I was just really wondering what could Bioware have done better to fix the mess they made with the Mass Effect 3 ending. Because on the one hand you have fans who you wouldn't want to alienate that demands more to the conclusion and on the other hand a party who are against player entitlement and want Bioware to stand up for their work.

I know that discussions regarding Mass Effect 3 is getting tiring now but my question is not about the ending but handling of the situation. So if you are the boss of Bioware what would you have done in the midst of all the ruckus surrounding your latest blockbuster? Would you have given in to the demands of the fans or stand proudly by your masterpiece or would you have done something else entirely?

Not get bought by EA.

Not call it Mass Effect and enjoy all the fan support for the game.

Anything Bioware could have done about the ending, they should have done before it was released. Afterwards ... anything they did was going to alienate someone. I'm not sure what the problem was over at Bioware--did they not have a QA team diverse enough to see that there were going to be problems with the ending? Or did they know, and not do anything about it? The leak early on of the ending script (some of which wound up in the game, some of which didn't) should have been warning enough. In the end, I think Bioware just didn't have the resources or time to get the ending right, and paid the price.

The lesson for developers (and publishers) is to give a game (especially one with high expectations like ME3) enough time to mature before releasing it.

I think Bioware did the best they could with the resulting controversy. They expanded the ending, placated most of those who didn't have much of a problem with the ending (most gamers, I think), and didn't outright come out and shit on those who liked the indoctrination theory. The only way to really repair the damage is to make games with more satisfying endings out-of-the-box.

For the sake of their writers, I would have stood by the ending, offered some additional content to fill in the blanks, and then let it stand. Which is basically what they did. Gamers tend to hold grudges. There was nothing Bioware could do in the short term to change anyone's mind about the ending.

They gave me a Krogan Vanguard to play around with in multiplayer. Works for me.

I liked mass Effect 3, i played it with from ashes and finished it without the extended cut, at the time i knew about the out cry about the terrible ending but i genuinely did not hate in fact as far as my Shepards story goes the ending was spot on and i felt like my time had come to a satisfactory conclusion, however im not some mass effect 3 apologist they made a concerted effort to solve the side story issue from 1 to 2, it was in part the reason i felt 2 was better than one because they stepped up the side stuff which fleshed out the galaxy, however in mass effect 3 they did none of this and made quite possibly the worst side missions in video game history.

I think if they start down the path of making a new mass effect story it should go back to the the way it was in mass effect, with the investigation elements of the mako levels and the improved writing and story telling of 2.

Don't ask me this question. I have no desire to suffer twice.

@Death_Unicorn said:

Not get bought by EA.

I'd say pretty much this. ME2 was where things began to change for the worse.

@Nottle said:

@Death_Unicorn said:

Not get bought by EA.

I'd say pretty much this. ME2 was where things began to change for the worse.

Are you saying you prefer ME1 to ME2? Because I thought ME2 was a lot more fun to actually play and I don't feel that it was "worse" than ME1 in any way.

OT: The ending did not bother me, they could've left it as it was. The extended cut was a nice addition but I felt that it only told me more about what I already knew. The series was a great experience as a whole. I still don't think getting bought by EA is a good thing for any company in the long run, though...there are numerous things I don't like about the way they do business. Origin is one.

EDIT: Rushing games to get them out quicker is another.

@Galiant: While ME2 certainly had better tuned gameplay, it also had a completely different focus of gameplay. ME1 might've not been as well made, but it had a more interesting feature list.

As for what Bioware did wrong, they stopped doing what they were good at and started chasing money. Bioware was renowned for RPGs, hardcore deep RPGs. Then they changed focus with ME2 being a shooter and DA2 being an action-driven RPG.

I think they did as much as they could given the minefield they'd somehow managed to walk themselves into. Don't forget, the backlash wasn't entirely about ME3 - most people wouldn't have been quite so pissed about it if they hadn't already burned through all their second chances with Dragon Age 2 and Old Republic. EA bought a golden goose in Bioware and managed to strangle it to death in a few short years.

The only answer anyone would actually accept is 'stop existing'. Mass Effect 3 could've been exactly everything they're asking for (even people who ask the world) and it would never have been enough. It'll never be enough.

Take another year to polish up ME3 and really make it shine. I would be totally okay with playing ME3 in march 2013 if it meant they could go all the way with their ending, have better side-quests, more dialogue options (that wheel was almost empty compared to ME1), more enemy variety, better textures and more. Big dialogue driven RPGs should not be confined to a 2 year cycle.

Take gears of war 3 for example, I'm confident that game would not be as amazing as it was if it wasn't delayed until the holidays. Sometimes that last coat of polish is what does it.

Just not caving in to the publisher/marketing ideas about things like multiplayer, they needed to take ME2 & improve the mechanics/menus some, throw in the new story & send it off without multiplayer, endless mass effect cameos from characters or easy mode.

Probably nothing. 99% of the comments I've read complaining about the ending are completely divorced from any semblance of common sense. A different ending wouldn't make those people any less stupid/crazy/incapable of original thought. The scant few that were dissatisfied with the ending for rational reasons were no more numerous than the number of people that normally end up being dissatisfied with the end of a game.

@Galiant said:

@Nottle said:

@Death_Unicorn said:

Not get bought by EA.

I'd say pretty much this. ME2 was where things began to change for the worse.

Are you saying you prefer ME1 to ME2? Because I thought ME2 was a lot more fun to actually play and I don't feel that it was "worse" than ME1 in any way.

OT: The ending did not bother me, they could've left it as it was. The extended cut was a nice addition but I felt that it only told me more about what I already knew. The series was a great experience as a whole. I still don't think getting bought by EA is a good thing for any company in the long run, though...there are numerous things I don't like about the way they do business. Origin is one.

EDIT: Rushing games to get them out quicker is another.

Yeah, to me control wise ME2 feels clunky and has less depth. Don't get me wrong, it's fine, but there are many things that I don't think people get about ME1 or that I don't get about ME2. I have a theory that some people that didn't like ME1 as much played Soldier or the wrong class for them.

I wasn't a real fan of ME1 until about a year ago I decided to play it again to clean up the achievements, this meant playing it 4 more times. I grew to appreciate the combat and overall story much more than. The universal cooldown in ME2 make that game feel much different and some of the powers for my preferred class lack the punch they once had. In ME1 you could use all your powers whenever because they had individual cool downs; because of this my adept had control of everything in a room.

ME2 does some great stuff, the graphics are amazing, though i think it lost some of it's style. ME1 created this scifi world that's gameplay concessions were well explained in the lore. The space suits weren't combat armor like in ME2 and 3 because they already had shields, guns did't need to be reloaded because guns worked by shooting out shaved pieces of metal. In ME2 they got rid of that interesting scifi stuff and replaced it with heat sinks, thus making the guns in that game like the guns in any other game.

There was a lot of stuff in ME1 that sucked that they should have just fixed instead of ripping it out. The Mako, the uncharted worlds, and the inventory stuff; it could have been done well. Though I don't hate anyone in ME1 (I warmed up to Kaiden and Ashley while getting achievements) ME2 has a much better cast and really nice character moments. Also ME1 has AWFUL pacing but then again the Citadel is there for the player to learn about the universe. If someone could just mix more elements I liked from ME1 into ME2 it would be perfect.

Stop making the series after the first game.

@Ares42: @Nottle: I agree with a lot of what you're both saying. I enjoyed ME2 more than ME1, but many of the things from ME1 that were flawed would've been interesting to see enhanced in ME2 instead of removed/replaced.

I think Brad actually had a good solution for this. Just have your choices define your ending. Like, have the catalyst say "because you did this at that time, this is going to happen now". Pretty weird that they didn't do that. Also, just make the last mission more like ME2's last mission. Like, your enitre squad from both 2 and 3 should be on earth for the final mission, and you just choose who does what. Ah well, I liked ME3 a lot, and the ending didn't bother me that much. Learned a long time ago that the journey is more important than the destination.

@Nottle said:

@Death_Unicorn said:

Not get bought by EA.

I'd say pretty much this. ME2 was where things began to change for the worse.

Mass Effect 1 had dreadful gameplay and a hideous frame rate on the 360, Mass Effect 2 improved tenfold and didn't really remove the exploration aspects, unlike the shitshow that was 3.

and no I didn't play soldier

@Death_Unicorn said:

Not get bought by EA.

@Sooty said:

@Nottle said:

@Death_Unicorn said:

Not get bought by EA.

I'd say pretty much this. ME2 was where things began to change for the worse.

Mass Effect 1 had dreadful gameplay and a hideous frame rate on the 360, Mass Effect 2 improved tenfold and didn't really remove the exploration aspects, unlike the shitshow that was 3.

and no I didn't play soldier

I found ME1 to be a more tactical experience. The gameplay and framerate didn't really bother me. I actually think there are less annoying things during combat in ME1 than 2. The cooldowns and your manuevarability are more restricted in ME2.

The soldier comment was a joke. Seems like whenever I hear someone on the bombcast talk about Mass Effect they are playing in what I'd consider the most boring ways possible. Though I do think people should try out more classes.

There were hardly any exploration aspects to ME2. There was the Normandy crash site DLC and Omega was somewhat open. Granted, the exploration in ME1 was tarnished by the Mako never quite being able to make it up the terrain.

@RedCream said:

I was just really wondering what could Bioware have done better to fix the mess they made with the Mass Effect 3 ending.

Have different "fans".

There is no "mess" with the Mass Effect 3 ending, only the existance of a group of people who are incapable of distinguishing between what's objectively bad and what they personally find displeasing, the ending had flaws, but by no means were those flaws of the caliber people are describing, as much cliché as it sounds, this is an issue about consumer entitlement through and through.

Insist on an additional year of development time. The way it came together seemed to me to be at least partially a product of a rush job.

The ending isn't the most offensive thing to me about the game. It is deeply flawed far beyond just the writing. There's the funky side quest process. The pacing. The goddawful reaper minigame thing on the galaxy map. Far fewer neutral options in dialogue. The completely fucked galactic readiness bullshit. Holding a critical side character (Prothean) back for day 1 DLC/special edition package. Leviathan DLC apparently containing story content that should have been in the initial release.

I blame both Bioware and EA for this. Bioware for not sticking up for themselves and demanding full control of their products. EA, of course, for pushing around their developers and taking far too much control over creative direction.

Most of ME3 worked out well so I wouldn't recommend they change that much. If they would have the chance to do it differently, I would have to recommend the writers pull in more of the staff for the ending. It is clear the group who handled the ending was smaller and didn't involve the groups who worked on the other sections. Pulling them all in they would have a lot more people reviewing and making sure the ending felt proper.

More naked blue aliens.

After the shit ending they released there was nothing they could do to make things better. At least they released free DLCs to fix the ending before they released DLC people had to pay for, so thats something they did right. Unlike say X-com which didnt even bother to fix its own bugged out gameplay before dishing out DLC to pay for...

Other than that I think storywise ME1 was superior to the others, the end sequence in ME2 was a joke, and the end in ME3 was even more of a joke. The path towards the end in ME3 was a thrilling ride though, and even though I personally went berserk after experiencing an ending that made me feel like ripping someones heart out while yelling "KALIMA!" , that game was pretty awesome as a whole.

Gameplaywise ME1 was probably weakest in the series, but the overarching story was superior to ME2, which improved alot of the gameplay. Personally loved the fact that you could talk Saren into submitting at the end, hated that you had to fight reaper-saren after that though... whats with gamecompanies and shitty bossfights at the end. Are they really a necessity in modern gaming? In that regard I suppose ME3 did something right in their endingsequence.

I forgot to check my messages, so I'll just post again.

For the record, I think Mass Effect 1 was the best of the three.

Criticize away.

Kept the writers that did the first two games, and only those writers.

And it would have also helped if they didn't turn ME into a third person cover based shooter explosionfest with only traces of RPG mechanics.

Don't focus on inciting theorizing and debate. Explain, explain, explain!

The time for subtlety was the past two games. Theorizing can be fun, but Mass Effect 3 should have been revelatory in addition to wrapping up all of the subplots.

If From Ashes and Leviathan had been included in the original game, the anger over the ending would have been mostly gone.

By the way, anyone who says that Mass Effect 1 is a better playing game than Mass Effect 2 is absolutely fucking insane. I can see why someone would personally prefer 1 over 2 and I think that's totally valid. But Mass Effect 2 objectivity improved so much of the actual gameplay parts of Mass Effect 1.

It just seemed like a game that could have spent more time in the development oven. I loved some parts of Mass Effect 3, but those tedious fetch quests (if you can even call them "quests") just seemed like cheap padding. I sort of liked the game's multiplayer, but would rather the developer's focused their attention solely on the campaign. Parts of the game just felt rushed. Even so, BioWare made a quality pice if entertainment, and I'm excited to see where they go after Dragon Age 3.

I think I would try to please everyone somehow.

@Milkman said:

By the way, anyone who says that Mass Effect 1 is a better playing game than Mass Effect 2 is absolutely fucking insane.

This.

I feel like after having played Leviathan, there was a ton of promise there for an entirely different Mass Effect 3 story if they just implemented the story they laid down in that DLC as opposed to the story we got out of the box.

Make the ending not an option but something that is decided for you based on actions from previous games.

Those fetch quests and scanning in 3 killed the pace of the game. The side missions involving old crew and the missions where you are on the ground like the bomb defuse on Tuchanka were fucking awesome. They should have had an Assassin's Creed style thing where you could manage crews to send for the fetch quests and in return they gave you actual rewards as opposed to an increased number in the galaxy defence thing. I think the reason I preferred mineral mining in ME2 was that It gave you rewards that benefited gameplay or were shown to be clearly useful in the endgame. Here, all you efforts are turned into a number so you care less.

Also, I'm sure Mass Effect 2 had a few poor side missions here and there but they were not forced upon you like they felt like they were in 3. The parts that were essential to doing the best were the Main Mission(Great) and the loyalty Missions (Great) but because of the Galactic readiness, I felt like I had to do a lot more of the garbage.

Better written dialogue. I wasn't really unhappy by the content of some of the conversations in Mass Effect 3 but some of the lines were cringe worthy.

My biggest problem with 3 was that they made the crew from 2 feel insignificant. Meeting all your crew from 2 was awesome, having them say they need to do other things was not so great. Some of them didn't even give good reasons. Miranda, Jacob and Samara gave shit reasons for not joining your crew.

All this being said, I preferred 3 to 1 by a long shot and was one of my favourite games of 2012.

@Ares42: Mass Effect was always supposed to be an "action RPG". In ME2, they really got the gameplay working pretty well and streamed lined the entire game. Not sure when the last time you played ME1 was but that game was sort of busted from a menu, and gameplay system. That being said, the story in ME1 was world better than 2.

@JCGamer said:

@Ares42: Mass Effect was always supposed to be an "action RPG". In ME2, they really got the gameplay working pretty well and streamed lined the entire game. Not sure when the last time you played ME1 was but that game was sort of busted from a menu, and gameplay system. That being said, the story in ME1 was world better than 2.

ME 2 and 3 weren't action RPGs though, they were third person shooters. It's been a while since I played ME1, but I've always been under the impression that there's a disconnect between people who played it on console and PC. I played it on PC myself and never had any issue with any of the assorted things people have complained about with that game.

@Death_Unicorn said:

Not get bought by EA.

Pretty much this, when you have all the DLC the game kind makes sense. If EA didn't forced them to have some of the game as DLC it would have likely not sucked, the also most likely planned adding different ending DLC and changed their mid after the complains.

Also they really play on their weaknesses with the whole AI-organic philosophy ( self teaching AI that's millions of year old and has fucking mind-control power... can't understand organics way of thinking , you thought that trough a lot didn't you ? ) and not on their strengths ( epic speeches, huge space battles and bad ass command operations ) like they did in ME2.

Bioware should have probably never touch the ending, even if fanboys complain over and over. I would have been hilarious if Bioware said " you don't like it, make your own game..."

@Milkman said:

If From Ashes and Leviathan had been included in the original game, the anger over the ending would have been mostly gone.

By the way, anyone who says that Mass Effect 1 is a better playing game than Mass Effect 2 is absolutely fucking insane. I can see why someone would personally prefer 1 over 2 and I think that's totally valid. But Mass Effect 2 objectivity improved so much of the actual gameplay parts of Mass Effect 1.

But I thought they hadn't even started working on Leviathan until after the game was completed. That DLC was constructed purely to prop up the bullshit ending with a massive in-game info dump to justify the Catalyst's appearance and purpose.

@Hailinel said:

@Milkman said:

If From Ashes and Leviathan had been included in the original game, the anger over the ending would have been mostly gone.

By the way, anyone who says that Mass Effect 1 is a better playing game than Mass Effect 2 is absolutely fucking insane. I can see why someone would personally prefer 1 over 2 and I think that's totally valid. But Mass Effect 2 objectivity improved so much of the actual gameplay parts of Mass Effect 1.

But I thought they hadn't even started working on Leviathan until after the game was completed. That DLC was constructed purely to prop up the bullshit ending with a massive in-game info dump to justify the Catalyst's appearance and purpose.

You're right. But I'm saying if they had actually included that information in some form in the main game, the ending would have been much easier to swallow.

People still defend that poorly written ending? I thought we were finished with that whole knee-jerk defense of bioware.

The problems were before the game came out. They handled it pretty well after the fact.

1) Not sell out

2) Read "How to make an RPG for dummies".

3) Not make a third person shooter

4) Actually have people with a degree in, or experience with writing.

It was obvious from the original shipped product that they rushed this game out with a rushed an unfinished story. That ending was LAZY. They barely tied together anything from the past 2 games in a meaningful way. The 3 different colored options is NOT an ending.

They shouldn't have worked on that shitty multiplayer (I think you people are out of your god damn minds for liking that boring horde mode thing) and instead focused on the actual game.

I might be alone in this but I don't think they should have wrapped up everything so nicely. For example the Krogan story was wrapped up so nice that it leaves even more questions. Are they going to rebel? Did you make the right choice? Now THAT could have been a whole game in itself, resolving the conflict of them being sterilized.

I am truly offended by the From Ashes and Leviathon being paid DLC also. I actually paid for "From Ashes" on release and it was cool but not something that should have cost $10. But Leviathon provided ALL the context I needed to make the ending make a lick of sense. It was among the most interesting piece of universe story that game has to offer. Fucking nonsense that it was no included. On top of it I am not going to go back and play a game that I already wrapped up.

Seriously, Bioware was "EA-ed" so bad that I probably will never pre order a game again. I also am going to be skeptical about every franchise I fall in love with from now on because they already fucked me on Dragon age 2 (which was complete dog shit), and then they fucked up mass effect 3.

Man... I actually wish I just never played the third game. Wasn't worth the frustration.

The fanbase expected a 'Magnum Opus'- Bioware's masterpiece. Rightfully so, in my opinion.

Mass Effect 3 was a better playing game than the two that came before, and it had some stellar highpoints. A 'Magnus Opus' however, it was evidently not. In the end, EA/Bioware simply didn't put enough effort into making the game. It seems that the project's leads lacked the convictions to successfully persuade EA's top brass for the time and money Mass Effect 3 would have needed to become Bioware's Magnus Opus - which it had to be, and deserved to be.

Shareholders run the show at EA. It seems a majority of them only thinks in short term dividends. EA's top brass runs scared ever since their 'All Original IPs' campaign failed to perform to expectations in the short term, and are thusly reluctant to stick their necks out, and go against shareholder's short term interests. Their absolute compliance with targeted release schedules and projected earnings, as well as the pursuit of soley lowest common denominator productions, pushed out at the highest possible efficiency and lowest risk, ensures their continued employment.

I feel that EA's current top brass lacks the convictions to actually lead. Money talks - which sadly is to the detriment of games like Mass Effect 3. It should have been a prestige project for EA, but instead of prestige, it was the bottomline that drove that production - if not into the ground, then certainly off track.

That is all I've got to say.

Anything significant they could've done about the ending, they would have to have done long before the game was released. Post-release, I think they've handled everything as well as can be expected.

As for the ending itself, I think it was killed by (among other things, like a rushed timetable and the loss of significant creative talent) BioWare's stubbornly clinging to the notion that everything in a Mass Effect game has to be a choice. I didn't necessarily want an end-game choice; I wanted the end-game to be a culmination of my choices thus far.

That, combined with the fact that they retconned so much of the Reaper fiction that they established in the first Mass Effect, really killed parts of the ending for me. I would have been more accepting of an ending in which the Reapers just killed everybody and the cycle went on than with what they must have thought at the time to be a crowd-pleasing ending in which humanity survives, because we're humanity and we can't ever die in fiction.

@DG991: Pretty much my thoughts entirely. EA pretty much strangled the life out of Mass Effect. They only cared about getting the game out by a certain deadline. Anything afterwards they had no problem selling it later as DLC. To those at EA who run the show, GET FUCKED!