Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut DLC Coming This Summer

@Bourbon_Warrior said:

EDIT: What is that Autistic kid looking into a snowglobe from?

It's from the final episode of the television series St. Elsewhere where you find that the entire series took place inside the mind of the autistic son of one of the doctors as he stared into the snow globe.

No this isn't the solution i was looking for one of my problems with the ending is that to get the ending that was closest to my ideal one you HAVE to play the multiplayer to get your readiness percentage significantly high. I don't go to mass effect for multiplayer i go to it for single player so i think it's really shitty that i would have to play something i have no desire to just to get the ending that is the closest to the one i want.

@mrpandaman said:

@Natesaint: Filled with blue babies... I don't think people want blue babies. Maybe say asari babies.

@MonkeyKing1969: @Mode7: My problem with the people disliking the ending is that many of the responses have been destructive. It has gotten better over the past few weeks, but that initial reaction and the way the people that disliked the ending conducted themselves made themselves look like children. I'm not saying all the people, but there certainly was a crowd of people that were lashing out and whining like children.

I mean it's fine to have the harsh criticism of the ending, but the degree of which people have shown that is crazy. There comes a point where people can't take anything away from that and it sounds like a whole lot of whining. Which is unfortunate, because many people do have valid complaints about the ending. I, myself, am pretty fine with the ending. The only thing that puzzled me a little was the Joker part.

I treated the whole game as the ending and that choice in the final sequence with the Catalyst was influenced by my previous choices. I made it influenced by my past choices. While all endings lead to the destruction of the Mass Relays, it is very interesting to know what effect my choice of destruction, synthesis, and control had on the galaxy.

It's the internet, the loudest most "vocal" folk are the most apparent. Doesn't mean they are representative or most numerous. It's why I hateboth in general and this specific case when the detractors get lumped in with the crazies. That said some of the fans have obviously gone insane in how they've treated other human beings regarding an effing video game.

I'm honestly not expecting much more than a few extra shots of random crap exploding. The way the game ended wasn't the problem, it was the structure of how how it ended and how their was barely any difference whatsoever between the three versions. Bah so sick of even thinking about this, wish we could all just move on and start caring more about other games again.

This DLC is ultimately going to be a hollow gesture. The damage is done and I sincerely doubt that Bioware's reputation will ever fully recover. I'm sure their next project will still be reasonably successful but I believe their will be a level of skepticism towards everything they make until EA eventually destroys them.

@Jack_Frost said:

@Bourbon_Warrior said:

EDIT: What is that Autistic kid looking into a snowglobe from?

It's from the final episode of the television series St. Elsewhere where you find that the entire series took place inside the mind of the autistic son of one of the doctors as he stared into the snow globe.

Apparently if you trace all the crossovers with St Elsewhere and other TV shows, plus all the other shows those shows cross over with (and so on) there are about 280 TV shows, including Lost, The Cosby Show, Dr Who and The Brady Bunch that must, canonically, exist inside that kid's mind: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~kwgow/crossovers.html

The future of gaming. "Oh we forgot to make an ending, let's add it six months later as DLC"

@MichaelEM3 said:

Really surprised EA convinced Microsoft to allow them to release this DLC/patch for free. Don't MS have some pretty stringent rules regarding this stuff? EA must be suffering a pretty heavy financial loss because of this fiasco.

Logic fail.

@PosableActionFigure: Wait a second you mean I can sell people any piece of half assed bullshit I want and then scream "artistic integrity" when they get mad about it? hmmm I think I should finally film that movie I've always wanted to make, making a good ending takes so much hard work though, maybe I can just end the film with a shitty url link instead.

Then I can simply state that anyone who doesn't like it is violating my "artistic integrity" and that they're entitled for some reason, I'm sure there will even be plenty of people also telling them that they should be grateful that I'm even taking their money, either way it all works out fine for me.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to gloat.

Hey! This is exactly what I said was going to happen weeks ago! Gary Whitta called me a conspiracy theorist on Twitter for suggesting that this very scenario would play out exactly as it has! Nanananananana! Goooo me!

Thank you.

yeah but .... fuck it im too stoned to comment ont this shit 
 
    

The problems with this ending are not things that can be clarified - they needed to be completely different from the beginning. I'm afraid that even though this DLC will be free it won't really do much in terms of how the story ended up.

@thatdutchguy said:

yeah but .... fuck it im too stoned to comment ont this shit

I don't...

...this is great.

@MonkeyKing1969 said:

Most people you talk to say that the ending felt rushed, and that it broke away from the 'player agency' (choice) the rest of the game was built upon.

So really I want from this is for Bioware to say internally in a staff meeting, "Next time we don't rush...next time we don't cut corners...and next time we THINK before we change the rules to slap on an ending that changes all the rules of a game world."

The big take away isn't that gamers are babies or then we expect too much...it’s that we NOTICE when corners are cut. This has been a year of supposedly good developers cutting stupid corners and expecting no fall out. If you have a big game delay it! Really, EA you could have delayed this damn thing to make it better and it would not have effected sale ONE DAMN BIT!!! People woudl have bought this game in May...or June...call it a summer Block Buster...hell it would have sold more copies.

Now I'm very interested about what would've happened if ME3 was released at this past November as initially planned.

@Deathpooky said:

Bioware has no chance to win. Expand on / personalize the original ending and you still leave everyone who thinks the ending was terrible on its own merits. Change the ending and you piss off a smaller group of people, but more importantly all game journalists who have staked their integrity on the ground here for some reason.

The only winning move is to have made a good ending in the first place.

Truth.

@huser: Yeah I know and agree. It's just that is why I believe that some people labeled gamers as being babies and childish. Unfortunate, but what can we do... it's the internet.

It's possible I've been spending too much time on reddit (where everyone hates the ending as is), but is that group really the minority? What percentage of people liked the ending versus disliked it? I was under the impression that anyone who actually invested in the Mass Effect franchise hated the ending because of who it didn't stick true to the rest of the series. That was my reasoning, at least.

@Hailinel said:

@Jellybones said:

That's hardly the same thing.

If Dark Knight Rises doesn't end with a 20 minute epilogue telling me how everyone lived until they died of old age, by golly, I'm going to start a campaign against the Nolans and file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau!

I hate the internet sometimes.

People hated Mass Effect 3's ending becaus it was nonsensical and provided absolutely no sense of closure for anyone and left the entire galaxy in a state of unexplained limbo, only for Buzz Aldrin to pipe in with a plea for players to buy DLC.

I hope that these ending additions make the experience more satisfactory for fans. Going three games in only to be rewarded with Casey Hudson's delusions of 2001 grandeur disappointed a lot of people. Though, it doesn't sound like it will do anything to remove Space Child, who basically symbolizes all that is wrong with the ending in its original state.

Also, I wonder what this means for Bioware's other ME3 DLC plans. They had to have already had development time and money budgeted for other DLC that they had planned and obviously weren't expecting any of this. They had to have shifted resources around to make the revised ending a reality, which means that the original DLC plans had to either be put on hold or were substantially revised.

Well-put!

@MideonNViscera said:

Cool that it's free, and cool that it explains more. The people complaining that they buckled are retarded. They aren't changing the ending, they're expanding on it because nobody understood it. If you think this is some doomsday for game companies, you are as big a part of the "internet problem" as the ones demanding entire rewrites. You have no fucking sense.

What this person said.

*****Spoilers***** it was all a dream

SPOILERS

Goddamnit, now I can't open them too. I think they got fucked up when I copy+pasted (internet troubles). I'll just re-respond.

@mutha3 said:

@TheHT said:

@mutha3 said:

He means "Organics will inevitably be wiped out by synthetics", synthetics are order/organics are chaos yadda yadda yadda

What about that is incoherent and nonsensical?

"Why?" Answer this question^ ME3, sure doesn't.

That's the Catalysts purpose: to protect organics from being wiped out by synthetics. The solution to which is the Reapers and the harvest cycle. It doesn't have to be true, but the Catalysts purpose deals with a possibility rather than anything concrete. As such, despite the conclusion to the geth situation, the possibility of synthetics being created that ultimately destroy all organics remains.

Rather than destroy the synthetics, a solution that would still allow for the intelligent organics of that time who created them to do so again, so the purpose remains unsolved. By killing those who create the synthetics though, the Catalysts purpose is fulfilled, for a time. The remaining organics will eventually reach a level of intelligence where they too are capable of creating synthetics. At that point, the Reapers harvest them too. And so the cycle goes.

Whatever Shepard does to prove otherwise, the possibility of the Catalysts concern coming to be still persists.

@umdesch4 said:

@insanejedi said:

I'm a raging parrot whose repeating on someone Else's words as truth.

Nice. I just don't want to talk about the inconsistencies in the ending anymore, so I linked to something that makes a lot what I think are good points, even though I disagree with much of it (hence me calling it crazy-exhaustive).

@TheHT said:

Linking to videos and documents like that is boring. If it's not too much trouble, use your own words to express your thoughts.

Yeah, I'm sorry. As I said above, I'm kinda tired of talking about it, but I think what seems the most nonsensical to me is Sheppard not questioning any of the circular logic of the space child, and specifically not refuting the central negative assertion about synthetic life, given how much time he/she spent proving otherwise. Not having a word to say...not a question to ask...nothing. If the DLC patches in a scene showing Sheppard taking a hit to the throat making him/her unable to speak, then maybe it'll fix that aspect of it for me.

I hear ya, it can be a bit mind-numbing saying the same stuff over again to different people.

Shepard does question the Catalyst, though the logic for the Catalysts solution is to appease a possibility, so there's only so much Shepard can say. The possibility of synthetics wiping out all organics continue unabated. But by killing the creators of the synthetics, the intelligent organics of that cycle, that possibility is subdued, for a time. Shepard certainly speaks to the possibility of the Catalyst being wrong (albeit in much fewer words, understandably given his/her condition).

@N7 said:

Been reading this for a little bit now, and holy shit. Out of all of it, this bit here is really good. SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

Then obviously the planet isn't that paradise for the crew to naturally live off of until they die. The "maybe not" becomes "most likely not".

The way I took the tone and actions of the ending was that the lush natural foliage and inspirational sun fortell to a hopeful future. And yes, it's hammy as fuck.

In either case, that's not at all a 'gotcha'.

@Napalm said:

@TheHT said:

All of your character development and emotional attachment is what is supposed to make the decision difficult and what's supposed to inform which choice you end up making.

Everything you've done, giving the geth a chance at life, giving the krogran a chance at life, uniting the species, rewriting the rogue geth, sacrificing squadmates, destroying the collector base, sacrificing the council, your discussions with EDI on life, your discussions with Garrus on cold calculus, and so on and so forth.

These situations have all built you up to handle making this final decision.

@N7 said:

@TheHT: The spoiler tags appear to have stopped working. I can't even click my own. :(

Yeah, they don't seem to work when you're looking at an article with the comments being at the bottom (with options of first to last or latest). You have to either view the article from the forums or quote the text then open the spoiler block.

Uh, no...? He was referencing the final decision, which makes no sense and is a total non-sequitur. Read the provided quote again.

I was referring to the final decision too.

@huser said:

For the Normandy to pick up my crew, that still means they left the most important military engagement EVER to help some other folks that ought to be fighting to also abandon the fight.

You are right they didn't know what the Crucible would do. Or even how it would do it. Here's a slight problem with your idea that escape makes so much sense....why wouldn't the Reapers be able to do the same thing? You'd think having BUILT the Citadel, even without their cadre of indoctrinated folk over the cycles giving them some insight that something is up (like say Cerberus), having it go all death blossom while everyone they are fighting are now busy trying to hit FTL might make them decide to bug out as well, given how much effort these folks went to build the Crucible to begin with. Beyond the then tacit acceptance that the Earth and everyone left on it are now being left for dead whether the Crucible works or not (ie the Crucible or the Reapers get them), they are also abandoning anyone that can't make that jump while also completely ignoring the possibility that the Reapers could simply follow them. Makes far more sense if you think the Crucible IS some kind of doomsday weapon so potent that you need to hit FTL to hope to escape it, to instead try and pin down as many of the Reapers as possible with your sacrificed bodies (or ships) since the planet you came to save will now be dead, your fleet is in tatters regardless (fleeing in a rout), and this will be a oneshot all or nothing gamble.

RE: the beam shot out behind them, that's while they're already in FTL, likely already having gone through the Charon array, or put another way likely well after they decided to bug out, disengage from the enemy, pick up my crew, exit atmosphere, fly however long it takes to get to the array while plotting the jump, then going through the array.

They also left that 'most important military engagement EVER' to drop Shepard and crew off of Earth, so I don't see why picking them up, especially when the radio chatter when Shepard awakes from Harbinger's blast calls for a retreat, is hard to swallow.

The Reapers seeing the allied forces leaving could very well have figured they gave up. With the main bulk of their forces at and around Earth (along with the Citadel), leaving because your attackers have broken combat and are leaving doesn't make sense.

The allied forces could choose where to activate the Crucible. The Reapers brought the Citadel to Earth, so that's where they had to use it, regardless of what that means for Earth. Given all that's at stake, they can't delay in the hopes that the Reapers would happen to move the Citadel away (which reports from the ground of the beam connecting Earth to the Citadel would suggest is unlikely to happen).

There's no point in sacrificing the main allied forces in the hopes that the Crucible does in fact destroy all the Reapers. What if it didn't and only affected their ships? The entire war would be over. The situation needed to be approached with caution, and flying into the Crucible's energy is reckless.

The beam also shot out after the energy sphere, and FTL travel is pretty fast, so it's not hard to imagine they'd be far from the Sol system. It's also perhaps more important than I previously thought to note the radio chatter when Shepard awakes. That's most probably the start of the retreat, and throughout Shepard going on the Citadel and talking to the Illusive Man and to the Catalyst, the allied forces would be executing their retreat.

Meh. So many things were botched about ME3 for me that this DLC doesn't hold much promise. I kinda dislike how this has all gone down, but it's whatevs at this point.

I probably won't play it again just to see some even shittier elaborations on the end of the game. I've done EVERYTHING, yes EVERYTHING, there is to do in ME3 and nothing will bring me back unless it's some proper DLC.

@EndrzGame said:

Hahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

An extended cut isn't going to fix the thematic problems, probably isn't going to fix the plot holes, and definitely isn't going to fix the amount of wtf deus ex machina that the ending was.
 
 
 But hey at least they're offering it for free which helps remove the cynicism that they might have done shitty ending deliberately just to sell dlc.

@TheHT said:

@mutha3 said:

@TheHT said:

The ending is sensical, and alleged plotholes are easily explained away

Disagreed. I think the ending is utterly incoherent and nonsensical. No amount of "clarifying" will change that. The ending is broken on a fundamental level. Unless they retcon things, I already know this "extended cut" won't do anything for me.

What about the ending is incoherent and nonsensical?

The Catalyst Child says that the Reaper solution won't work anymore, and that a new solution is needed. This is stated as the Reapers are destroying the fleets over Earth, as organic life is succumbing to their overwhelming forces. In other words, as the Reapers are doing EXACTLY what they were intended to do, the Child is saying that they can no longer do what he meant them to do.

Does this seem logical to you?

@Lord_Punch: Organics finally found out about the catalyst and perfected the crucible, so if this cycle didn't destroy the Reapers they would certainly leave clues like the Protheans for the next cycle to destroy the Reapers, which would then in turn allow the rise of synthetics to destroy all organic life in the universe.

@demonbear: uhm, EA was voted worst company in America BEFORE they announced this free DLC, although I can't say if this announcement would have affected the outcome.

@Lord_Punch said:

@TheHT said:

@mutha3 said:

@TheHT said:

The ending is sensical, and alleged plotholes are easily explained away

Disagreed. I think the ending is utterly incoherent and nonsensical. No amount of "clarifying" will change that. The ending is broken on a fundamental level. Unless they retcon things, I already know this "extended cut" won't do anything for me.

What about the ending is incoherent and nonsensical?

The Catalyst Child says that the Reaper solution won't work anymore, and that a new solution is needed. This is stated as the Reapers are destroying the fleets over Earth, as organic life is succumbing to their overwhelming forces. In other words, as the Reapers are doing EXACTLY what they were intended to do, the Child is saying that they can no longer do what he meant them to do.

Does this seem logical to you?

The Reapers are still carrying out the previous solution, while Shepard and the Catalyst decide what the new solution will be. Once a decision is made, the Reapers stop and react accordingly.

@Jellybones: Thats a bad analogy, the more accurate analogy is you'll be perfectly content and happy if you find out that at the end of Dark Knight Rises, Batman actually had super powers, he can read minds, move super fast, and is actually invincible. None of his detective skills were skill and he was trolling you for 3 movies all along. Thus, it made the 1st 2 movies about his humanity and training all pointless since he none of the things he went through with scarecrow or joker actually affected him.

@N7 said:

@TheHT: There we go. I couldn't click the spoilers for ANY REASON. The point of the ending was to shine a light of positivity down, no doubt about that. But when coupled with the realization SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

The thing people seem to keep forgetting is that they're are still space ships. Just because the relays are destroyed doesn't mean no one can travel through space. They probably won't reach home any time soon, but they can still travel around the system they're in.

And I assume communication across systems is still possible? The the next step for the civilizations of the galaxy would naturally be to rebuild and repair, and I don't see why that doesn't include finding new means for FTL travel, coordinating efforts from across the galaxy.

And for the Normandy, with a large and capable crew including a well developed AI that's also a part of the ship, I'm sure they could repair it and find others, whichever system they find themselves in.

@TheHT said:

SPOILERS

They also left that 'most important military engagement EVER' to drop Shepard and crew off of Earth, so I don't see why picking them up, especially when the radio chatter when Shepard awakes from Harbinger's blast calls for a retreat, is hard to swallow.

The Reapers seeing the allied forces leaving could very well have figured they gave up. With the main bulk of their forces at and around Earth (along with the Citadel), leaving because your attackers have broken combat and are leaving doesn't make sense.

The allied forces could choose where to activate the Crucible. The Reapers brought the Citadel to Earth, so that's where they had to use it, regardless of what that means for Earth. Given all that's at stake, they can't delay in the hopes that the Reapers would happen to move the Citadel away (which reports from the ground of the beam connecting Earth to the Citadel would suggest is unlikely to happen).

There's no point in sacrificing the main allied forces in the hopes that the Crucible does in fact destroy all the Reapers. What if it didn't and only affected their ships? The entire war would be over. The situation needed to be approached with caution, and flying into the Crucible's energy is reckless.

The beam also shot out after the energy sphere, and FTL travel is pretty fast, so it's not hard to imagine they'd be far from the Sol system. It's also perhaps more important than I previously thought to note the radio chatter when Shepard awakes. That's most probably the start of the retreat, and throughout Shepard going on the Citadel and talking to the Illusive Man and to the Catalyst, the allied forces would be executing their retreat.

It's hard to swallow because dropping Shep off was a planned axis for the entire invasion. The Normandy exiting combat to pick up a few groundpounders in the middle of their own combat (plenty of Reaper forces still on planet and in orbit) and then leaving the system is probably not.

The invasion force cannot count on the Reapers assuming anything. Perhaps I wasn't clear, but the viewpoint of all that has to be from the characters in universe. This is an all or nothing gamble, your forces are gathered and have taken heavy losses going by the various cinematics and the background view Shep has while on the Citadel (which suggests they HAVEN'T been retreating as Shep is wandering around the Citadel given the number of explosions). Like the climax of another three part sci-fi epic, the plucky alliance will never have a shot like this again. In universe you can't assume the Reapers won't pursue or won't figure out what's happening. Again they built the Citadel, the people that make decisions on the Normandy at the VERY minimum would know this. They also know the Reapers have myriad cycles of indoctrinated folk (and with Javik know THEY know something is up with the Crucible for at least 2 cycles) that can inform them about what details exist. They don't know what the Reapers know but you have to plan around it regardless. And assuming they will just stay on Earth while a plot device goes all Transformers on them can't be one of them.

There's EVERY reason to sacrificing the main allied fleet in the hopes the Crucible does in fact destroy the Reapers. There are 4 options here based on whether the Crucible works and whether it works relatively exclusively on Reapers. 3 of these lead to a dead Earth regardless and the loss of the ships (and ground forces) that didn't pull out sufficiently. One leads to the magical hope of dead Reapers and a surviving Earth. However, if the Crucible DOESN'T destroy the Reapers then all hope is lost regardless. A Sov level Reaper can deal with fleets. A destroyer can clamp down on a cruiser and have it blow up under it. Defeating the Reapers in direct combat is never going to be an option on a galactic scale. Not after the losses already incurred and the complete loss of the ground forces on Earth. Heck firepower so high that it can scar a planet AFTER it went through a Reaper didn't even kill that Reaper. Not pinning them down means even if the Crucible worked as hoped you still have to deal with planet devastating opponents that didn't stay in system with what escaped.

Assuming the Reapers will now just ignore the Citadel/Crucible going all death blossom or simply not follow the escaping forces is a ludicrous risk given those stakes and those options.

@Tebbit: It's sold more than the last 2 Mass Effect games, but still about a million short of reaching the sales of Dragon Age: Origins, which remains BioWare's best selling game. I might pass it, with time, but I doubt it.

As far as video games in general, it sold well, but not amazingly well at around 3.2m copies sold right now. I believe the industry short hand is that a game needs 2 million in sales to break even. (Again: Rule of thumb, not a hard rule). So that's good, but there are a lot of games out there that have sold better. Like Borderlands. Or BioShock 2.

@TheHT said:

SPOILERS

Shepard does question the Catalyst, though the logic for the Catalysts solution is to appease a possibility, so there's only so much Shepard can say. The possibility of synthetics wiping out all organics continue unabated. But by killing the creators of the synthetics, the intelligent organics of that cycle, that possibility is subdued, for a time. Shepard certainly speaks to the possibility of the Catalyst being wrong (albeit in much fewer words, understandably given his/her condition).

I dunno, but I seem to remember that the Catalyst says that this business about synthetics rising up against their creators is inevitable and what always has and will always happen. Words to that effect. I know however it was worded, my immediate response during the dialog was "bullshit!", and I was a little shocked that Sheppard didn't have anything to say about it. Then again, for the number of times I said (or at least thought) the term "bullshit" during that end sequence, I started to get a sense of what having Tourette Syndrome might be like. :P

@PosableActionFigure said:

Hey remember when they released the director's cut for blade runner which made the movie way better and no-one fucking complained?

Maybe you fucks should actually give this a chance before parroting the "artistic integrity wahhh" line that you don't actually understand but you heard a bunch of games press harp on about it so you figured that you'd go along with them because you wouldn't want to be "entitled" now would you?

In summary, eat many dicks.

Thank you. There are a lot of white knights on the internet these days, doing the very whining that they claim to hate.

Adding to the ending doesn't change how much contradiction there is within it. And fuck that starchild!

fart

Me personally this is what I wanted. Now just to wait and see if the epilogue itself finally answers all the questions they left wide open.

"Clarity" isn't really what I wanted. What I wanted was the ending to be redone, taking into account what you did over the game and giving ME3 the epic conclusion it deserves. Instead we'll probably get some more copy and pasted cutscenes (with your choice of color) to expand out the mess of the ending (bearing in mind most of what they have to clarify happens regardless of what you choose or want to do) and probably little else. Hopefully they will expand the conversation with the Star Child so that isn't as stupid as it is now (but I doubt it).

I'll give it a go and see if it grows on me when it comes out, but I'm unlikely to be satisfied with this and Bioware sure aren't getting any more money from me for future DLC. I will say I am impressed this DLC is free, but that does lead me to think they won't be getting a lot of voice actors back and similar to really flesh it out. We'll have to see on that point obviously, but I would have rathered paying for something more substantial like Fallout 3s Broken Steel if that is what it took.

Wait and see.

@Lord_Punch said:

@EndrzGame said:

Hahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

Actually the red one was on the right, if you want to be technical about it.

Indoctrinated hallucination since you touched down on Eden Prime! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Kidding, I don't buy into those theories but I am looking forward to this. I didn't hate the ending, but I would have liked more closure regarding all the other people and things that aren't Shepard. And would also like to know how/WHY the Normandy picked up my squadmates in the middle of the battle after I was presumably vaporized, and jumped out of the system. And why the Starchild looks like that kid in the beginning.

This whole thing disgusts me.

@huser said:

@TheHT said:

SPOILERS

They also left that 'most important military engagement EVER' to drop Shepard and crew off of Earth, so I don't see why picking them up, especially when the radio chatter when Shepard awakes from Harbinger's blast calls for a retreat, is hard to swallow.

The Reapers seeing the allied forces leaving could very well have figured they gave up. With the main bulk of their forces at and around Earth (along with the Citadel), leaving because your attackers have broken combat and are leaving doesn't make sense.

The allied forces could choose where to activate the Crucible. The Reapers brought the Citadel to Earth, so that's where they had to use it, regardless of what that means for Earth. Given all that's at stake, they can't delay in the hopes that the Reapers would happen to move the Citadel away (which reports from the ground of the beam connecting Earth to the Citadel would suggest is unlikely to happen).

There's no point in sacrificing the main allied forces in the hopes that the Crucible does in fact destroy all the Reapers. What if it didn't and only affected their ships? The entire war would be over. The situation needed to be approached with caution, and flying into the Crucible's energy is reckless.

The beam also shot out after the energy sphere, and FTL travel is pretty fast, so it's not hard to imagine they'd be far from the Sol system. It's also perhaps more important than I previously thought to note the radio chatter when Shepard awakes. That's most probably the start of the retreat, and throughout Shepard going on the Citadel and talking to the Illusive Man and to the Catalyst, the allied forces would be executing their retreat.

It's hard to swallow because dropping Shep off was a planned axis for the entire invasion. The Normandy exiting combat to pick up a few groundpounders in the middle of their own combat (plenty of Reaper forces still on planet and in orbit) and then leaving the system is probably not.

The invasion force cannot count on the Reapers assuming anything. Perhaps I wasn't clear, but the viewpoint of all that has to be from the characters in universe. This is an all or nothing gamble, your forces are gathered and have taken heavy losses going by the various cinematics and the background view Shep has while on the Citadel (which suggests they HAVEN'T been retreating as Shep is wandering around the Citadel given the number of explosions). Like the climax of another three part sci-fi epic, the plucky alliance will never have a shot like this again. In universe you can't assume the Reapers won't pursue or won't figure out what's happening. Again they built the Citadel, the people that make decisions on the Normandy at the VERY minimum would know this. They also know the Reapers have myriad cycles of indoctrinated folk (and with Javik know THEY know something is up with the Crucible for at least 2 cycles) that can inform them about what details exist. They don't know what the Reapers know but you have to plan around it regardless. And assuming they will just stay on Earth while a plot device goes all Transformers on them can't be one of them.

There's EVERY reason to sacrificing the main allied fleet in the hopes the Crucible does in fact destroy the Reapers. There are 4 options here based on whether the Crucible works and whether it works relatively exclusively on Reapers. 3 of these lead to a dead Earth regardless and the loss of the ships (and ground forces) that didn't pull out sufficiently. One leads to the magical hope of dead Reapers and a surviving Earth. However, if the Crucible DOESN'T destroy the Reapers then all hope is lost regardless. A Sov level Reaper can deal with fleets. A destroyer can clamp down on a cruiser and have it blow up under it. Defeating the Reapers in direct combat is never going to be an option on a galactic scale. Not after the losses already incurred and the complete loss of the ground forces on Earth. Heck firepower so high that it can scar a planet AFTER it went through a Reaper didn't even kill that Reaper. Not pinning them down means even if the Crucible worked as hoped you still have to deal with planet devastating opponents that didn't stay in system with what escaped.

Assuming the Reapers will now just ignore the Citadel/Crucible going all death blossom or simply not follow the escaping forces is a ludicrous risk given those stakes and those options.

You can assume that's what the Reapers are doing because they already have what they need: The Citadel. They were just chillin when they were attacked. If the allied forces retreat then it's back to harvesting humans to increase their numbers, as is their primary tactic.

Allied forces knowing details about the Crucible? Javik doesn't know what it does either. No one knows what it does. Or do you mean the Reapers knowing about the Crucible for at least 2 cycles? Why? In Javik's cycle the Citadel was taken early on, and if I recall correctly the Crucible was only actually built in the current cycle.

The activation of the Crucible is their best bet at destroying the Reapers. Once it's activated, the situation is out of the fleets hands, and their all or nothing attack was strictly speaking a success. If it in fact carries a destructive quality that would also affect all ships in the area, then they're all dead for nothing. Do you think they think they need to be directly beside the Crucible in order for it to be effective, or to draw the Reapers in?

Potentially throwing their lives away by sticking around when the Crucible actives is pointless. The situation is entirely out of their hands. If the Crucible doesn't destroy the Reapers, and they actually lose all hope like you said, then they can fly back and go out in a glorious hail of laser beams and explosions all they want. But sticking around while a supposed super-weapon powers up in nonsense.

What exactly are the Reapers going to do about the Citadel changing its shape? Destroy it? Are you forgetting that the Catalyst is on the Citadel? That they're using it to harvest humans?

Why exactly do you think the entire Reaper force would follow an allied retreat? And a retreat of that scale won't happen instantaneously, it will take time, which is why when Shepard is on the Citadel there's still combat going on outside. The Reapers are not just going to stop firing and let the forces pass through them for a clean retreat. Just because they don't show that not happening, doesn't mean ridiculous possibilities like that are in any way likely to have happened.

@umdesch4 said:

@TheHT said:

SPOILERS

Shepard does question the Catalyst, though the logic for the Catalysts solution is to appease a possibility, so there's only so much Shepard can say. The possibility of synthetics wiping out all organics continue unabated. But by killing the creators of the synthetics, the intelligent organics of that cycle, that possibility is subdued, for a time. Shepard certainly speaks to the possibility of the Catalyst being wrong (albeit in much fewer words, understandably given his/her condition).

I dunno, but I seem to remember that the Catalyst says that this business about synthetics rising up against their creators is inevitable and what always has and will always happen. Words to that effect. I know however it was worded, my immediate response during the dialog was "bullshit!", and I was a little shocked that Sheppard didn't have anything to say about it. Then again, for the number of times I said (or at least thought) the term "bullshit" during that end sequence, I started to get a sense of what having Tourette Syndrome might be like. :P

Yeah, it essentially says exactly that. It was designed or tasked on the basis of that possibility being true. Being an AI, it's what has guided its reasoning.

Shepard, knowing that it's only a possiblity, doesn't agree or disagree with the Catalyst, but certainly expresses that the future of synthetics and organics isn't so certain.

I understand the desire to say more to the Catalyst. Regardless, in the end Shepard will still have to make a choice out of those three options. But more dialogue options would definitely have made the ending, which was likely already throwing some people off, go significantly smoother and hopefully gotten the point across that you don't have to agree with the Catalyst.

@Dany said:

I don't like how any of htis played out but I hated the ending. Apparenlty some people hated it more causing this response from Bioware...I'll play it but IDK...damage seems done.

I think Lewis Black said it the best when he talked about the election that you have a choice between two, or in this case Three, bowls of shit,. You just have to decide which one's smell you like better. That's how I feel about the ending.

However, you are 100% right. Damage is done. With this and the whole DA2 debacle I think Bioware's name with a lot of gamers have been tarnished beyond repair. I just hope the move to attract new player while alienating veteran ones will pay off to them. I know ME3 will be the last Bioware game I play because as someone who's been with them since the Baldur's Gate days; I just don't think I am their target crowd anymore, and that's fine with me. Gotta know when to move on, right?

I don't know how I feel about this.

@artgarcrunkle said:

@munnyman5 said:

I don't care, really.

The ending of ME3 could've been a 1080p video of a fat guy jerking off, and I would still feel like I got my money's worth. I laughed more at the snippets of dialog in that game than I have at some pretty good stand-up comedy routines. I'm just really thankful I get to play games, and wasn't born in Somalia or something.

But that's just me.

That's a real great positive sentiment that would sound less smug had you not typed that last sentence, I guess.

I agree; in retrospect, it sounds like I'm asserting my superiority. I meant to say I don't expect everyone to constantly think about how fortunate they are to be able to play video games, it's just not realistic. That's not to say that people who do have that angle on life are any better than anybody else, they just think differently, is all. People have every right to be upset about ME3's ending - freedom of speech and all - I was just saying why I'm not. I'm sorry that it sounded smug.

I guess I'm waiting until summer to pick this up. The reaction kind of turned me off, kind of like how it did with Brad.

Although I much rather have more multiplayer maps/modes I am legetimately excited for this

Ending was fine in my opinion.