I've heard a lot about how people are raging about the ending, but I've not understood exactly what people are raging about. What is it that people would have wanted to see instead?

My only concern with the ending is what it means for the future of the franchise. I think the aliens and the world established in ME is as good or better than other big sci-fi like Star Trek and Star Wars. So I'd love to see more games and such in the universe. I guess if they ever do an MMO it would have to take place pre ME3.

As much as I hate to think that the ending of ME3 might mean the end of the ME universe as we know it (since the post-ME3 ME-universe is going to be so different no one would recognize it as ME without the Citadel or the ME gates and all that stuff that is now gone) it takes balls for them to end with an ending rather than just a cliffhanger for a ME4. As it stands now they can do a ME0,1.5,2.5, but never a ME4, at least that what it seems like to me.

Personally I love the universe and would love more games and it makes no business sense to kill off Bioware's most succesful IP (I'm pretty sure ME has sold more than Jade Empire or Dragon Age and KotOR and Baldur's Gate were not their own IP).

What would you like to see in a new non-Shepard ME game? I personally think that the pre-Reaper threat era would be interesting, meaning a Mass Effect Zero of sorts. Maybe you can play as Anderson, or maybe even another species like an Asari or something.

The only problem for more ME games as I see it is that they don't have much time to work with. Unlike Star Trek that takes place over centuries, as I understand it the humans in ME have only been at the galactic stage for a couple of decades and apart from the First Contact War (the war with the Turians) there's no major conflict in that time span except for the Reaper invasion. All the other stuff like the Rachni Wars and such were long before the humans even had discovered flight and I doubt they make a game without any humans in it.

I'd be cool with playing a game built around you being an Asari Justicar. Part LA Noire and part being a badass biotic killing machine.

I would love to see an MMO. Do I think it would be good or could be done right? Doubt it.

@Grixxel said:

I would love to see an MMO. Do I think it would be good or could be done right? Doubt it.

I'd love an MMO as well, if only because I don't think any other genre would allow the same exploration of the universe. But if they make a ME MMO it better not be like SWTOR which is very linear. I don't want Noveria to be the lvl 22-26 planet and the Citadel to be tha 10-16 planet etc. I want a more sandboxy kind of MMO, maybe with the dynamic events system from Guild Wars 2 where you just explore and stuff just happens rather than you following a linear path.

I would love to see an MMO. Do I think it would be good or could be done right? Doubt it.

The thing I dislike most about the ending is the smashing of the Mass Effect gates. Shephard's dead? Cool! He died a hero and I can't say that I fully expected Bioware to let him live anyway! But to destroy the Mass Effect gates so that travelling all over the place like before is no longer viable? Why would you write a story like that? The gates were pretty much key to sharing technology, information, cultures, knowledge, etc. I think that destroying those kind of destroyed something key to the Mass Effect universe.

Anyway, as of now I've gotten all I want out of the Mass Effect story. It was a hell of a ride, and I'm glad I took it, but it's time for me to get off and find a different one to enjoy. I just want the series to be held in memory, and I want Bioware to move on and make something else.

I'd like more stuff in the criminal/spy underworld. That's one reason ME2 was awesome. Everything in ME1 was super clean and Gene Roddenbury optimism. ME2 is full of Bad Guy Bars, space slums, kingpins, space racists. The guy you answer to is a ruthless visionary, not a heroic old good guy. That's way cooler of a story.

Han is cooler than Luke.

rhythm game

To me the Mass Effect universe and lore is the best to ever come out of video games. You could say its just a mash up of Star Treks and Wars but there is something to the lore that I find very appealing. In ME2 and 3 I get really excited when I learn we are going back to the Citadel, I love just wondering around that city, theres so much atmosphere and detail. Now ME4 I think it's time for a new story in this universe how bout a prequel? Set in the time Earth finds the Mass Effect Relay on Mars. I think this would be a great time to tell in the ME universe, Humans first meeting the Aliens and the Aliens reactions to the Humans. Setting up relations with the various species of aliens and them relocating to the Citadel. Your character could start as a child being part of the first families to relocated to the Citadel. This timeline could span though the changes to the Citadel with about a hour of the game being set in your characters teenage years either studying biotics or skipping class and getting up to no good around the various areas of the citadel. Flash forward 10 years and your a soldier being sent to your first duty on another planet only your spaceship crashes on a Turian planet. you and 2 others have to make their way though the jungles until you find yourself in the Turian capital. Doing missions for their army just so you can get transport back to the citadel later on

a civ game or sim earth or something rebuilding the quarian home world

an entire social / personal interactions based game set on a group of ships heading somewhere without the aid of the mass relays (like BSG's fleet i suppose)

Good post.

I think one of the major things that attracted me to the ME universe was how fully realized it felt. They didn't just present a universe where "Krogans and Turians don't like each other, the End," they tied that animosity to a very specific event, which was itself tied with another historical event and so on back down the line. It works the way a lot of real world history works, with the solution to one problem or event directly or indirectly contributing to other problems or events further down the line (i.e. European alliances at the turn of the century leading to--> WWI leading to --> Treaty of Versailles which contributes to --> WWII which is ended by --> Atomic bomb which leads to --> Cold War). The level of detail and care they took to make sure the universe was internally consistent was really cool.

This is also the reason why the endings were kind of a bummer to me, since if they are taken at face value, it kind of throws all of that away. If the universe remains internally consistent, then the destruction of the mass relays will kill just about everyone (since it has previously been established that when a mass relay explodes, it takes most of the surrounding star system with it). This is part of the reason why I think the "Indoctrination Theory" is so popular. If it is true, then it provides an out of sorts for fans. The ending might be horridly ambiguous and confusing, but it at least doesn't necessarily throw away the entire lore and mechanics of the series.

Going forward with the series, I would like to see the same kind of consistent internal logic and sense of history that was present right up to the end of ME3. This is why, although I do want them to change the ending, I don't want a "perfect" ending. There needs to be closure for the characters, but enough loose ends in the universe to support another game. It would be cool if/when ME4 comes out if the plot were structured so that whatever crisis is being dealt with has a direct or indirect genesis in the events of the original trilogy.

I think bioware does smaller scale stories very well, (ok, the genophage and the geth vs. Quarians aren't small scale but they are smaller scale than SAVE THE UNIVERSE which is usually a generic story) For example Sarren as a character was way more interesting than the collectors because he was just a dude that went too far. He isn't some big corrupt bug monster.

I want to see more good characters and more interesting one off stories.

I'd like to see Mass Effect the Next Generation. Maybe lay off of the mass effect games for like 5 years, then make something great on the next generation of consoles, take the best ideas from the Mass Effect games (personally I'd like to see a more polished version of the combat from the 1st game), set the next game 500 years in the future. Let us have an entirely new crew with the exception of a certain returning Krogan or Asari. Let us see what has changed in 500 years, maybe the Vorcha and Batarians aren't as big of dicks, who knows.

I kinda just want an L.A Noire-style game set on the Citadel, where you work your way up from the Wards to the Presidium, with a few excursions to other planets maybe. 
I want a more slow-paced game set in that universe where you get to experience what it's like when shit isn't constantly going off and you're the one who has to save the galaxy. 
Too bad it probably won't take place after the Shepard trilogy considering how it ended. It would have been cool to see a statue of Shepard on the Citadel as you walk past to tell a Hanar to stop preaching...

Since everyone is being spoilery I wont hold back.

The problem with this whole multiple endings thing is that if they were to do a game in the ME universe after 3 (it won't be 4. They said this was a trilogy) they will invalidate the universe created by players.

Everyone here is talking about the relays being destroyed, but that's only one ending, but its your ending to this story. The other two endings the relays are still their allowing travel (although FTL travel is possible without them. Just play the game. You just can only travel within an area instead of the whole galaxy). One keeps the status quo, while the third transforms the entire population into biomachines.

I don't think a future ME game will do well honestly. Simply being in the same universe wont work. They may try something, but everyone will be disappointed.