story aside, why would they release DLCs that explain what the story is, only for that information to be false? especially after the initial ending reaction. if it is lying, then something else is going on here that we know nothing about. with this new information we got through DLCs, there is clearly a story here. im not saying everyone has to like it, but its there. i personally like it because they took a concept that has existed in science fiction for a long time but has been done almost exclusively as MAN "vs" sentient machines and applied it in a way that it has to do with all life in the galaxy. i dont see whats so bad about that. its an age old question thats existed in science fiction for a long time. i also dont see whats so bad about not having a traditional villain to beat so that we can just move on to the next game like weve done countless times before. god forbid someone try to be different in some way. as far as im concerned thats how the series has always been so id hate to see them throw that away in the end.

 

with the new information the story is actually pretty simple now and i think people are overthinknig things or are just disappointed that they arent defeating a traditionally evil villain. now the story is basically... organics create synthetic, conflict arises for a number of easily predictable reasons like the organic kind of freak out about what they have created and the two dont really "get" each other. an advanced organics species(leviathan) sees this and attempts to solve it by making a synthetic(catalyst) to solve it for them. the catalyst then comes up with a solution of its own. both of these attempts were miserable failures. the story that we play is the result and culmination of that and the player gets to decide how to end it. the endings are basically:

 

destroy - destroy the "enemy" in the hopes that organic life can sort this conflict out for themselves. some sacrifice exists in the loss of the geth and EDI.

 

control - attempt to use the power of the reapers to control the galaxy the way you see fit. some sacrifice exists because shepard is essentially "dead" but what becomes of shepard and what he/she will do with the reapers is unknown

 

synthesis - attempt to alter the conditions that lead to the conflict happening in the first place. sacrifice exists because it is a risk to initiate such a drastic change for various reasons.

 

refuse - .... im not really sure.... letting future cycles attempt to defeat the reapers conventionally instead of doing it right now even though you have a chance to because...?

 

i like synthesis because its the only option that actually addresses the real problem. to me destroy is a depressing and predictable future where the conflict eventually returns and then the life of that time has to deal with it and it is likely to result in something similar to what we have now. either that or its relying on trillions of lives to somehow agree to never create artificial intelligence again. with control, i think its obvious that someone having that much power is a bad idea. we have seen what both organics(the leviathan) and synthetics(the catalyst) have done with this power. and with refuse, well... based on how many people have taking a liking to that little speech, id say they just arent looking at this past themselves or the life of this cycle. i think its selfish and that the cycle needs to be stopped regardless.

Edited by edgecrusherhalo
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  • 4 weeks later...

I really don't get all the hatred for the ending. I haven't done the "extended cut" ending yet, so I can't say if it's better/worse, but the ending that the game shipped with was bloody brilliant.

 

I waited till this game was $10 brand new to pick it up lol, so maybe my opinion is scewed b/c I didn't spend $60 hoping for my "dream" ending to the trilogy, but I absolutely loved the game and the ending.

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I really don't get all the hatred for the ending. I haven't done the "extended cut" ending yet, so I can't say if it's better/worse, but the ending that the game shipped with was bloody brilliant.

 

I waited till this game was $10 brand new to pick it up lol, so maybe my opinion is scewed b/c I didn't spend $60 hoping for my "dream" ending to the trilogy, but I absolutely loved the game and the ending.

 

The problem was never that we paid too much for the ending, but that it discarded literally every choice we ever made. You may have only spent $10 on ME3, but how many hours did you put into the series?

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I really don't get all the hatred for the ending. I haven't done the "extended cut" ending yet, so I can't say if it's better/worse, but the ending that the game shipped with was bloody brilliant.

 

I waited till this game was $10 brand new to pick it up lol, so maybe my opinion is scewed b/c I didn't spend $60 hoping for my "dream" ending to the trilogy, but I absolutely loved the game and the ending.

 

Because most, if not all, of the choices were rendered pointless by Star Child at the end.

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I really don't get all the hatred for the ending. I haven't done the "extended cut" ending yet, so I can't say if it's better/worse, but the ending that the game shipped with was bloody brilliant.

 

I waited till this game was $10 brand new to pick it up lol, so maybe my opinion is scewed b/c I didn't spend $60 hoping for my "dream" ending to the trilogy, but I absolutely loved the game and the ending.

It seems like most people I see who actually like the ending aren't longtime/big fans. Hmmm.....

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It seems like most people I see who actually like the ending aren't longtime/big fans. Hmmm.....

 

Well, I am a long time fan, and I hated it at first, but the EC fixed it up to the point where I actually like it.

 

Ending without the EC however... no, its just rubbish.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I believe the true ending for this game was supposed to be the Defiance ending. You spend 3 games desperately fighting against the Reapers and then in the end find out synthetics have been destroying civilizations for untold eons all in the name of preserving life. I don't know about you, but that pissed me off, the idea that I was just going through the motions of so many who had walked the same path and failed. There was no possible way a compromise would work.

 

The only obvious thing to do in this situation is to of course destroy the God machine and successfully defy the universe. In this way, the Shepard of humanity decides to forge a new path instead of going along with what the Catalyst states like Dorothy agreeing to everything the Wizard says.

 

I guess that means that in the end all of the civilizations in the Mass Effect universe were meant to die on the long journey home, but there are no real happy endings anyway. I was satisfied with what happened originally, that extended cut DLC was a package of rainbows so the fanboys could walk away with good feels.

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In this way, the Shepard of humanity decides to forge a new path

 

New path being...the same path every other civilization beforehand has gone down?

 

Humanity sucks at forging :rolleyes:

 

Haha, so which one of us is the creep because of this? I'm sure you have Netflix and I know you have a brain and good taste so start watching it, you won't be disappointed.

 

I've started watching it and I'm enjoying it :p /offtopic

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New path being...the same path every other civilization beforehand has gone down?

 

Humanity sucks at forging :rolleyes:

 

 

 

I've started watching it and I'm enjoying it :p /offtopic

 

The Catalyst specifically states Shepard has gotten farther than any other before, something like "no organic has ever set foot here, herp a derp. you're robot jesus btw". The choices it presents afterward mostly sound like the Catalyst is shitting itself that Shep figured out the God puzzle and begs Shep desperately not to destroy it without mercy by offering Shep's choice of pretty colors and three choices with mostly the same outcome. In my opinion the only real choice is to destroy the Catalyst and then watch the fireworks display.

 

Personally, I was quite enraged when they pulled out the Deus Ex Machina at the very end and felt quite justified in blowing it all to hell. Next time the galaxy needs saving, don't call on me, Bioware. You'll just ruin hundreds of hours of gameplay in 5 minutes by letting Jimmy the Intern take over writing duties for the finale with his cool ideas.

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