Okay, so before I tackle anything else about Mass Effect 3, there’s one thing in particular I need to start off with… unfortunately, it will involve major spoilers so if you haven’t played through the thing already and want your experience to contain some semblance of surprise, stop reading now; I’ll see about getting to non-spoiler thoughts later. For the rest, well… I suspect you know what’s coming.
Right, so with the warning out of the way, let me just start by clarifying that for most part, I consider Mass Effect 3 excellent. The mechanics, once I’d adapted to them, are much improved, the multiplayer component was far more fun than I thought it would be, and there are several scenes throughout the game that, in my opinion, contains some of BioWare’s absolute best writing and voice acting ever. If it was solely down to that, then I could happily declare Mass Effect 3 my game of the year right here, right now. Sorry all other games, but outclassed and outplayed. Done.
Of course… then there’s the matter of the last 5-10 minutes of the game, which – again, in my opinion – contains some of the absolute worst things BioWare have done ever. And it comes so out of nowhere that it feels rather sour at best and like an outright stab in the back for the rest of it.
Okay, I do realize that not every game or story has to end on a high note and all, but here’s the thing – for me, Mass Effect is a journey about the Shepard – whoever your Shepard is, whatever gender they are, whatever their actions, seeing your Shepard through the long journey of three consecutive games is what the games are ultimately about. The result of all this is that my own Mass Effect experience is the journeys of Kate Shepard with her sidekick Garrus, her little sister Tali, her loud bro Wrex, her beloved Kaidan, her geeky friend Liara and that sarcastic bugger who helms the ship. The problem then about the last 5-10 minutes is that they’re not about that at all – they’re about this out of nowhere existensialist idea of organics versus synthetics and how Shepard gets to decide which colour of magical space explosions he or she wishes to unleash upon the galaxy when pressing the magical reset button that destroys all the mass relays.
Allow me to say no.
Don’t get me wrong either, games that attempt to tackle those sorts of questions can be interesting, and I thought Deus Ex: Human Revolution was really quite good, but it’s neither what I’d want or expect from Mass Effect – it’s not like Deus Ex where every single game ends on that kind of note, Mass Effect 1 ends on a triumph, Mass Effect 2 ends on a slider between total triumph and miserable failure, and then the third ends on Let’s Change The Fundamental Aspects of Life. Uh, okay BioWare. Great. Don’t think you could’ve told me this before I sunk three games worth of investment in?
Again, here’s the thing – I wanted to see the story of Kate Shepard and her friends. I cured the genophage and was declared honorary Krogan, sister and total badass of overkrogan Wrex, I brokered peace between Quarians and the Geth and got to see them start working together in peace – as equals – to forge a better existance for both of them. I got to be part of this amazing journey with characters I’ve grown fond of, and now at the very end I basically get told that none of it mattered in the least because no matter what I chose or did, everything gets reset as all the Mass Relays explode? Huh, yeah. You know, I don’t buy that. Just, no. Sorry, but no.
About three years ago, I wrote a ramble on Fallout 3 and the immensely negative reaction I had to its ending devaluing everything I had done up to that point by replacing it with something completely different – I began the very last paragraph with “I feel like I could use a quick dive into Mass Effect or similiar, now, just to get into a story that feels more providing for the characters themselves.”. Funny, then, how now three years later, Mass Effect has gone and done the very same thing.
Mind you, it’s not a total rejection this time – the multiplayer is still fun, and the last five to ten minutes aren’t enough to undo that long a journey, but just enough to leave it on a sour note. It’s a real shame, because up until that point, I thought it was great and I was really enjoying myself. Part of me is trying to kindle this faint hope that BioWare will go the same way Bethesda ultimately did and “fix” the ending in future DLC, but as I don’t find it very likely, I’ll have to settle for trying to rewrite the last few minutes in my own headcanon. The sad thing is that there isn’t all that much that has to be changed either, just that bit at the very end there.
“It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” the saying goes, and that’s fair enough, but it won’t stop me from wishing the destination had been somewhere I actually wanted to go.
Thoughts for Food 
Finished yesterday, and ever since I’ve had but one line thumping through my head.
“For is this the answer to our prayers, is this what God has sent?
Please understand this isn’t what we meant”
~Savatage: This isn’t what we meant.
I can’t say more than that, and I’ve also got a spot of indigestion after the game play.
Most sour 15 minutes ever.
Well i had the same experience after finishing it the first time, not with my me 1 or 2 savegames, but after importing an me 2 save witch was imported from me 1 and playing it a second time you might get the ending i saw and i found it a little bit more satisfying. Dont want to spill all the beans but i suggest playing it again wouldnt hurt at all.
I’ve actually seen that part – I can’t quite decide what exactly BioWare intended with it because it seems like it can mean one of two things: one of these doesn’t do anything to resolve most of my grievances, the other would mean BioWare just trolled their entire fanbase with a false ending.
Neither of which actually succeed in actually making me okay with the way the game ends, because they both require liberal applications of headcanon to change or adapt them to something remotely matching what the series have told me to expect. It’s not closure, it’s playing keep away with us.
Don’t get me wrong though, I’d love to see them go the Bethesda route and see them fix the ending via DLC – I’d totally pick that up, too; I might grumble about it, but I would. As it is though… no. They’re going to provide far more than a mere glimpse of a burnt, breathing armour for me to accept this ending.
I totally agree with you but it gave me a bit of hope that Bioware actually might go the DLC way and fix the ending.
I truly enjoyed playing the game and think the multiplayer is a really fun part of it. But it makes me a little sad if they completely rely on DLCs this way. I was disappointed when they stated that you had to buy the Prothean crewmate as a DLC, which i think is a really good and deep character.
But whatever they do with DLCs in the future i will spend the money either i like it or not. Cause i enjoy the Mass Effect universe very much.
Now, I start to get worried…
I still playing the game (I’m about at the half now) so I can only guess that the writers (or the director, dramaturg) failed to deliver some very important part.
Bioware said that the ending will make a lot of people engry, but also a lot of people will love it. So far I just don’t see the loving ones ^^°. Of course, the angry part always way louder so it’s not that surprising. But reading a disappointed review here is makes me worried. You usually hit the points I care about. 😦
About the DLCs: I’m actually pretty sure there will be something on that route. It was already stated that they plan a lot of DLCs to ME3. Of course they can be additional sidequests (like the Kasumi DLC) or aimed for the multiplayer part, but somehow I have a feeling that there will be something like the Shadowbroker or the Arrival.
And if you think about the last ME novel and the fact that it’s on the fix rignt now after the criticism, maybe an ending fix is possible. I don’t think they change the ending as it is (saying again, I did not see it yet) becouse of the writers intensions and story developement – as the writers themselves see – and other artsy stuff, but maybe “recut” and “expand” so the real intent delivered better, or in a more satisfactory way.
Yes. I’m an optimist and stupidly still believe 😀
Mmh, I feel a tad less optimistic about them changing the ending because of the way it’s presented; unless they deliberately ran with a “just a dream” ending, it seemed like they tried very hard to make it the final word. It might change, of course, but right now I’m still stuck trying to figure what to do with, you know, all this emotional investment that BioWare basically went out and said they don’t care in the least about.
And don’t get me wrong, if this really is the ending they wanted then fair play to them, and if some people do find it brilliant then that’s great. Personally, I’m starting to feel more along the lines of why should I ever bother investing in a BioWare franchise if they’re just going to stomp all over everything I grow to care about?
It’s kind of a pity too, because up until the very end, I thought Mass Effect 3 was brilliant. Then the ending basically devalues everything up until that point and, yeah. I just find it depressing, really. It’s their story and their right to tell it however they want, of course, but if I’d known the series would’ve ended this way I probably wouldn’t have had nearly the same enthusiasm for it.
“I just find it depressing, really.”
This was my thought too, I felt really.. depressed. Shepard had this great plan for after everything was over, the ‘little blue children’ that came up how many times? Three? And now she’s stuck on Earth (somehow still alive), Liara is on unknown jungle planet with Joker (where the heck were they even going?!) (forgive me EDI, i couldn’t save you and Shepard both) and now there’s no mass relay to cross great distances. They can’t have their happy ending that I’ve been hoping for since Lair of the Shadow Broker. That really depresses me.
Oh no edit:
SPOILER!
And YES I finally shot Udina. THAT worth everything. I was waiting for this for four years! Ah, the joy…
Considering this is a post about the ending, I think it’s safe to say spoilers are to be expected 😉
Shooting Udina and the Illusive Man I did very, very much enjoy.
My favorite renegade interrupt in Mass Effect 3 was actually the one where you get to introduce that Kai Leng bugger to the business end of your Omniblade. “Oh, I’m sorry, did your plot shield run out? well here, have this STAB“.
Sooooooo satisfying.
Udina I couldn’t really enjoy nearly as much, I was more just disappointed in him that he couldn’t be an annoying shit without also turning evil.
How could I forget the skewering of Kai Leng! That bastard sure had it coming. I remember sitting on the edge of my chair, just itching to put him down every single time I ran into him. Almost nothing felt as good as that STAB.
I truely agree that the last 5-10 minutes truely felt “off” and in parts also a bit out of character.
There is currently a theory around the web that the ending might be partly indoctrination.
As such, how ‘true’ the endings are might remain to be seen.
For example, Joker’s choice to fly away through a mass relay.
It seemed he picked up one of my squadmates, however my Shepard was left in the rubble.
I’ve seen similar theories saying that it was all just hallucinations following Shepard being blasted by Harbinger’s big red molten metal laser of doom and that the real ending hasn’t been provided yet, but none of that strikes me as obviously telegraphed enough to feel like the actual intention. If anything, the clip with Shepard inhaling strikes me more as an out they left themselves in case the response was overwhelmingly negative.
Which… I’m told it rather has been.
We’ll see what comes of it, I guess. For now, I just went and wrote my own short ending to replace the last few minutes, part to prevent the provided ending from souring the rest of the experience too much, part just to find some level of closure. If BioWare themselves provide a fix for the ending, great, I’ll see what it’s like. If they don’t… I’ll stick to my own, heh.
“Ah yes, decent endings.. we disproved that claim…”
Sorry, couldn’t resist, even though this has been done ad nauseam by now..
I completely agree with all of this, even though for me it was less of a backstab and more of disbelieving “WTF is this bullsh*t”. I definitely expected more – not a Disney-like happyend, just an ending that makes sense. Instead we got sort of Battlestar Galactica ending. As for the DLC fix, my inner cynic tells me that EA/Bioware did the endings with exactly this intention. Create bad endings, then make more money on better ones. My general feelings about ME3 boils down to “30 hours of awesomeness and fun murdered by the last 10 minutes”.
Just to add my opinion on ME3, below’s a list. Contains spoilers, but given the contents above…
The good things
—————
+ The reputation system instead of separate paragon/renegade scales. Seriously, Bioware should’ve done this long time ago
+ Squadmates and crew interacting with each other even outside missions. Same as above.
+ Some of the new characters. Javik is pure gold, Vega’s not far behind. As far as non-sqaddies go, the honorable mention goes to Traynor.
+ Even the old guys & gals have their shining moments. Bioware really outdid themselves here. The ones that hit me most were Liara (during and after Thessia, her interaction with Aethyta, you name it..), Garrus’ improvised shooting range and you-know-what, Samara on Lessus (IMO the best non-priority mission, I guess everyone did the paragon interrupt there), Ashley and Miranda – hell, I even started to like them… Then there’s Tuchanka and Rannoch, both of which are pure win for multiple characters, et cetera et cetera… And then there’s Conrad. Who would’ve guessed?
+ Just like in ME2, some renegade interrupts are just too good to miss. Han’Gerrel, meet Shepard’s fist.. Also, shooting Udina felt GOOOD.
+ Paragon options are no longer 100% safe bet. I consider that a good thing, even though I ended on the receiving end a couple of times. Poor Kelly.
Things people ranted about, but I really didn’t mind
—————————————————
– Zaeed-style interactions. Beats having to click my way through the interaction menu, only to find out that Normandy’s guns have to be calibrated every hour.
– Day-1 DLC, but the main reason here is its inclusion in the CE.
The not-so-good things
———————-
– EDI and her new body, Number Six.
– The nightmare parts. One would have been enough.
– TIM ending up as Saren 2.0.. Hello, wasted potential..
– Some rather glaring plot holes. Cerberus posessing the Human-Reaper core without having the means to cross Omega-4 safely (The Reaper IFF is still part of the Normandy) is the main offender here.
– Tali’s photo. Seriously, if they couldn’t do it properly (as in, in-game 3D model or at least original picture), they shouldn’t reveal her at all. Lazy photoshop is lazy.
– Unhealthy amount of bugs and import issues, but hey, new release. I ended up controlling the batarian fleet despite the fact I left Balak for dead over Terra Nova.
The seriously bad things
————————
Three guesses here.
Sorry for the incoherent rambling.
Huh, so that stock photo(shop) of Tali was actually a real thing in the game? I wasn’t sure whether to believe it or not when I saw an image of it.
As for the ending, I’m told there was a somewhat different one originally planned – most of the beats up to there were still the same, but the Reaper motivation was completely different, the choices you got at the end were completely different (and both of these actually tied into things the series has hinted towards previously) but supposedly these things all were changed after lead writer Drew Karpyshyn was transferred over to The Old Republic, with the replacement lead writer apparently deciding to rewrite those things into the ending we actually got.
I’m not one for witch hunts or putting blame for a certain feature or aspect squarely on the shoulders of one individual when AAA games are massive projects made by large teams who all pitch in, but if all of that is actually true then just “Wow… why BioWare? just WHY?”
Now, I realize this is all hearsay and my opinion is coloured by comparing the barest outline with a specific implementation that I resent, but at a glance the supposed original ending sounded far superior so I just boggle at the whole thing.
You’re thinking on the same lines I am then. Getting rid of Drew is probably the biggest mistake they made (makes you rethink why he’s left Bioware now). Sending the guy who made the Mass Effect universe to do something else is possibly the dumbest thing they could have done, other than decide the endings they made were a good choice.
“(IMO the best non-priority mission, I guess everyone did the paragon interrupt there)”
Uuuuuuuhhh, sure!
…
*cough*
Lotta ME2 peeps didn’t get to see the final battle, with my ren.
My biggest problem with the endings is that they do not seem to be connected with Mass Effect in the slightest. When I think about parts of 1 and 2; picture the style, the music and so on, it just seems so different from the ending of 3.
The popular theory at the Bioware forums is that Shep was under indoctrination. Evidence would be the strange dreams they keep having, the amount of Reaper tech they have been near and the way the ending sequence (after been blasted by Harbinger) plays out.
The theory at the moment goes that the Reapers are trying to trick Shepard to let them win. They say total control is the best option and that synthesis is second best. But both of these options kill Shepard and follow the plan of the Reapers. Destroying synthetics (which I couldn’t do because I did just unite the geth and quarian and also EDI) is played out as the evil choice, but it is the only one where Shepard wakes up at the end. People also point out that the Illusive Mans choice shouldn’t be the paragon blue option and Andersons choice shouldn’ be be the renegade red choice.
Whilst I like this theory there are some problems. If that were the case would the Reapers really need to show the relays explode, the Normandy crash and the crew possibly survive and also stargazer at the end. Plus at the point these parts are shown Shepard is already dead (maybe).
I preferred to right down ideas for how the endings should have played out. My favourites are either Shepard destroys all Reapers (and only them), is hailed as hero and her and Liara have little blue children. The other choice is femShep is transported into maleSheps universe and they become an unstoppable force =D
I wanted a Turian-Human freak with Garrus. *sniffle*
Well, that or adopting a Krogan baby.
anyone picked the rachni queen over the squad,it was so epic seeing grunt duke it out with all the reaper-fied rachni even tho he deads or MABBY NOT
I just finished ME3 minutes ago. As a Bioware hardcore fanboy and an ME-fan to an almost unhealthy level, I tried very hard to avoid spoilers and rumours on the interwebs regarding ME3, but it was impossible to dodge the “The ending suxx!1”-announcements. It was everywhere, my friends were at it, the gaming forums were at it, even chat channels in SWTOR were littered with it.
So I bit it together, and entrenched myself in my faith in Bioware.
Mass Effect 3 kicked ass. The start was a bit slow, but the other 90% of the game was the best game I have ever played, period. There were flaws, but they were so outshined by the game’s strong suits that I was blinded and caught unaware when THE ENDING of doom hit me.
3 choices, and I took the one where I destroyed the tube thing(as in, the right one, I wont go into details).
And it was…dissapointing. Was it the worst ending I’ve ever seen? No, but it was definetly not a “finish”, it wasnt a proper ending. It was lazy writing, and it was -horribly- undeserving of such a great series.
I still think the “red” option, although usually associated with “renegade”, was quite better then the other alternatives. I chose “red”, and watched the other endings over youtube, and the only ending that leaves the door open to an acceptable level to me is the red one. And it finishes the reapers on a level that I find a lot more desirable rather then “control”, which is just too confusing and leaves way too many questionmarks for me to be content with. Although if one is to belive the starchild creature, it might be the better option in the long run. If I ever do another playthrough of ME3, I’ll probably pick that one.
As for the middle choice….I found the consequenses of that one to be quite awful. Possibly because I resent the idea of being integrated with machinery and turning everyone in the galaxy into half-cyborgs.
All in all, the game was very well put together and 99% of it was top class stuff, but until/unless they add a better ending, one which respects the spirit of the series and of Shepherd him/herself, it will be, for me, a gigantic dissapointment.
I’ll keep my hopes up, and keep voting for, such a dlc to come in effect. An epilogue would be great. Bioware has demonstrated before that they are capable of listening to its customers and respecting them. This has severly damaged their credibility in that aspect(Apparantly, a -shitload- of people are angry), so who knows, maybe it will have enough of an impact to actually work.
One of the saddest things with all of this is… I’ve been thrown at least one youtube link (this if you’re wondering) that takes the ending and basically just recuts it, removing some of the more offending aspects and reordering it so you get the Anderson dialogue at the end.
And you know what? I think it makes for a decent enough ending that way. Cerberus is defeated, Reapers die, we get the final dialogue with Anderson (a dialogue I consider phenomenal for the record – even more so for the extended version), roll credits. Enough ambiguity that you can read a bit of what you want in it, doesn’t invalidate everything you’d fought to do up until that point, and ends with some of the most powerful writing and voice acting BioWare has ever produced.
I don’t get why they felt such a need to mess all that up by adding some of the most incoherent nonsense I’ve ever seen them put together. It’s just such a damn pity that such a great experience should end on such a sour note.
Oooh, that link was great. It works a lot better then the real ones, even if I would still personally add some epilogue stuff after “best seats in the house”. :p
The biggest mystery to me is this: Mass Effect 3 was a friggin’ masterpiece. The game was excellent in almost every aspect, even the multiplayer was fun as hell. And Bioware suddenly, in 15 minutes, turns the best game they’ve ever made into one of the worst ones. How is this even possible?
The only few explenations I can think of is that A: The bioware top personel that coordinated and oversaw the rest of ME3 suddenly went ill or dissepeared or were pulled off to other projects right at the end. The said “top people” of the project directly responsible for the vast majority of ME3 had little to no insight in the end of ME3.
The lead writer being transfered is not enough of an explenation to answer for this complete off-the-charts screwup.
…or B: Bioware genuinly belives the ending is a good one and has completly drifted away from what they think their fanbase appreciates….despite nailing the other 99% of the game flawlessly. This option is bizarre, because it can be compared to an artist well familiar with great masterpieces and suddenly he descides to set his very best and praised painting on fire, producing the ash, and expecting people to like the results. It doesnt make sense. In short: Bioware has in a -FLASH- completly lost their minds. Indoctrination at work?
or finally, C: The evil capitalist option: Bioware intentionally creates crappy endings so their future “alternative ending” dlc will sell better. Not likely, but who knows?
All in all, the amount of negative feedback on ME3’s ending is so substantial that its made its way into ME3’s wiki pages, and its littering Bioware’s own game forums. It about makes up for 60-70% of the posts there. So I doubt they will ignore this.
*sighs* I miss not having finished this game, and living in my oblivious naive hope in Bioware and that the raving ME critics were wrong.
With one’s credibility in Bioware all but being shot to shreds, what does one have to look forward to now? 😦
Yeah, I know what you mean. There really doesn’t seem to be a good way to resolve this now either when the cat’s out of the box – if BioWare leaves the ending as is, then they’ll be stuck with the ending and the resulting drama as the overhanging legacy from the Mass Effect series. If they do fix the game, people will accuse them of deliberately handing out endings that are absolutely pants so they can sell better ones later, regardless of whether that was actually their plan or not.
Mind you, don’t get me wrong – I tend to be among the first voices to say that creators don’t have to pander to their audience; if they feel they have a better direction then good on them. If this was a deliberate shift in that direction and they feel it was worth the fallout, then yeah, great, hope it works out for them. Won’t change the fact that I’ll feel a tad thrown aside and like I want to shout things like “I thought we had something!” at them, but yeah.
It’s just such a shame.
They could walk away relatively unscratched from this if they did like Bethesda with Fallout 3 and released a free fix DLC for the ending, but knowing their evil overlords at EA, it’ll propably cost atleast 10 bucks. If it’s even made.
Total shitstorm and all credibility EA and Bioware still had (the little of it) blown out of the window for me.
Still not finished it (I know, slowpoke 🙂 ) but find this, maybe interesting:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-03-14-bioware-responds-to-mass-effect-3-ending-furore
That was an interesting read. And unless I grossly misunderstood it, it sort of sounded like Casey was saying that the nature of the ending was intentionally provocative to get a good amount of fan feedback.
While that might make sense in some aspect, it really strikes me as a wrong way to end Bioware’s possibly most praised series, and a bizarre option for them to roll with.
Im not surprised that he dodged the question if they’ll offer alternative ending dlc, but the statement of further singleplayer content sort of fills me with a perhaps naive hope that Bioware intends to release singleplayer content to -complete- the ending in some way, be it an epilogue or a fleshing out of the ending. If it is just another companion or side mission or new skin packs or whatever, I’ll be frustrated as Bioware dodges the real issue with this game. The 99% of ME3 -before- the ending were bloody excellent, and dont really need anymore attention.
First off, glad to see your alive and kicking Nhani.
Second… well, Mass Effect 3 was a fantastic game to play… And i kinda left it as i did planescape torment back in the days… It appears its shepards destiny to die, as it was the nameless one (in a sence).. And you end up walking into some unknown abyss. What of all the aliens stuck in Sol? What of the Reapers? What of the Crew, freinds and loved ones whom you’ve grown so fond of…. Im a sucker for happy endings, but then again… Planescape only ended because you finished the goal you set out to do… then wander off into the eternal war between devils and demons (not so eternal now given the canons developement, anywho)… Id like to consider it like that, because it gives me less stress doing so. Its not about putting a “The End” on it. Its about finishing the threat of the Reapers.
However, the choice of the end is hard… Whats best for the galaxie as a whole? Do you dissolve, yet somehow control the reapers (and then what? Make them help people rebuild the mass relays so people can get back home?). Do you destroy the Reapers and all synthetic life? (Includeing the Geth helping the quarians restabilize to their homeworld, and EDI T.T), effectively ending their threat… yet then have everyone stuck on Sol for X amount of time thill … what? They kill each other, or make sleeper-ships… Or do you go green… as is per say, change EVERY living and synthetic entity in the galaxie… into something… diffrent, and how will this affect it?…
There are many unknowns in the Mass Effect ending… however… i feel more inclined to actually control the reapers. Dont get me wrong, i did paragon the entire way there, however… if shepard can control the reapers.. could he not then have them help repair what damage they caused in the first place? … and for some reason i have this mental image of a holonet-visualization of shepard being projected to his crew, giving them all that heartwarming speech i felt that lacked.
I loved the game… truly did. And im listening to the ending piano-track: “An End, Once and For All” on repeat.
The story is touching, heart breaking and inspireing on so many levels.
keelah se’lai
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” ~Winston Churchill, after the Second Battle of El Alamein 1942.
Don’t really know why this tends to echo through my mind whenever I now consider the ending of ME3.
Weird, I suppose. Or just vain hope.
There are currently ongoing rumours and articles that Bioware now intends to release a free patch/dlc called “The Truth” in roughly a months time. The sources of these rumours however are sketchy and vague at best, and chances are high its nothing but bull-excrements.
However, two more official statements give me hope: First is that Casey directly says that more singleplayer content is on the way, and that he intends to listen to the fanbase.
Second is after the credit rolls, and the conversation between the man and the child: “Tell me another story about the shepard, please?” “Alright then.”
Bioware has repetadly stated that ME3 is the end of Shepards story, so I suppose that little comments at the very end is not a sort of leash for future ME titles. But Bioware has said a lot of things, and one of them was that ME3 wouldnt have “Option A, Option B or Option C”-clearly defined endings. And we all know how true that turned out to be.
In the end though, im keeping my hopes up that Bioware can fix this. If they do, I will be inclined to forgive them, and perhaps my confidence in them will be at least partially restored.
“Second is after the credit rolls, and the conversation between the man and the child: “Tell me another story about the shepard, please?” “Alright then.” ”
And after that scene we are greeted with a screen which says “Go buy DLC!”
It’ll propably be just more side missions, which will be quite pointless since at the end, nothing you ever did mattered the slightest and everyone and everything is going to die anyways. (Some smaller colony worlds might survive, but every homeworld is left as a burning pile of ash, with no way having enough resources to support all the survivors.)
I’m not entirely sure if I’m willing to believe that rumor just yet; there’s a fair few theories and the like floating around with at least half of them borne out of sheer denial, so I’d rather not get my hopes up for what could very likely be just speculation mixed with wishful thinking.
Besides, BioWare’s official statements and PR have a tendency of being as factual and informative as any hype produced by Peter Molyneux, so I’ll take their claims with a few asteroids of salt until they materialize something tangible; especially considering that some of their statements pretty much suggests the ending we got was just BioWare deliberately trolling us for attention.
So I’m going to add to this that apparently there was this iPad application thing released that shows some inside information on the development of Mass Effect 3. I haven’t looked at it myself, but as I understand it the thing to take away from it is that the ending is what it is and theories of it being just a dream/indoctrination/etc are simply strawgrasping borne out of denial and wishful thinking.
Also a quote from Casey Hudson saying that DLC is likely to take place before or during Mass Effect 3, not after.
I’m not going to rule out that they might be deliberately throwing about misinformation or that they might change their minds after the sheer scale of the outrage (which once more caught fire after the release of the above) actually sinks in. But as far as I can tell, the ending is exactly what it says on the tin and BioWare* genuinely felt it was a good ending.
(* there are rumors and whispers of dissidents among BioWare regarding this, but none of it sourced so I’m hesitant to take it as anything other than people trying to explain/excuse how the game could simply fall so horribly apart in the last few minutes)
I dunno. After finishing the game, you get kicked back to your save right before the assault on Cerberus, which would imply that any DLC would take place before then, if not before the assault on Earth.
So the first book in the Mass Effect novel series they got someone other than the lead writer to handle and he ballsed it up so badly they had to fix it for him, the big, anticipated quarian reveal reduced to a photoshopped stock photo (not even a good one) and the ending to the biggest scifi trilogy of this console generation turning out to be a gigantic troll? I’m not a cynic by nature but I find myself being more than a little afraid for Bioware’s future projects.
Kate Shepard is smillar to my Maria Shepard. 😀
Anyway… I complete the game few days ago and something details i don’t understand, sorry for spoilers.
First of all… In the Poland sites, is a rumors that the Shepard, is indoctrinated in ME3, maybe the process is begin after he / she have contact with the Object Rho in Arrival DLC. Slow but quiet indoctrination, first sign for that theory, is the kid that only Shepard see, even the people of the one shuttle where kid abord, don’t see any kid…
I don’t know how feel right now, but Mass Effect 3 is very good game ! But endings in my opinion is bad. This options what we decied, is concluded to destroy Mass Realys, and i thinking now. The fight against Saren in ME1 and Collectors in ME2, is have any sense ? It’s worth to fight the reapers ?
Anyway… I really hope, that someday Bioware tell the truth about the Shepard fate, i don’t trust about that the Shepard is dying, no matter what option we choose…
suppose anything [url=http://trenchescomic.com/tales/post/drive-fast-and-crash-a-lot]like this happened[/url]?
Well, finished around 04:30 in the saturday morning 🙂
As a first line, I must say the game is amazing. I’m usually satisfied with the Bioware games (I even like DA2) but ME3 just overdid everything I wished for.
I was laughing a lot, even cried sometimes, and I never had a situation before when I spent 15 minutes circleing in my room and gather my strength becouse I was simply not able to press the button and choose.
It was EPIC.
Now. About the last 5 minutes 😀
Huh. How to describe…
I wouldn’t say stright it was bad. Not at all. Maybe the oldest scifi topic is about the existence and the evolution. And it DID twist the people mind, if we goes beyond the nerdrage and think about the three options…
And I must say at front, I have nothing against Shepard dieing. I actually started to think more than a year ago, after the n-th playtrough of ME2 that Shep should die at the end. As the Hero Who Fulfilled Her Destiny.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to see (in my case) the little blue girl, or Tali’s house, or Mordin Wrex. I want so much! I’m the person, who actually want a LOT of ME, books, movies, TVseries and many games. A BIG franchise, compareable to Star Trek and Star Wars. Becouse for me ME is right beside them.
But the hero usually doesn’t live happily ever after, and they more dramatic if die while meet Destiny (the whore ^^°).
Now with that, my greatest disappointment is maybe that this is not really possible with any of the endings. While the destruction of the mass relays are NOT the end of civilization, not even space travel becouse the FTL drives are still there, the roads just get a LOT longer. Maybe they can build their own relays. We know the proteans were able to do that, and the asari were close. If the chosen ending is the control/paragon or synthesis, it even can help building new things. I just know I’ll miss this universe as it is, and I wanted sequels not prequels.
My other problem is that Bioware failed to deliver the epic ending feeling that so much was right at the end of ME1&2. I played all 3 versions, and something is amiss. There is no sense of triumph at all, nothing of the “YESS this was AWESOME” like the end of the prequels. And that’s sad. It’s alreay clear that this affecting the whole franchise, and I find this very disappointing. I spent 45 hours with ME3 alone. 200+ hours with all 3 games (much more but this number I’m sure of). And I enjoyed (almost) every damn minute of it. No remorse at all. So I just don’t want to see that 5 minute ruins something this good.
Overall I agree with Nhani. Mass effect was a great personal story. Actually, however Bioware states that they make “story driven games” it’s never the stories are that good, much like the characters, their relations, and the world they create for them. The stories are usually just mediocore. And that great personal story, with all the sacrifices and heroism, and great and sad momenst just washed away to make room for a very different genre, and existentialist scifi trope about evolution and life itself. Now that’s not right. There were hints about something but too few and small, too rare, usually taken as the reapers egoism and self-importance. I think about the lines like “we are your salvation through destruction”. So a genre switch like this is not supposed to do at the last few minutes. It’s wrong.
But to say something I think was right with the ending.
I see a lot of people complaining about the destruction of the Citadel and the mass relays. That it’s the End of the World and such. (Just in a note: I read that a lot of people says the destruction of the relays destroyed the solar systems too. And if noy that’s a rude retcon-shit. I disagree. There is a very big difference between crashing an asteroid to a working and fully charged relay and burn it out and using it’s own energy to transfer the Big Magical Beam around. Blow up something and destroy something is not necesserily the same.)
It’s a big disaster, and the galactic travel just get a LOT harder and slower. Many races never reach their homes. But if someone really think about what happened in the story, I really think it’s fine. The goddess-knows how many million years old cycle has broken! The races of the galaxy just have a future, a life and a clear new page in the history of everything. Someting that didn’t happen for eons.
And I think the future itself did worth the mass relays. It was a bargain.
And there were hints. The fact that the Citadel and the relays were a tool for keeping advanced civilisations in check, and on a desired path. Now, that path destroyed, the civilizations are free, the traps and trails has to be gone. And we have to find our own ways, build our own future (that may mean the recreation of the relay system but still).
Finally a close:
Long story short, I don’t feel I was betrayed, lied to or they destroyed eveything. Nor that I will never buy any bioware game. On the contrary. I can hardly wait. And my big artbook is on the way 🙂
But I do feel a bit disappointed. Bioware clearly made a mistake, switching the whole genre of the game for the last 5 minutes. And I do miss my closure as I stated before. The blue little girl and a little krogan, and maybe a little quarian without a suit (or a quarian/turian hybrid – I just love that developement) standing before a monument, built to honor the greatest hero of all existence.
The problems with what happens to the setting is really in the details – it’s not just that space travel gets a whole lot slower, it’s also the many consequences of that happening. Start with the knowledge that Turians and Quarians can’t eat the food of other races – they’re reliant on a particular and very rare protein base which means that unless there’s a convenient Turian colony within non-jump distance of Earth (highly unlikely) or the Quarians can really step up production on what agricultural ships they brought into the fight, the vast majority of the Turians and Quarians around Earth are likely to starve long before they get anywhere. Similarly, Tuchanka is very much a rock of death and radiation hanging about in space, and unless they find a fertile enough world within standard, non-jump FTL distance to feed them, they aren’t going to be doing that well on the food front either.
With the travel network broken down and infrastructure shattered, most colonies that aren’t entirely self-sufficient are simply going to starve and die out because there’s simply no means to get supplies to them anymore, and unless one species ended up with both the materials, the know-how and the base infrastructure to start building their own mass relays, we’re talking a very long time before we see things even starting to recover, and there’s a very good chance that most of whatever comes out of that time period is going to be more like a completely different setting with a few familiar names mixed in.
So in short, much of what you do and did except for the completely unrelated choice at the end simply ceases to matter – the setting you acted upon and the people you helped are pretty much all reset immediately during the end as the game attempts to take this time to ponder some higher order philosophical question it somehow decided was more relevant than any of your actions, your journey or the setting.
And in the end, the pattern I’ve found mostly to hold true is that the more time and emotion you invested into the setting, its characters and your Shepard, the worse the ending will come across as, and that’s probably its biggest problem, period. Consider this: the PC version of the first Mass Effect was released roughly four years ago, which means that my own Kate Shepard has existed for that long, having gone through several incarnations and permutations over subsequent replays of both Mass Effect 1 and 2 in that period. And… the ending of Mass Effect 3 is where all that went.
So the question isn’t really so much one about “boycott BioWare!” or “BioWare are suddenly terrible!” – it’s more a matter of “If this is what they consider a good and suitable ending, why should we consider sinking another 100+ hours into another setting and another set of characters if this is the kind of payoff we can expect?”
The fact that it happened through random coloured space magic just makes it worse, really. The nonsensical aspects even more so. But if there’s one thing good about the Mass Effect 3 ending, it’s that it gave us the Legend of Marauder Shields
That Marauder Shields is awsome. 😀
Anyway… Bioware have a plans to make a free DLC. (Yeah, info from 4Chan) And obviously this DLC maybe show the truth about Shepard fate…
I don’t understand why all decisions what we make in ME1 and ME2 makes no sense in ME3 ? Obviously, if we keep the Collectors Base, is the one of important decisions but others ? I don’t think so…
That “The Truth” DLC is mainly a rumor at this point – BioWare have released plenty of statement that this is the ending they chose, that they honestly think it’s a good ending, that part of the intention was to cause speculation rather than closure, and that any DLC is likely to take place before or during Mass Effect 3 – not past the ending.
That said, they’ve also stated that we’ll see more of Shepard and that they’re listening to feedback, and seeing how the single largest point of feedback they’re getting basically amounts to “Fix the terrible ending already!”, they may end up budging.
So far I’m not going to keep my hopes up too high because having them dashed again would be somewhat bothersome and awkward.
Yeah, but Bioware year ago announced that the fans will be angry about the endings in ME3. I remember the news from one site in Poland, and after this announce, is started a disscusion about this…
Obviously, i think the next DLC will be concentrated in Omega, Aria want retake station. But the romance DLC ? I don’t think so…
Anyway… Bioware make a good trylogy, but end is stupid… Whatever5 we choice, the mass realeys is destroyed…
What does the collector base matters? If you destroy it, TIM still have the schematics and sensor data about it and more than enough reaper tech salvaged to play with.
But I disagree. Yes, if you kill the rachni in ME1 then they only will be enemy units, and the only thing you lose is a rachni worker unit in the fleet (or maybe not even that I don’t know). But it felt good that with the loaded game, it was presented as the achivement of Shepard. If Grunt is dead in ME2 than the krogan squad leader is just a random krogan – and I guess he doesn’t survive the charge. Zhu’s Hope may just be a mail about the colony, and a number in the “I don’t know how much it matters” combat strength table, but also something Shepard made possible and I was glad to see it.
Nah. I stop defending the game, feels like … whatevs.
About the DLC. I generally don’t believe anything the 4chan barf onto the surface (yep, my opinion of that hole). But Pax East is 3 weeks away, and there we’ll see how much the fans want Casey Hudson’s and Mac Walters’ head. Or what they can say for themselves.
Obvously even we not, keep the Collectors base we can control the reapers, but before the world premiere is some rumors that, if we destroy the Collectors base, we cannot control the Reapers.
Well, in my ME2 save all is a life, and in the rachni mision i meet Grunt, but i have a diffucult choice…
If Grunt died, i choose Rachni to help, but if Rachni Queen died in Noveria, it’s dosen’t matter Krogans will help me…
Anyway… In time i played the missions on Tuchanka, son of Aiden Victus is sacriface to complete the mission, but i don’t understand why Victus don’t attack Shepard for lose his son ? This is no logic, but is the Turian and is have a honor, this make sense.
Well, just some of my thoughts about the endings, in no particular order..
– The creepy Catalyst-kid. Leader of the Reapers, definitely not trustworthy, yet Shepard takes everything it says at a face value. It could be, y’know, *lying* or obscuring other possible choices. The mass relay destruction included in all the options just strikes me as “screw this, I’m taking you down with me” defiance. And I’m not touching the “space magic”, “organics vs. synthetics” or “choices matter” things with a three-meter pole. Just no.
– The Normandy crash scene. Seriously, Joker legged it when the going got tough? Is that the same Joker who rushed in to attack Sovereign? Is that the same Joker who had to be dragged away from his post, when the first Normandy was under attack? Is that the same Joker who was the first to join what seemed to be an one-way trip to destroy the Collectors? I call bullsh*t here. Also, I don’t buy the “he was ordered to leave” tweets by Bioware employees. Bullsh*t ^2.
– I think the food supply for turians and quarians is a non-issue, at least compared to other implications of the endings or the endings themselves. The three quarian liveships (at least 2 of them were present during the battle) had to support about 17M quarian civilians, most of which were (presumably) left on Rannoch. And I somehow doubt the total turian + quarian headcount is even half of that number.
– Bioware & Ending DLC – I agree with you that BW really believed the endings were good. That just makes it more confusing to me. I mean, no-one in BW had enough common sense to say “hey, with these endings.. the fans will flay us alive”? They *should* have known better, but they cornered themselves in this lose-lose situation instead. And now they have to find a way out of the mess they shouldn’t have ended in in the first place. Whatever comes out of this, I just hope it doesn’t end this way http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/713
with that being said.. creating a new ending DLC (again, presuming BW decide to do it and start from scratch) *will* take a lot of time.
If they left most of the Quarian population on Rannoch, they’d also need to move most of their food supplies and agricultural equipment there to support them because restoring the agricultural infrastructure on Rannoch would take time – even if you brokered peace so the Geth help them out. So you’re left with a situation that either most of the fleet or most of the Quarians on Rannoch will be stuck with a very precarious situation regarding foodstuffs.
As for time – a DLC that addresses the ending isn’t automatically more difficult than a DLC that does not – they’d have to go through the whole planning stages and such definitely if there is no groundwork laid, but with the way game development works, they should be doing that about now for later DLC anyway. It’s not something we’ll see released in a month or two if they haven’t already put in a whole lot of work on it, definitely, but even conformation – actual confirmation and not this nebulous “just wait, we have plans” kind of statements they’ve been going with so far – would probably do quite a bit to quell some of the rage.
As for Quarians.
In my game i make the Quarians and Geth in peace, but i don’t know how i feeling right now after end the game… Obviously i think, the Quarinas and Turians eat same food ? This make sense and not.
If the Quarians eat same food like Turians, propably will be a problem to find to each other food. of course if the Quarians eat same food like Turians, the some mirror problems will be end. Yeah i know this is stupid, but Bioware show that the everything is possible.
Currently, i waiting for more information about Omega DLC… Aria on the Citadel in ME3 is not no goal for added her in the Purgatory. I think Bioware have a plan to make DLC where we can liberate Omega, Aria dosen’t much love the Citadel and all of these biurocratics. 😀
Sorry for my english.
Yes I know the feeding problem and all. But the scale was not some “fight this battle and go home to sleep”. It was “we are all already dead just not harvested yet. But if we fight hard enough, we MAY have a chance to change that, and give ourselves, and our families and children a chance, a future”. I see many people say the “perfect ending” is the destroy/renegade choice just becouse Shepard will be alive there. So, killing all the geth and EDI is fine, but the death of the fighting turians and quarians is not. Not all of them in the fleet, many are at home, even from the quarians. So the species as it is will live. Or at least now they have a chance for that.
I know, that’s not the happy ending. The perfect, everybody lives happily ever after and smiling to each other ending. But I AM fine with that.
Still, I sad the ending IS wrong. I can see (or I think I can) what they wanted to acomplish with it and what was their goal they failed to deliver it, to polish and unfold it right, I even agree it was a failure from the beginning, they shouldn’t even try it. And I won’t defend that.
About the hours sinking. A said before, I do not consider sinking or invest those hours into it. Becouse I did enjoy the whole thing, and will start a replay of me3 soon. The moment when I finally get the quarians to make peace with the geth, when Grunt climbed out of the rachni, the death of Thane or that weird smile on Mordin’s face at his last moment wont disappear. As when Shepard yelled the face off the quarian admirality and defended Tali, or the slow process of taming Jack. And I was damn proud of her seeing she cares about the kids, and working hard for them. The friendship with Garrus… “there’s no Shepard without a Vakarian.” Tali drunk XD. And I could go on. For me it’s 9000 minutes of fun vs. 5 minutes of wtf. And I won’t dismiss the brilliant work of Jennifer Hale, Keith David, Brandon Keenar, Liz Stroka and the others (sry, won’T list the whole cast) . I just can’t do that. Becouse it was fantastic.
Well the problem is that most of those children won’t actually, you know, happen, because there needs to be things like food and infrastructure for them to live, and the ending just annihilated that, on top of making bugger all sense. With how many are dead, you won’t really have a happy fireworks everybody lives ending no matter how you twist it, but it certainly would’ve been welcome to have one that doesn’t flat out say “Now when the galaxy has gone to hell, nearly everyone will starve and die, including everyone you ever cared about.”
And that’s really a large chunk of the problem. Having fond memories of something doesn’t exactly abate the loss of having seen said thing basically evaporate in front of your eyes, which is really what much of the negativity comes from. If you’ve sunk a whole lot of hours and emotion into something, if you’re that invested, you’ll feel the loss. It’s inevitable, especially when it was something that we ourselves were given opportunity to affect right up until the end when that was taken away in favor of attempting some supposed deep philosophical conundrum.
The fact that it’s such a sudden dramatic tonal shift doesn’t help either.
Now I agree with that. Completly.
But please forgive me if I hold on to the great memories 🙂
Nothing wrong with holding on to memories, really – after all, that’s typically how one starts coping with loss, to follow up that metaphor to its natural conclusion. In fact, I’m more or less trying to do the same thing myself, albeit trying to overrule the ending we got with headcanon to reduce their being overshadowed by the last few minutes.
I’d still prefer to see an official fix, but until then I’ll go write my own.
So, basically what I’m hearing is that if you want a “satisfying” ending you’re gonna have to wait for DLC?
…That is the most retarded thing I’ve heard in my life. I don’t play Mass Effect, but my bro does, and I’ve heard a lot of good things about it.
But to do this to their fans at the end? Thats just… wrong.
Well, that’s assuming that they’d actually do create DLC to amend the ending; so far BioWare has been rather nebulous on the topic, and considering other information we’ve gotten, I think if they do release DLC to amend the ending, it’s because the demand for it was there, not because they intended to do so from the get go.
Sorry for at the begining of memories but.
I remember Bioware, when released the Baldur’s Gate and Knights Of The Old Republic, and this is really awsome games ! But KOTOR is really good game ! I think, some points o the endings in ME3 is smillar to KOTOR like np. Ilusive Man and Shepard talk in the Citadel, is smillar to the Revan and Bastila talk in the Star Forge, but in some points diffrent.
In Star Forge, male Revan can tell Bastila that he love her.
In the Citadel Shepard, can tell Ilusive Man, than is indoctrinated and shoot himself.
Obviously, so if the Shepard is indoctrinated in the ending of ME3, so why don’t hear harbringer voice ?
Currently, there is more questions as answers and i hope, soon we know all. I don’t think Bioware have any plans for ME4 ?
By the way.
Watch this, there is more proofs about Shepard Indoctrination.
Eh, it takes a special kind of stubborn to believe in a theory that both the lead writer and the lead developer have effectively already shot down.
When you look at it though, the pervasiveness of the Indoctrination Theory is proving an interesting showcase in how good people are at clinging to hope and use whatever straws they can grasp at to rationalize that hope in spite of everything. It really says a thing or two about what BioWare has accomplished with Mass Effect 1, 2 and most of 3 that some people still can’t fathom how the ending we got was what it was and intended as it was, regardless of BioWare’s statements that that is indeed the case.
I think it’s more of a case that people would prefer to think that Bioware would rather make more money out of them by keeping hold of the “actual” ending rather than face the possibility that they just messed up on a scale worse than Lucas when creating this plot point.
And to be fair, at the moment the only piece of information we have that they actually intended the ending as is would be the app they released. But keep in mind that this was likely filmed a while back, and considering the backlash from fans it’s somewhat likely that EA execs will be weighing their options.
Personally, I like the Indoc theory, but I don’t believe this is what Bioware was trying to go with. If they do end up releasing it as DLC then I’d be of the opinion that they simply went with the most popular idea rather than created something themselves (a safer bet considering the what they actually DID create themselves).
Bioware announced that the DLC The Truth is a myth.
So… There are no plans to add missing endings ? There are the problem in some point, i hear few people make a writ to law, reason is the ME3 is not a game, what Bioware promises like endings or even more reasons.
I think, that fight in the law, is a fail at the begining. Bioware will have a lawyers who will defend the Bioware position in this drama.
Well not so much announced as someone in their twitter and Facebook crew jumped the gun and said in clear text that there currently are no plans to amend the ending with DLC, which is typically what their position has been from the start, just without the added vagueness thrown in for the sake of damage control so they don’t just end up fanning the flames. They’re aware that it’s a precarious situation right now and they have a whole lot of angry customers who aren’t likely to buy any pr rhetoric until they’ve calmed down, do bioware are understandably sitting in their thumbs and hoping this will blow over, probably while all the same trying to decide what their reaction should be.
Game development is hardly trivial, so all stages of planing, conceptualising and then implementing would take a significant amount of time and resources so they definitely don’t want to jump the gun, and I doubt they want to set a precedent that people can expect to demand changes through sheer outcry. On the other hand, if they don’t manage this carefully, they might end up alienating a sizeable chunk of their fanbase.
As for the legal parts… Eh. Some one/people took up their pr hype bullshit not agreeing with the final product with some customer protection service – I really can’t see that having any really solid ground in court by any stretch of imagination. It would have SERIOUS ramifications for any future pr venture for the industry (and beyond!) if it actually got somewhere though, not to mention potentially seriously hurting communication between developers and customers during development for the simple reason that the end product may not match the initial intentions.
Still haven’t played it past, oh, the 2 minute mark, but my growing frustration with the face import thing has led me to try some more times with re-creating my Shepard. Going was slow till i thought to myself, “wait, i just spent an ass-ton of money to rebuild my computer to this boss-ass machine, I’ll just run ME2 and ME3 at the same time, alt-tab, and compare them.”
About an hour later, I have what I would deem a ‘passable’ version of my Shepard. Apparently, some options were taken out for ME3; my hair color isn’t right, but lord knows they needed to make room for iridescent purple. -_- ffs.
So two weeks later, I’m about to start up the journey, but I won’t soon forget this betrayal, EA, oh no. You’re on the same list as Square Enix. It’s not the Good list.
*salutes Marauder Shields* His sacrifice shall be remembered.
That is one of the more awesome characters of Mass Effect 3, obviously.
Other random thoughts: With the mass relay network destroyed, no matter what you do, I’ve tried thinking about the consequenses. Judging by the galaxy map and the speed of new FTL engines, the council races AND the krogan……might actually make it home the conventional way, because their home systems are really close to Sol. It will probably take years, but they should probably be able to pull it off in their lifetime. Problem comes down to supplies but I suppose it is possible to scrounge up what you need on the way. The quarians have managed to do that for 300 years after all.
The turians might have it more challenging then others due to their biology, but there are a lot of planets out there and it is still relativly quick to travel from star system to star system. The turians however, have the shortest ride to Palaven from Sol compared to the other races.
The Salarians might have trouble because their homeworld is relativly distant….and because they die so damned fast. But they’re also ingenious so maybe they’ll figure something out.
As for the krogan and Asari…it will probably just feel like a brief moment for them.
The true loosers are the quarians: Their homeworld is litterly on the other side of the galaxy and without a mass relay it seems unlikely, even at the best of FTL speeds, that the quarian ships that participated in the battle make it home to any civvies they left off on Rannoch before they departed(And yes, im working on the assumption that the quarian fleet didnt bring -every civilian- it could just for the heck of it right after they’ve finally retaken their homeworld) anytime soon. Facing the same biological problems as the Turians, except that they have ten times the distance to travel, only the quarians experience in surviving on a fleet might be able to hold them together for the likely several decades(if not more) it will take them to reach their homeworld.
Other people in particular trouble are remote space stations and isolated colonies. some of these were highly dependant on supply runs through the mass relays, and it seems likely some of them will suffer a miserable end.
I disagree with some assesments regarding Earth, however. Some say that Earth is also buggered because it has been burnt to a crisp and it cannot support its remaining population or the new aliens that have come to help it.
If one looks aside the fact that earths population has probably been cut by two thirds, and that the new “allies” probably dont number above a million, there are clear hints that the reapers did not destroy all the infrastructure of earth. There are several datapads and conversations that suggests reapers primarily targeted population centers, hospitals, refugee camps and of course, military targets. Thus, not the property, but the people. It was an unconventional war in those terms, and thus a lot of the countryside infrastructure outside the population centers is probably intact. And that is what you need to feed and sustain a population. It is also where you will probably find most of the human survivors. Sure, most of earth might be rubble, but it is not a radioactive wasteland. The reapers didnt use nukes and unlike other similar “earth is in rubble”-doomsday scenarios, it seems a lot more feasible for the remnants of humanity to rebuild. Which will probably take centuries, but it is feasible.
Actually… I just redid some of my math and parts of it was just totally bonkers; particularly embarrassing considering I’ve supposedly studied the thing for awhile. Ahem. Anyway.
Amending my earlier conclusion, I still think the logistical situation complicates things – aside from food which is going to be an issue for most of the species present (unless they have several years worth stockpiled – especially in the case of Turians, Quarians may or may not get off easily depending on how much of their hydroponics they’ve offloaded to support Rannoch which will likely still take a few years of development to see a viable yield), more significantly, fuel will definitely be an issue since aside from the Quarians unless most military fleets bring their own fuel miners (rather than relying on supply depots) and discharging the drive core with regular intervals to prevent it discharging into the hull and passengers and thereby causing inconvenient mass death may also present a problem if you run across several star systems in a row that has no viable planets to go around.
Furthermore, you have EDI alluding to the fact that the Krogans may need to be sedated to some degree during the journey to prevent fights breaking out, which may present a problem there as well.
Humans are actually pretty lucky in that their nearest colony of Eden Prime is only about 1-5% the width of the galaxy away from earth and didn’t seem too horribly hit, so that’d be a fertile world only about 100-500 days out from Earth at unaided FTL speeds, provided you manage to find enough discharge points and refueling opportunities to make the journey without hull discharge death or a lack of fuel.
I admit it’s not quite as bad as I’d originally assumed with totally broken maths, but I’d still maintain it to be something of a logistical nightmare between the necessity for food, fuel and maintenance as well as the fact that you may have to traverse up and down the spiral arms of the milky way (rather than cross the void between them) to not risk fatal core discharge and fuel shortage; the fleets may also have to really hope they have good databases on those systems, because I’d wager there’s a definitive limit to how many planet-less systems a ship can pass before either the fuel reserves or the drive core becomes a serious problem.
Regarding fuel: The quarians have used their own fuel-processing tech for centuries, and im fairly sure that given the time, the remaining infrastructure on Earth and any bases left on Mars and Luna can help produce/repair such technology for the alien fleets. It might take a while before they’re ready, but I doubt they’ll push for a return that badly if its bound to lead to their death.
Finding resources to process the fuel should not be an issue, as long as the ships stick to relativly planet-rich clusters. Gas giants are fairly common, so finding appropriate discharge planets should not be an issue either. You’re right about the spiral arms though, but judging by recent findings by nasa and the spiral arms of our galaxies, the “voids” between our galaxy spiral arms might be smaller then previously thought. Its still a heckova threshold with conventional FTL, so it seems feasible people outside/inside the Sol spiral arm would have to find a “bridge” of star systems between the arms. Otherwise its one heckova trip.
Someone reminded me earlier that the protheans actually managed to build a mass relay. There are also hints that some asari matriarchs have been pushing for the idea to construct new relays(although it wasnt a very succesful attempt. At the time.) And because the protheans actually succeeded, it seems feasible that the council races might succeed as well, once they’ve recovered somewhat. If they need tech inspiration, they have about a thousand reaper corpses to study(assuming you took the red option).
The main problem with building a new mass relay network however, is getting the darned things in position. The only solution I can think of is that the quantom communications network, which might be one of the last proper and practical ways for the different races to communicate with one another, could be used to first share the tech so it can be created locally, and then deployed and calibrated locally. That way you dont have to tow the things around to position for a millennia. But that all works on the assumptions that
1: The council races can actually learn how to build and connect new relays
2: They have the resources and political will for it
3: Quantom entangling devices exist on or nearby planets with the resources for it
If those three assumptions were met, there might be a distant hope that the ME universe might, eventually, return to some semblence of its old self.
And then my dear Shep can finally enjoy his rest on a beach somewhere. With Liara. And all those blue babies. Assuming he ever finds her on random jungle planet 58218. Here’s to hoping the Normandys Quantom communicator still works.
“fairly common” still means “fairly common among systems that have planets”; depending on how many days a ship can go on full burn in FTL without needing fuel or core discharging, you’re going to need a system with planets every so many light years. And since you may very well end up having to explore further from mass relays than have been done in the past, that’s a pretty risky proposition – especially since food is going to be a very significant limit; both for a fleet that hovers around earth and one in transit. And any maintenance issues encountered on the journey – especially seeing how even the closest home systems of other species are still years away from Earth when going in a straight line. When you have to stop to refuel and discharge every so often and carefully pick your route, it’s going to be longer still.
@Nhani.
Obviously, one week before the world premiere on Youtube is several people who added the movies of the endings in ME3, at this point is sugested that all what we done in ME1 and ME2 is make no sense.
Yeah, game developing is really hard work, we have a good points like Blizzard and World Of Warcraft now have a full critic about transfers to Portugase realms, or Bioware who screw the endings added more questions than added answers.
Obviously some fans. (Main Talimancers) Have a hope before the world premiere, that we see the Tali face finaly in ME3, but only we see is her photo after she died on Ranooch, when we help the Geths and destroy the Quarian fleet. And this Tali photo make some critic, this is photo of some real female model, but remastered to the standards of ME.
Bioware don’t make a promise, that we see the Tali face, some Talimancers is disapointed here or even angry. Obviously i prefer Liara romance, but this option is very stupid why ? After my Shepard is reunited with Liara, there is no even i don’t know… More sexy scenes of Liara and Shepard romance, than from ME1 ? Obviously in one of trailers tells that ME3 is more sexier than ME1 and ME2, but where ?
And a mirror question but important for me.
You have maybe a bug import the face from ME1 ?
I’m actually not sure what the point you’re trying to make is here, because there really doesn’t seem to be an overarching context to it. Working on a few assumptions though, I’ll say this:
BioWare are not legally required to provide us with an ending that makes sense. If they chose to end Mass Effect 3 with Shepard walking up to Harbinger and offering a bowl of poisoned carrot juice which then killed all the Reapers and then a huge rabbit jumped out of the wreckage and said “Excellent work!”, it would be entirely within their right to do so.
Of course, we as customers are fully within our rights to think such an ending is an utter heap of shite (or to think it’s the most fantastic thing ever, depending on tastes) and are well within our rights to decide not to buy future games (or all future games, again depending on taste) depending on what we feel about any particular game of theirs we might’ve played.
That’s how the system works.
Unless people can expressly show that BioWare and EA, as corporate entites (and not just individuals that represent their own opinion and not necessarily that of their entire companies), sold a product based on a promise that turned out to be blatantly false, there’s no real grounds to take them to court over.
To be perfectly honest, if there’s any actual law that Mass Effect 3 might be breaking, it’s possibly consumer protection laws that grant customers the right of reselling things they own; of course, if EA would rather hold to the “games are a service” ideal, then there might be a few more legal recourses as there’s several other legal recourses available for customer protection if services are not rendered in a timely, proficient and largely functional manner.
As for the Mass Effect 1 face import bug/oversight, no, I haven’t suffered that myself due to having rebuilt Kate’s face in Mass Effect 2 some time earlier to tweak it slightly and to obtain a face code because I like the portability of having one. And while I can understand that there are certain technical issues in play seeing how the Mass Effect 1 face generation is clearly quite different from that of Mass Effect 2 (and 3) that frustrate the issue… it does strike me as somewhat neglectful that EA/BioWare failed to implement it and/or failed to inform the customers of the problem.
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