@Pinworm45: @Pinworm45 said:

@DFSVegas said:

I must be the only person on the planet who had no problem with the ending.

I honestly don't know what people could be complaining about.

What did you think about Joker fleeing in terror with your crewmates that somehow teleported from the battlefield on earth - where Hackett ordered them to "charge the beam and don't stop until you're on the citadel or dead" mind you - to the Normandy, during the most important battle in galactic history?

Did you find that victorious and uplifting?

Who said the ending had to be uplifting?

@DFSVegas said:

@Pinworm45: @Pinworm45 said:

@DFSVegas said:

I must be the only person on the planet who had no problem with the ending.

I honestly don't know what people could be complaining about.

What did you think about Joker fleeing in terror with your crewmates that somehow teleported from the battlefield on earth - where Hackett ordered them to "charge the beam and don't stop until you're on the citadel or dead" mind you - to the Normandy, during the most important battle in galactic history?

Did you find that victorious and uplifting?

Who said the ending had to be uplifting?

It's a quote from Casey Hudson. He defended the ending on their forums as being good because it was "Victorious and Uplifting"

Cool. Now I wait.

I can't take Casey Hudson seriously at this point. I'm not even sure if I should believe any statement he makes regarding the additions to the ending.

They replace the ending with the end to Limbo of the Lost

videogames, son.

Don't care anymore. I already sold the game 2 or 3 weeks ago to pay for The Witcher 2.

1 maybe they should have tested it more

2 they launched it with a very important importing bug

3 day 1 dlc regardless

4 Revised ending based on amount of hate

They hate you, and they don't have the balls to stand up for their own creation. Leave these cowards alone and lets pay attention to someone with balls like Irrational Games

I just see it as more gameplay for a great game it's that simple to me bioware has made many games most of them great (except DA2) n ME3 to me is up to par with most of their games. I get how most of their fans that started with them way back with baldurs gate might be frustrated n not follow bioware since they r not catering to that crowd lately, it's just frustrating that this series that has defined a generation of consoles n really was set out to be the magnum opus of bioware is being trashed not cause the game was bad or shity or whatever but cause the ending was not up to par or was shit to most is rediculas at least to me I know it's an opinion but to keep shitting on them n now that bioware has come out n announced free dlc that will include a better understanding to the ending of ME3 people r now complaining that they r doing it. It's just frustrating to me I know to each its own but I get mad sometimes cause I've read people complaining about the ending n how they want it changed n now they r saying some bullshit about artistic integrity n not wanting it changed that's what gets to me so yeah FUCK IT GIVE ME MORE MASS EFFECT lol

@Demoskinos: When I was a kid, you got the ending you got, and you were grateful for it. Did you hear me complaining when I spent a full day beating Rampage for the NES and got this terrible ending?

Yes, yes you did.

@Ares42 said:

Isn't it sorta too late? I mean, sure I'll check the new cutscenes out, but the damage has already been done... Even if they are great, my playthrough of the game was still ruined. Just adding some cutscenes at this point won't really matter for people that already finished the game.

Yeah, I never got this backlash. The ending was shitty, but I've completed it now and I can go back to completing games from the pile of shame before the next big release. I doubt I'll go back to ME3 for too long if I do, and I'm probably going to have second thoughts about buying one of their next games at launch because they've had too many misses. It sucks, because their earlier stuff was fucking awesome.

Lots of clarification for everyone.

I have a feeling this has nothing to do with the

I thank Bioware for doing this, it means i will save all the money in paid DLC that i won't buy in protest to them caving in to the cry babies of the internet.

"Artistic vision"? Please. It's been made clear they had no idea how they were going to wrap things up right until they HAD to finish the game and ship it off for cert (Final Hours app, they were still tinkering with it in November, four months before launch). It's a rushed mess that betrays all the core tenets of the series, from a player's perspective and a storytelling perspective. No amount of clarification will fix that.

"Even" more context and clarity? Really, he put that down? Even more than none at all. OK. The statement reads like "You guys just didn't get it." Which is b/s, there have been so many thoughtful analyses of how the ending falls flat that it's impossible they haven't seen them at Bioware.

This is all damage control. To be fair, it's free and at least they're listening... somewhat. But you know why? Because they managed to disappoint so many people with their original conclusion that it's simply good business to try and appease the fans at this point. After all, if this really was about maintaining some kind of artistic vision, why change it at all? After all, we just "don't get it."

@WatanabeKazuma 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?

The Deus-ex machina part, which has already been covered; So without sounding off verbatim, I'll just add this:

All of the character development, all of your emotional attachment to the cast is suddenly superceded by this whole new conflict that you have to make a snap judgment on. It betrays not only a lack of concern for player agency, but a failure on the part of the writer to understand what his game is even about.

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.

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.

@TheHT: Dammit, no matter what I do I can't see the stuff behind your spoiler tags in the post you made back on page 18.

the article reads like this:
 
"You fuckin' girly men want closure, you got it!"

@Semi_Sauce said:

Ending was great. indoctrination

But there is no "end" if you buy into indoctrination. At least when it comes to the "kill 'em all" ending.

GREAT!!!!!! now these little pussy's can stop bitching..

yay a longer ending for the shitty endings we got~

It's nice BW's throwing us a bone, but it doesn't redeem them much. Valve, for instance, iterated on Portal 2's ending multiple times. Erik Wolfpaw talks about their design process - they try shit, get some alpha player feedback, and adjust things accordingly. BioWare is unlikely to even have a QA team until the disks are pressed.

@TheHT said:

@WatanabeKazuma 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?

The Deus-ex machina part, which has already been covered; So without sounding off verbatim, I'll just add this:

All of the character development, all of your emotional attachment to the cast is suddenly superceded by this whole new conflict that you have to make a snap judgment on. It betrays not only a lack of concern for player agency, but a failure on the part of the writer to understand what his game is even about.

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.

@SonicBoyster said:

I find it unfortunate that *now* is the point where all the people who haven't seen the ending come out to defend it. A reasonable person could go, "Huh, there are something like 20,000 people bitching to high-heaven about this ending, and I've never seen that many people unified over something about a game before. Maybe there's something to this." Or, you know, you could come out on the internet telling all the other people on the internet that they are immature babies for wanting a better ending than the one you didn't care enough about in the first place to be bothered by.

No freaking kidding. Certainly, the vitriol has reached hyperbolic lengths in many circles, but I've only just started getting over how bummed I was about the entire game because of the ending, and I was ready for it to be terrible based on the response people were giving it. I didn't realize how horrifically bad it could be since I basically loved the entire game up to that point and don't side with Jeff on the whole "the game was okay, sort of, but not great therefore the ending arguments are moot" argument.

@Seppli said:

@RichieJohn said:

@Apocralyptic said:

Weak... Bioware, don't you know that when you cave to fan pressure, the terrorists win?

True. They should have left it as it was and accepted that some people didn't like it.

Ha. Don't downplay their failure. If they truely are serious about the current ending as it is, it's a failure of unprecedented proportions. It's so bad, you're a bad person if you can't see that. Amongst the biggest disappointments ever, after the extremely high bar ME 1&2 set.

Actually - the whole mindfuck indoctrination thing they're pulling on us right now (they do, don't they?), is the only way for them to top the ending experiences of the previous games.

You'll see, once we wake up from their 4th wall breaking indoctrination ending experience sometime this month, and get to continue the game and follow through to the true ending, it will be the best ending experience anybody could have hoped for. That, or it's time to bring back human sacrifices to the muse governing the spark of all creation. Or is that akin to poisoning the well?

Never going to happen. They said they aren't changing the ending. Using the indoctrination theory would most certainly be changing the ending by effectively saying, "What you saw wasn't actually the ending." I would love to see indoctrination become the reality of the series, but it's not going to happen.

SMH im through with Mass Effect one way or the other.

I'm not sure if this has been said already in the comments, but I feel like this is still kinda pointless for me. The problems with the game's ending extend beyond lack of closure.

@WrenchNinja said:

Adding more cutscenes to a shitty nonsensical ending doesn't solve the original problems. It's like polishing shit. It's still shit.

Minus the "shit" sentiment, I agree that cutscenes won't fix the problems. They either don't see that or this is their way of saying, "Hey, we tried," to quell angry fans.

Polishing a turd of an ending.

My problem with the ending was more to do with the mission itself, where I felt all my previous choices and army building in the game were not capitalized on at all. I doubt the DLC will address that.

@N7 said:

@umdesch4 said:

@TheHT said:

What about the ending is incoherent and nonsensical?

Ok, ok, in case you're not trolling (or in case anyone here would like to see a crazy-exhaustive list), try this on for size.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QT4IUepvrU1pfv_B95oQj0H84DlCTUmzQ_uQh1voTUs/preview?pli=1&sle=true

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.

5. The crew of the Normandy step off the ship onto a lush, green planet! (Thanks to Praedor Tempus for pointing this out.)

It looks like this is supposed to be some sort of paradise environment that the shipwrecked crew is meant to spend the remainder of their lives on after the destruction of the Mass Relays. Or maybe not. But the tone of the scene and the actions of the characters would strongly suggest they are emerging from the ship to look upon their new, permanent home. This is kind of stupid, but let’s just say they happened to crash on an unusually agreeable Garden world.

Except, no single world can be a paradise for the diverse species aboard the Normandy. Turians aren’t carbon-based life forms. Quarians can’t eat the same things Humans and Asari can. So, the heavily contrived Gilligan’s-Island-brave-new-beginning ending the game seems to be forcing down your throat is impossible, because half your beloved characters are actually going to starve to death. *Roll credits*

I never thought about that either. That's pretty ridiculous.

@ahgunsillyo said:

@Jellybones

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.

"Commissioner James Gordon retired from the Gotham PD and became a baker, providing the citizens and families left devastated by Bane's attacks on Gotham with a vast variety of delicious breads."

Your ending does not provide enough closure and is full of plot-holes. I demand an epilogue to your epilogue!

@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.

Not just Blade Runner, Alien 3 was greatly improved by a recut. The original is a disjointed mess, but if you watch the new version it works a lot better. Still not a masterpiece or anything. That said I don't know anyone who prefers the original over the recut.

So, will everyone like the new ending? Probably not. It would take a monumental effort though to make the ending worse that what we got right now.

This is bad news :/ Sets a terrible precedent, its not even part of some money making strategy cos they're not charging

@TheHT said:

@huser: No one knew what the Crucible would do once activated, and the general concensus was that it's a weapon. With that in mind, seeing it activated they would have all evacuated the area.

Seeing a giant energy 'explosion' followed by a beam being shot out behind them, escape is the appropriate response.

As for your crewmates being on the Normandy, yeah, the Normandy obviously picked them up.

The only actual goof in the ending (if this actually happens, I don't know) is EDI being around after the Destroy ending. She should be dead, along with the geth and all other synthetics.

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.

@Sergeant_Stubby:@Sergeant_Stubby said:

GREAT!!!!!! now these little pussy's can stop bitching..

I don't get why all the internet tough guys have such a problem with people who have a problem with these endings? Do you just love the ending? Are you just trying to be ironic and contrary? Why do people who dislike this ending have to be "pussy's" (should be "pussies"with and "i" and no apostrophe by the way)?

I am so sick of these people who feel the need to whine about how sick they are of people who whine about how they don't like the ending.

Cool. The endings are alright, they have grown on me. I would have enjoyed seeing a bit more of an explanation at the end, as well as the Elcor fighting. However, I prefer bittersweet/downer endings to super happy ones. Life is rarely full of sunshine and blue babies. Besides, how else could the Reapers have been defeated? Head on fights won't work.

Hang on, they are expanding the ending cutscenes?

What possible incentive do I have to finish the game before that releases then?

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.

Adding more to a bad ending wont make it good.

I'm just wondering, why are people complaining about this and yet not Broken Steel? Didn't Broken Steel also change the end of Fallout 3 due to players complaining that they wanted an ending where you could continue playing afterwards? I don't think that set a terrible precedent. Is it because the fan backlash wasn't as extreme with Fallout?

@BrockNRolla said:

@Seppli said:

@RichieJohn said:

@Apocralyptic said:

Weak... Bioware, don't you know that when you cave to fan pressure, the terrorists win?

True. They should have left it as it was and accepted that some people didn't like it.

Ha. Don't downplay their failure. If they truely are serious about the current ending as it is, it's a failure of unprecedented proportions. It's so bad, you're a bad person if you can't see that. Amongst the biggest disappointments ever, after the extremely high bar ME 1&2 set.

Actually - the whole mindfuck indoctrination thing they're pulling on us right now (they do, don't they?), is the only way for them to top the ending experiences of the previous games.

You'll see, once we wake up from their 4th wall breaking indoctrination ending experience sometime this month, and get to continue the game and follow through to the true ending, it will be the best ending experience anybody could have hoped for. That, or it's time to bring back human sacrifices to the muse governing the spark of all creation. Or is that akin to poisoning the well?

Never going to happen. They said they aren't changing the ending. Using the indoctrination theory would most certainly be changing the ending by effectively saying, "What you saw wasn't actually the ending." I would love to see indoctrination become the reality of the series, but it's not going to happen.

Why would I take anything the say at face value, as a believer in the indoctrination conspiracy? I certainly don't want to believe they fucked up the ending as thoroughly as they seemingly did.

Just thinking about it gives me the willies. So cheap and non-sensical. Artistic integrity my ass. If that's truely it, then EA's bottomline and corporate policies are responsible. Ran out of time and money to do a worthy ending. Good grief - that's low.

I bet they originally planned on charging for this

@Natesaint said:

Cool. The endings are alright, they have grown on me. I would have enjoyed seeing a bit more of an explanation at the end, as well as the Elcor fighting. However, I prefer bittersweet/downer endings to super happy ones. Life is rarely full of sunshine and blue babies. Besides, how else could the Reapers have been defeated? Head on fights won't work.

Have you seen the discussion around Patrick's "Sticking the Landing" article? http://www.giantbomb.com/mass-effect-3/61-29935/sticking-the-landing/35-541456/

He gets blasted pretty hard throughout the comments for saying basically what you just said. I don't honestly think that anyone who had problems with the ending, did so because they thought it wasn't happy. I know I have at least 3, possibly 4, dozen problems with the ending, and I went into it assuming that Sheppard would probably die, his squad mates on the final mission were getting a death sentence simply by being chosen, the Normandy and everyone on it might not survive, and for that matter, Earth might get taken out, and the remnants of humanity need to find a new home. So yeah, all those things, I would have been fine with. I just wanted an ending, whether happy or dark, that made sense. Also, an ending that took into account at least some of the intricacies of the assets you acquired, allies brought on board, and decisions you made thoughout the rest of the game would have been nice. Kinda like the ending of the Tuchanka section...

@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.

Nice work EA. Means my 2nd character will get a different ending so thats something to look forward too, now just need to finish my renagade on insanity in ME2

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

@DFSVegas said:

I must be the only person on the planet who had no problem with the ending.

I honestly don't know what people could be complaining about.

For me, it's the same thing I had with the ending of the Horizon mission in ME2. Literally a half dozen better ways for Shep to argue his point and this game sold on the notion of player agency suddenly gives him a bad concussion just short of slurred speech because the plot has to go a certain way. And while you might argue Shep DID have a bad concussion by the end of ME3, well he was still together enough to potentially have the IM drop imply by talking to him so he's still operating at a high level. At the very least say having the Geth/Quarians go a certain way ought to have opened up some alternative dialogue.