Mass Effect 3 (expect spoilers for the entire series)

[Hidoshi]

The final reveal was fine, the execution was just a bit iffy.

I object to the final reveal, as well as everything else about the ending.

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Mass relays cause stars to go supernova, as I recall. Even if they didn't, an explosion large enough to be seen on a galactic scale would certainly wipe out all life in the nearby systems. As far as I know, all systems inhabited by sentient races are, in fact, next to a mass relay. Whoops!

Secondly, the planet they land on: What guarantees are we given for Turians or Quarians to survive? Tali would have to live in her suit for the rest of her life – cut off from most of the technology which even makes her suit viable, and Turians can't even eat much of the same food as humans. Garrus would be shit outta luck, as would most Turians marooned on or near Earth. What about the Volus, or the Krogan? The Volus also have a containment issue. And the Krogan breed so quickly they'd probably eat up resources incredibly fast.

So basically all the ending shows is that despite ALL you have accomplished, all the hard work you put in, the galaxy is either:

a. Starving/fighting over supplies/generally fucked

b. Facing a giant diaspora of people who may or may not be able to survive in their new environments

c. Dead. Dead dead dead dead DEAD. Mass relay explosions killed everyone.

So yeah, the ending basically mugs the player for everything they've done.

I would wholly accept a DLC ending from BioWare, if only to wash out the disgusting taste of this one from my mouth.

[Taelus]

Amen.

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Mostly. I could deal with the reveal if anything made any fucking sense, but it's still unsatisfying no matter how you slice it. And Bioware's whole 'LOL WE LIKE IT BEING VAGUE LOOK AT ALL THE DISCUSSION' irritates me. It's not vague, it was written without a thought of 'this makes no sense and doesn't fit with the internal logic of this series.' People aren't speculating what happened-- anyone with a basic sense of cause and effect can figure out that there are basically one or two POSSIBLE conclusions from what we've been shown, and both of them blow. IMO. IMHO. IMHFO.

[Ashtrot]

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Mass relays didn't go supernova. Crucible focused the energies to perform the required tasks rather than just blow up. The energy surge just destroyed them.

Regarding the whole stranded issue: in two of the endings the Citadel is undamaged, and truth be told they have FTL technology (which goes at 12 light years per day), which means that SOME of them can at least get home. THe only one where the Citadel and the Mass Relays are destroyed is the Destroy ending, which makes it blatantly clear. In the other two there's no obvious "everything blew up" scene. In Control, it's obvious the Citadel is still standing.

Also, the whole REASON the Mass Relays needed to be destroyed is because with them the galaxy races are still slaves to the Reapers. In the first game the Reapers said the mass relays force civilization down the path they desire. The entire point is that civilization can now find new, other ways to progress instead of following in the Reaper's footsteps - they can still do so if desired, but the point is that their fate is for them to grasp now.

The whole message is that civilization trusted Shepard to do what was right, and now Shepard is trusting them to do the same.

All in all, it's conceptually sound; if it weren't for the terrible execution it'd just be people whining that the ending didn't fit into what they wanted.

[Hidoshi]

Wait wait...

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So you're telling me that an explosion VISIBLE ON A GALACTIC SCALE was [i]just[/i] a power surge? Come on dude. That's reaching. Far. In an even poorer show of logic, one of said explosions damages the Normandy in all three endings, so it's clear there's destructive force involved.

Even if they have FTL, there's still massive distances to traverse. The distance between Thessia and Earth alone is estimably 45-50 years at ME's idea of FTL. Turians are slightly closer at 25-30. But that's still a significant chunk of time. The Salarians particularly would have issues considering how SHORT their lifespans are.

[Ashtrot]

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That uh... wasn't an explosion. Those are the same waves of energy that controlled/destroyed/combined the Reapers. Unless you did really poorly (in which case Earth is incinerated) the energy wave was just that - an energy wave that placed the Reapers under Shepard's control, destroyed them, or combined all life. Like I said, without the Crucible to properly focus the energy (which happens if you have low war assets - the Crucible is supposedly damaged by the Reapers as a result) the energies would sterilize the galaxy.

I'm not entirely sure about the mass relay thing but even then it's not hard to presume them rebuilding the mass relays or gaining better travel technology from reverse engineering the Reapers and whatnot.

[Taelus]

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I think he's referring to the fact that in all three endings, that energy burst is random in what it destroys and doesn't destroy. Sometimes it blows up Earth. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it wrecks the Reapers but not Earth, but DOES wreck the Normandy. No matter what the energy does/doesn't affect, it always destroys the Normandy, for some reason. It's just a lack of consistency in all parts of the ending that frustrates.

And I'm not so sure about rebuilding the relays-- they're based on Reaper tech, and even if they weren't, you need to be at both ends of the path. But I suppose it's feasible, given unlimited time and resources (which I guess they'd have, at least time)

[Ashtrot]

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You also shouldn't forget that they still have QECs, so rebuilding on both sides is definitely a possibility.

Again, conceptually the ending is sound. The execution is just WTF.

[Agent D.]

http://www.gameblurb.net/news/gamers-raise-32000-to-change-the-ending-to-mass-effect-3/

I'm half tempted to donate. I mean, it is a good cause, and maybe it will finally show developers that we as the gamers actually do hold a few cards.

[Ashtrot]

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Oh, one last thing about the FTL thing: the diameter of the milky way is 120,000 light years. THis means that it would take 27 years to fly from end to end with Mass Effect technology, so...

[Hidoshi]

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What you're saying doesn't agree with physics, however. We clearly see that the energy wave emitted by the Mass Relays being destroyed is, in fact, damaging. It's easy enough to infer from the fact that the Normandy gets damaged.

The entire execution is inconsistent, which presents us with several different problems. But we know that the energy wave is not harmless. Let's assume that, like in [i]actual[/i] physics, mass and energy are relatively proportional. If something can be seen on the galactic scale, it must have a tremendous amount of mass existing as energy. That kind of energy wave, clearly explosive (as opposed to implosive) in quality, would necessarily displace any other mass in its path. So one of three things is happening:

a) We are seeing a molecular movement, which would necessarily mean that all objects near a Mass Relay would be subject to concussive forces, which at that scale would sunder anything unable to sustain the impact. I somehow doubt even the Krogan, nay, the mother of all thresher maws would be up to the task.

b) We are seeing convection, which would cook pretty much everything in the path of the energy wave, provided it could even survive the temperature. Let's assume the average living creature does not have the physical density of the Normandy and it becomes immediately apparent at just how much barbecue is going on.

c) We are seeing a carrier signal effect, which would explain why in some cases it only shuts down synthetics, while it does other things in other cases. However, that doesn't explain the damage to the Normandy. It isn't as if the Normandy is magically closer or farther away from the event horizon.

We're dealing with something clearly destructive, being witnessed on a galactic scale, and even if they didn't cause a nearby supernova, their own impact would be incredibly destructive to all living things nearby.

As to the FTL thing:

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Direct distance isn't the issue. It's avoiding all the shit in your path. Basic problem of FTL: Can't go in a straight line. You'll get slagged by tons of debris, could wind up going through a planet, etc. It's even explained in ME's own context as to why the relays are so useful (among other reasons), because of how difficult navigation is due to FTL-related problems.

[Ashtrot]

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Cosmic energies have more than just those attributes though, some are harmless or have no effect on organic physiology but can fry electronics, while others just blow stuff up. I assume the type of energy wave caused is tuned by the Crucible itself which can cause the network to do one of multiple things.

Like I said, conceptually sound but the execution was shitty as hell. I'm more disappointed that BioWare tore attention away from the philosophical and artistic implications of the final reveal and choice by including a crappily-executed ending than I am with the ending itself. It's not the ending I would've written, but it IS very thought provoking if you get past the stupid color explosions bullshit.

Also on the FTL thing: this is true, but like I said, there's no telling that they can't rebuild stuff on both ends fast enough to get some people out of the Sol system. There are multiple ways for the fleets to not have to stay in the Sol system.

[Serene Prophet]

So gamers are ok with donating money to get an ending they feel they deserve but didn't get...but DLC is wrong, no matter what, and is the end of the gaming industry, cause we have to pay more on top of our 60 dollar game and that makes bioware and EA money grubbing devils who no longer care...im so confused..

Still it would be nice to have a more concrete and understandable ending. 

[Eusis]

So gamers are ok with donating money to get an ending they feel they deserve but didn't get...but DLC is wrong, no matter what, and is the end of the gaming industry, cause we have to pay more on top of our 60 dollar game and that makes bioware and EA money grubbing devils who no longer care...im so confused..

Because clearly everyone shares the same exact stance! Though they could also "fix" the ending with a coda game, in theory.

Ash and Mark: in regards to what you two were saying, I wonder

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if maybe the Normandy screwing up and crashing could be because they did a Mass Relay jump JUST as that signal was sent? Why Joker was doing this is a big question, but it might make sense if that screwed up simply because of bad timing and that ships, otherwise, were fine. At the least it'd explain why the reapers (in control and synthesis) were fine and so was EDI.

[Agent D.]

I think donating money as a show of discontent (?) is vastly different and a better use of said money then paying a game developer and publisher more money for content that could have been put in the actual game before release. I don't like how companies seem to use it as an excuse to leave content out and sell it later. Chrono trigger didn't have parts left out, ffvii didn't leave out a any of its sidequests, Tales of symphonia didn't cut content out(well at least in the u.s.). All these games had long stories too, easily trumping mass effect 3's main story in terms of length. Yes, quality vs quantity, mass effect wins (at least til the ending heh heh), but I didn't see a petition for a re-written ending for Chrono Trigger, did any anyone else?

[kyuusei]

To be fair to the Mass Effect era, Chrono Trigger and FFVII also didn't have the luxury or option of DLC and/or patches. Hell, they didn't even have append discs back then. To demand better endings wouldn't have crossed people's minds, whereas the use and abuse of the convenience of DLC and patches is.... well, getting out of hand.

I get the disappointment, I really do. Everyone knows how invested I got in Mass Effect, and those endings suck. But if they give in to the fans, that sets a really terrible precedent. If they had ending DLC planned before this though, they better be prepared for a huge blow to their integrity. If in the unlikely event the DLC exists and is free, that'll soften the blow... A bit.

And of course if they do nothing, people will bitch more. So... BioWare's sorta screwed in any event.