@Clonedzero said:

@Butz: so the reason behind the huge outcry about the ME3 isn't relevant? are you kidding? its the entire point behind the entire article. without the ME3 ending situation this article wouldn't exist. thus them getting that simple fact right is pretty significant.

i get it. you like patrick, thats cool, i'd probably have a beer with him too. but he's a terrible journalist. don't stick up for him when he fails, it doesnt do anyone any good.

Exactly. If an article is based on poorly researched fact, then the entire read's bound to be tainted by baseless facts, and no-one likes reading baseless opinions. It takes less than 5 minutes of research to disprove Patrick's claim of us wanting a save the princess ending.

@Clonedzero: correct it is irrelevant in the context of this article

I get it you don't like the article, that's cool but calling him a terrible journalist because if it seems pretty ridiculous to me

They wrote a lousy ending, that's that. Maybe because they thought they could actually finish it with DLC and make more money that way. In any event, the vast, vast majority of games have endings that people are perfectly satisfied with. All this talk is missing the entire point.

Was I the only person who hated Lost? I feel like such a pariah now :(

who died?

@Fishdingo5: Hate is too strong. I basically couldn't see what the "wonderment" of Lost was and kind of giggled when I found out what the ending turned out to be.

Great article, Patrick. Loved reading the full conversation.

Everyone who feels strongly one way or the other about ME3's ending should listen to this episode of the PC Gamer Podcast. http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/03/23/pc-gamer-us-podcast-310-mass-effect-3-spoilers/

They have one of the best discussions about the whole thing that I've heard yet, they treat both sides with respect, and they actually managed to make me excited about the prospect of further games in the Mass Effect universe even with the galaxy all shot to hell like it is. If you don't believe that's possible, you'll just have to listen and see for yourself.

@Kamisaki said:

Great article, Patrick. Loved reading the full conversation.

Everyone who feels strongly one way or the other about ME3's ending should listen to this episode of the PC Gamer Podcast. http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/03/23/pc-gamer-us-podcast-310-mass-effect-3-spoilers/

They have one of the best discussions about the whole thing that I've heard yet, they treat both sides with respect, and they actually managed to make me excited about the prospect of further games in the Mass Effect universe even with the galaxy all shot to hell like it is. If you don't believe that's possible, you'll just have to listen and see for yourself.

Awesome podcast, I'll echo your sentiment and say that people should listen to that podcast for the reason listed above.

@Tennmuerti said:

@Mike76x said:

@Tennmuerti said:

1. They took away the indoctrination explanation and mechanic of Shepard being fully under Reaper control. They left all the beginnings of the indoctrination intact, and chose not to explain it.

2. They took out all the indoctrination? So your Shepard didn't have nightmares with oily shadows, and see people that weren't there? Never woke up on a battlefield that suddenly looked like a past dream?

The last time Shepard landed on a planet in an intact armor he was found in chunks. He wouldn't survive orbital re-entry, he probably would've fried before hitting the ground. Anything entering Earth's atmosphere has to deal with 3,000 degrees F (1,650 degrees C) temperatures his armor was trashed an in no way able to survive that, then there's the actual impact, and according to you all the man-made structures that then fell on top of him.

1. Where is the statement that Shepard is indeed indopctrinated? Nowhere. It was a sequence that was there. They took it out. They changed the ending as a narative both on a global scale and on a local scale several times. Christ the conflict was not even initially meant to be synthetics vs. organics, it could have been dark matter. Who is to say that indoctrination was not their plan for Shepard and they they decided to scrap it along with the uncontrollable segment. Nowhere is it stated. Indoctrination of Shepard is fully possible as being one of their endings that got scrapped as an idea.
I do in fact fully believe that Sheppard being indoctrinated is one of the avenues Bioware explored.
It is not however the path they necessarily chose to keep.
It rmains speculation.

We can guess all we want.
One can speculate just as well the other way.
There is no definite proof.

2. You are assuming that nightmares are part of the indoctrination. This is just part of the indoctrination theory. You are again presenting it as if it is fact.
Shepard having nightmares can be just that him having nightmares. Any person under extreme pressure can have sleep issues.
Recurring dreams that have to do with your big real life issues are not uncomon.

They don't have to take shit out.
Because it is shit some people came up with.
It may very well be indoctrination related, but it might not.

Shepard "surviving" orbital re entry by himself in armor is just as plausible as Shepard surviving orbital re entry while on the Citadel.
He can be protected by the force fields present on the citadel that are protecting him duting the end sequence. Or he could be flung (since it's space and free fall) into a built up section of the Citadel and be protected inside a builing.
Citadel does not have to fall on top of him. That you even suggest that shows that you aren't looking for a serious argument. Just as frankly I am not on the indoc theory (since if it's true then it's just more shit at the end of the game like i mentioned several times)
Shepard can be on the occupied side of the Citadel and it fall on it's side that faces out, the space wall. Done. He is fully protected.

Fuck the Citadel does not even have to fall to Earth. It can still be spiralling in space after the explosion.
Shepard is just as likely to be lying in the rubble on the Citadel still in space.

Even him surviving in armor the way he did in ME2 is total bollocks.
Showing once again that Bioware does fuck up.
(just like the comical human proto reaper)


Honestly we can debate fine points for a long time.
But it will remain that there are currently no facts, just assumptions.
Frankly i don't care.
Indoctrination theory is shit to me not because it might be implausible or something, it migh very well be true.
But this theory removes the end completely. There is no end. Reapers be reaping. The epic conclusion to the trilogy has no final conclusion.
To me no ending is far worse then shit ending. I'm fine on my acceptance stage of the grief process.It might make the pain easier for some people who believe Bioware can't be so dumb as to have fucked up so badly and are actually super clever. It's a perfect denial stage bait.But their past track record does not concur. Bioware fucks up plenty and it's been their increasing trend in the last few years after joining EA. Their confessions on how fucked up the process of creating the ending was and how it was left untill the last moments just keeps on solidifiying this.You are fine with having no ending over a shit ending? All the more power to you. This is incredibly off topic by the way. If you want to convince people of how factual indoctrination theory is, this isn't the thread for it.

No ending is better because it leaves the possiblity for them to add more details and craft an actual ending that satisfies rather than have to withdraw what they gave us in an act of bending to fan pressures. I don't believe they should have to take it that far, they should hold proud to their authorial integrity, but also realize that leaving details unexplained and creating new questions with the ENDING is in fact the exact opposite of what an ending should be by definition. An ending to a story exists to give you a point to just walk away. Satisfied with what you experienced, reflective, uplifted, somber, whatever, Not every ending should be the same, as it should be in tune with the narrative presented in the moments leading up to it. But at the end, the audience's work should be done. We shouldn't have to ask why something happened, or what that means for the characters involved, because we should KNOW because that's what the ending TOLD us.

FAIR WARNING: I ramble and meander here. Stream of consciousness be what it be.

This whole ambiguity thing is total bullshit and as "art" is a fucking cop-out. As many of the podcasts and articles I have listened to/read have proven, everyone who has played Mass Effect as a whole comes away with an amazing and unique journey. THOSE are the discussions we should be having as the player. We should be sharing our journey, reveling in the moments we saw, and even more in the moments we DIDN'T see but others did. Those are the magic moments this series has brought to us and to gaming as a whole.

If we are left to speculate what happens at the end of this series, it will, as is plain to see, only create arguments, because all of our experiences are sooooo different. If we are not TOLD how things end, we will be forced to build our own theories (as shown by the Indoctrination Theory that is on it's own terribly polarizing) that no one will ultimately agree on, because, wouldn't you guess it, the game doesn't specifically tell us which is the right answer. WE WANT TO KNOW. Yes, we want to be told what to believe! That's the whole point of playing the game! Of ANY story! We don't have to think, we just have to take part in it, be lead through it. Be a part of it, yes, but also know that there is a large part of it that is still out of our control, that has been decided for us. That is what makes it exciting.

Fuck, long story short, whoever involved at Bioware decided that leaving the ending open to interpretation is lazy and uncreative, and ultimately afraid. And if they were afraid people wouldn't like what they had to say, well look at what happened. I cannont comprehend why anyone thought it was a good idea, but ultimately I'm sure it comes down to the biggest enemies in this industry: Money and Deadlines.

Thanks, Patrick.

It's nice to know that, whether or not I agree with you guys on the issue of changing ME3's ending, I know that at least the issue of the ending's faults isn't something to be swept under the rug here.

Stop using "entitlement" Giantbomb, I don't think you or Entertainment know what it means.

Is EA "Entitled" to my wallet? Fuck no. As long as that's true, I'm not "entitled" to purchase their low-quality games. If they think their ending is so great - that's awesome! Because they can enjoy it all by themselves. I don't want your products anymore. I hope you're enjoying being homless, because you're not entitled to that salary either. You work for it. You work for me. And if I don't like the direction you take with games (ME3 is a joke, with or without its awful ending), I don't give you my money.

I spent last week replaying Baldur's Gate 2 and I'm seriously wondereing why they didn't replace James Vega with Minsc. Fuck, space marine Minsc would be 100x more interesting than "Hey I'm a Mexican-American"-Vega.

When you try to “challenge” your audience by doing something you know they won't like, you run the risk of succeeding.

I've read all of the comments, and I don't think I have all that much to add beyond what has been said already, and it's probably too late, but I think I should give it a shot anyway. Wall of text ahead, you have been warned.

My problems with the ending is not that it wasn't "happy" or that I "didn't get to save the princess". It was that it was poorly written, and it broke promises BioWare had made to us.

Implicitly, they promised to continue making art of the same quality that they had in the first games. I have defended video games as art for a very long time, to friends and family and random passers-by, and the example I used to use was the Mass Effect series.

In Mass Effect 2, I had one of the most dramatic and tragic scenes in a love story ever. As my Shepard prepared for what could be her last ever mission, possibly sacrificing her friends, allies and herself to save humanity and intelligent life in the galaxy, she looked over to a picture of Liara. Shepard had someone she cared about, who wasn't there, and it was a deeply personal reason to fight this fight and make these sacrifices.

It didn't take more than 15 seconds, but that moment was *art*. And it was a kind of art that only exists in video games; that moment happened as a result of my choices as a player, and no other medium allows that. I went with Liara over Kaidan, and didn't go with anyone in Mass Effect 2 (Kelly Chambers doesn't count). I didn't even have to go with anyone at all in Mass Effect 1, but I did.

Patrick wrote a long news story about how he was going to play Mass Effect 3, but without Miranda, because she was dead, and that was the story he had created. I'm going to spoil the ending of Mass Effect 3 for him now if he *had* saved Miranda in Mass Effect 2. The final impact she has on the ending is "25". If you don't play any multiplayer at all, it's 12,5.

I did not think the ending was bad because it wasn't happy. I thought the ending was bad because it was wholly *inadequate*.

From the start, BioWare promised us that our choices would impact the final moments. That it wouldn't be just a choice between A, B and C, and that we wouldn't be given the exact same ending FMV that everyone else gets. As consumers, that's false advertisement, and we're "entitled" to be outraged.

But as appreciators of art, we are "entitled" to be outraged because the art is SO BAD, from artists that were SO GOOD. Right up until the ending.

You can choose to save the quarians, or save the geth. My friend saved the quarians. My other friend saved the geth. I saved *both*, because I'm awesome, because of the choices *I* made, and because I've diligently transferred my unique save from computer to computer right up until the final moments. We all had *exactly* the same ending.

If they can fix this with DLC, and patch in a new ending, that's not artistic bankrupcy. They've even done that before. In the Shadow Broker DLC for Mass Effect 2, you can, as a result of your choices, have a powerful, touching moment with Liara, as she and Shepard admit they are still in love, and kiss. And for my second playthrough of Mass Effect 2, the exact same moment where Shepard looks over at the picture of Liara, became *more* powerful, because now there was someone to go back to, and there wasn't before that DLC. It became *better* art.

*That's* why I feel "entitled" to retake Mass Effect.

*EDIT*

While I was typing this, BioWare announced the Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut, coming this summer. Free of charge.

I am proud of BioWare for admitting to their mistake, and for EA for giving them the resources to fix it. But the weaselly worded press release is a *reeeeal* cause for concern. Do it right, BioWare. Make choices matter, make the best video game writing out there, and end it competently. Make art, BioWare.

@mrpandaman said:

@Kamisaki said:

Great article, Patrick. Loved reading the full conversation.

Everyone who feels strongly one way or the other about ME3's ending should listen to this episode of the PC Gamer Podcast. http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/03/23/pc-gamer-us-podcast-310-mass-effect-3-spoilers/

They have one of the best discussions about the whole thing that I've heard yet, they treat both sides with respect, and they actually managed to make me excited about the prospect of further games in the Mass Effect universe even with the galaxy all shot to hell like it is. If you don't believe that's possible, you'll just have to listen and see for yourself.

Awesome podcast, I'll echo your sentiment and say that people should listen to that podcast for the reason listed above.

I'm a little late to the party, but I found this podcast a bit difficult to listen to. Even though they went out of their way to talk about how the general journalistic press was treating discontent fans poorly (as whiners or crybabies) and downplaying the use of the loaded word "entitlement," they STILL could not help themselves from generalizing petitioners and fans and using some strawman arguments to take a certain portion of everyone's general discontent and attack it... without addressing the problem at large. Namely, I don't think everyone was displeased with the ending because it was unhappy. I sure wasn't. I'm glad that they talked about *SPOILERS*

the endings of RDR and LAN as bittersweet endings. On a tangent, Odin Sphere had a very similar "bittersweet" ending as ME3 and I loved it! Fans did not seethe and outrage at these melancholy but overall great endings.

*END SPOILERS* Yet the PC Gamer podcast spent a good 30 minutes or more talking about how endings don't have to be happy, and that people liked other unhappy endings because they weren't as "vested" as in ME3... I call hogwash :) I am unhappy with the ending because marketing promised that our endings will be distinct (over 16 endings promised) and that our choices matter. While the latter portion is debatable (or choices matter... by adding to a score), the former is not. There is a green, blue, and red ending, and pretty much everything else is identical (except for the couple of people who exit the Normandy). The PC Gamer podcast did not address the fact that ME Universe codex and Arrival DLC explicitly dictate that the destruction of a Mass Relay will also have grave consequences with the solar system it is in (hello Earth?).

I loved the game, heck I loved the last mission. I do wish they didn't make the "galactic readiness score" so obvious, but overall I thought it was a great game. I just expected more out of the ending than a complete deus ex machina with a character we had never met or heard of in the prior 200+ hours we spent in the game. I can't stand when video games do that (hello Zemus), and not many movies that I know of do that either (other than the oft-compared and horrible end to the Matrix trilogy).

In conclusion, I have no problem with sad or unhappy or bittersweet endings, and I don't mind if all endings leave the Mass Effect Relays destroyed. However, I strongly feel that they did not lead up to that ending in a satisfying manner, with poor reveals, little care shown to characters, and identical endings other than color for the "important" decision at the end of the game. I've listened to many journalistic press podcasts do little but bash complainers with strawman arguments, and while I hoped the PC Gamer guys would be better than that, they sadly were not.

ME3 ending is not like Lost or Sopranos. ME3 ending is more like Smallville ending. Uber rushed.

I've never seen Lost so this article didn't really make any sense to me. They almost talked about Lost more than Mass Effect.