Mass Effect 3

[Matthias]

yeah i was thinking for those of us who hadn't read the books, he was pretty underwhelming. he spent most of the time running or sending others against us, and barely edged a fight against a drell who could barely breathe. granted that drell was the badassest character in the whole trilogy, but still.

i remember reading an article a long time ago about how one of the original plans was for shepard to be completely indoctrinated by the end of me3. anyone remember that article and/or got a link to it?

[BaneTheBrawler]

there's a theory where that's actually what happened. It makes the original 3 endings make more sense, even if they are still horrible.

[Matthias]

that theory was denied by the bioware team a long time ago. they have insisted that the endings actually happened, which i'm rather thankful for; i always thought the indoctrination theory was just stupid.

but i do remember reading that, before the game was released, therefore long before all the controversy and complaints, they were working towards an ending where shepard was completely indoctrinated, and actually showing what happens with that, as opposed to the "everything was a dream and we don't really know what happened" take on it that the theory is talking about. just can't seem to find the article anymore.

[Charismatic]

which i'm rather thankful for; i always thought the indoctrination theory was just stupid.

j/w, more or less stupid than the 'actual' endings?

[Brill Weave]

j/w, more or less stupid than the 'actual' endings?

I laughed.

[Matthias]

j/w, more or less stupid than the 'actual' endings?

ahh i knew someone would say something along these lines. though the way it was specifically worded in this case makes it a moot question as i never thought the actual endings were stupid. as i mentioned before i personally never had any problems with the original endings. if you'd been following everything that was said about the reapers throughout the trilogy it made sense just fine. and really, you thought the ending was stupid? well then sorry to say, you bought a game with a stupid ending, better luck next time. that someone actually thought "because i didn't like it i'm going to invent a theory about how it just never actually even happened"... yeah.

though i will say the indoctrination theory was not the worst alternate ending i've read on the net. i remember reading one that the person actually wrote out a script for, where shepard declines the catalyst's three options and insists they'll win the war on their own terms. so he returns to the normandy and gives a big speech to the fleet which invigorates them, leading them to defeat the reaper fleets. so... after three full games building up the reapers as virtually unbeatable, after emphasizing over and over again that they cannot be beaten conventionally and how they were annihilating the allied fleets at every turn... a little pep talk was all it took to overcome those odds and beat them.

[Elcura]

a little pep talk was all it took to overcome those odds and beat them.

Along with the entire galaxy at Shepard's beck and call.

[Matthias]

...the entire galaxy that, until the pep talk, was being decimated by the reapers, yes.

[Anoat]

I'm fine with the endings from the extended cut. Although I am still not a fan of the control/destroy/synthesize options or the idea of the Catalyst at all, what I wanted most was some resolution on plot points and characters that I'd grown attached to over the course of three games, and the extended cut satisfied me. (As well as the resolutions we get from the Citadel DLC) I even quite enjoyed the refusal ending where the galaxy gets snuffed out but the next cycle is able to win with conventional means because they were warned waaaaay ahead of time. The original endings still suck.

[Matthias]

all i cared about was an explanation for the reapers. as long as i got a good explanation for why they were doing their thing i was happy, and i got that. to this day i don't get why people have such a hard time grasping it. take into account all the different conversations with/about reapers throughout the trilogy, and what they were doing made perfect sense. i can easily imagine a machine actually coming to the conclusion that that was a logical solution, especially given some of the reveals during leviathan.

as far as how the threat was resolved and all the stuff that came after, it wasn't the greatest most satisfying ending ever but i was fine with it. just like i was fine with the ending of 'the truman show' even though they didn't show jim carrey hooking up with that girl and moving on to live a fulfilling life. just like i was fine with the ending of final fantasy vii even though they didn't show the detailed mechanics of how the lifestream stopped meteor, the aftermath of meteor being stopped, or what each of the characters had moved on to do, other than red xiii. etc. etc. etc. i have no problem with sudden cliffhanger endings. hell to be honest i kinda like the original ending better than the extended cut. but again at the end of the day i really didn't care. i got my reaper explanation and i was a happy camper.

[BaneTheBrawler]

i wanted the act of not ignoring everything except the main storyline quests of the last game to have an impact on my ending. additional cutscenes are not "an impact." they're content. An impact would change the overall outcome.

[Brill Weave]

That was my biggest complaint. As consumers we were told that all of the decisions we made would come into play in terms of the endings available to us. That simply was NOT the case. After being told that ME would never end with an A, B, or C ending scenario that is precisely what we were given. No final boss fight. A new mystical being introduced literally ten minutes before the game. No showdown with Harbinger despite the fact it was the closest thing to a major villain. All prior decisions tossed out the window. Gaping plot holes(before the extended cut and some after.) Completely ignoring old topics in prior games(dark matter etc.) I appreciate that some people were satisfied with the original endings and that's your opinion. It doesn't change the fact that Bioware dropped the ball and gave the consumers a metaphorical middle finger. ME had the potential to be one of, if not the best, series ever made. Instead it has the taint of ten minutes ruining an amazing series.

Citadel took steps to at least attempt to correct that issue. Most players choose to see that as the unofficial ending to the series. Sorry Matt but you're in the minority here. There are very few posters here that were satisfied with the endings. And they shouldn't be. They are crap.

[Elcura]

...the entire galaxy that, until the pep talk, was being decimated by the reapers, yes.

You can't pep talk what you don't got, and Shepard got the galaxy. Besides, there's no details other than mentioning that Shepard wins. You act like it was just supposed to be talk > reapers die. When really, you spent 3 games trying to get the galaxy on your side.

I'd prefer a pep talk to my galaxy peeps than what we actually got, which was just a dumb talk with the Star Child instead.

[Matthias]

Sorry Matt but you're in the minority here. There are very few posters here that were satisfied with the endings. And they shouldn't be. They are crap.

i have no problem being the minority. i have no problem having thoroughly enjoyed myself through the entirety of an amazing gaming experience rather than suffering the lingering feeling of having wasted 8 years of my life building up towards something that was ultimately disappointing (someone seriously said something to that effect elsewhere on the net).

and i certainly have no problem with the realization that i'm one of the apparently few who was able to comprehend the logic of a story that for whatever reason seems to have proven illusive to the vast majority. as someone said earlier, i overthought it, and i enjoyed the game all the more because of it.

[Brill Weave]

You can't pep talk what you don't got, and Shepard got the galaxy. Besides, there's no details other than mentioning that Shepard wins. You act like it was just supposed to be talk > reapers die.

You're wasting your breath. If I recall correctly Matthias was the guy that came in after ME3 was released and white knighted Bioware throughout the entire thread to the point where he got a thread trolling infraction. People have different opinions.

[Brill Weave]

i have no problem being the minority. i have no problem having thoroughly enjoyed myself through the entirety of an amazing gaming experience rather than suffering the lingering feeling of having wasted 8 years of my life building up towards something that was ultimately disappointing (someone seriously said something to that effect elsewhere on the net).

and i certainly have no problem with the realization that i'm one of the apparently few who was able to comprehend the logic of a story that for whatever reason seems to have proven illusive to the vast majority. as someone said earlier, i overthought it, and i enjoyed the game all the more because of it.

I wasn't discussing the logic of the story. I was discussing the failings on Bioware's part to address major plot holes. As well as their failure to follow through on statements made before the game was released. That's where you're getting confused. The endings were contrary to what the consumers were promised. At no point in those endings were any of the decisions I made in prior games shown to have an impact.

Take the fact that the consumers didn't get what they were promised and then throw in a previously completely unknown, unacknowledged, and unmentioned antagonist to go with three cookie cutter endings and voila! Instant fan rage. It's not the content of the interaction with the Star Child people were pissed off about. It's because it happened in the first place.

[Matthias]

You can't pep talk what you don't got, and Shepard got the galaxy.

again, a galaxy that was being systematically overrun by the reapers, yes. shepard sure as hell got that, or whatever was left of it.

Besides, there's no details other than mentioning that Shepard wins. You act like it was just supposed to be talk > reapers die. When really, you spent 3 games trying to get the galaxy on your side.

uh yeah you spent three games getting the galaxy on your side, and you also spent three games learning that that was not enough, that even then the reapers couldn't be beaten conventionally, which is why the crucible was necessary. but in this particular fan fic/alternate ending, all of a sudden all that goes out the window just cos shepard gives a speech?

I'd prefer a pep talk to my galaxy peeps than what we actually got, which was just a dumb talk with the Star Child instead.

so rather than the dumb talk with the star child, you'd prefer:

me1: reapers can't be beaten conventionally
me2: reapers can't be beaten conventionally
me3: reapers can't be beaten conventionally... but shepard gives a speech so they're beaten conventionally.

right.

[Brill Weave]

so rather than the dumb talk with the star child, you'd prefer:

me1: reapers can't be beaten conventionally
me2: reapers can't be beaten conventionally
me3: reapers can't be beaten conventionally... but shepard gives a speech so they're beaten conventionally.

right.

I was with you to a point up until this. The Crucible itself is not a conventional weapon. It's ancient knowledge researched by an extinct race that was designed to stop the Reapers. You can have Shepard winning after the speech by utilizing the Crucible without the retarded astro boy endings even taking place. You're working so hard to validate your opinion of the series that you're ignoring things that are plain as day.

[Matthias]

You're wasting your breath. If I recall correctly Matthias was the guy that came in after ME3 was released and white knighted Bioware throughout the entire thread to the point where he got a thread trolling infraction. People have different opinions.

actually my infraction was from a statement questioning someone's intelligence. ironic considering that person had flat out said that he hadn't thought this through as much as i had, but eh whatever.

I wasn't discussing the logic of the story. I was discussing the failings on Bioware's part to address major plot holes.

um. let's consult the urban dictionary shall we?

Plot hole
In a piece of fiction, a Plot Hole is a completely implausible occurrence or series of events that contradicts logic or previously established events in the story. Includes things such as unlikely behaviour or actions of characters, illogical or impossible events, events happening for no apparent reason, or statements/events that contradict earlier events in the storyline.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/defin...term=plot+hole

so in other words
plot holes = lapse of logic within a story.
lack of plot holes = consistency of logic within a story.

you talk about plot holes, you are talking about the logic of the story, or lack thereof.

As well as their failure to follow through on statements made before the game was released. That's where you're getting confused.

i'm not confused, more like you're not getting what i'm saying. what i'm saying is that i don't care. the story could have ended with an unavoidable, canon ending of the reapers annihilating all the races and ultimately winning the war which means all the decisions in the three games would have meant nothing, and i still would have enjoyed it. i didn't cure the genophage because i wanted to see the effect of that on the end, i cured it because it sounded like a good thing to do. just like in my renegade path i didn't cure the genophage, not because i wanted to see the effect of that decision on the end, but because i wanted to see the reaction to it. the ending may or may not have been what was promised, but what i ended up getting was just fine.

The endings were contrary to what the consumers were promised. At no point in those endings were any of the decisions I made in prior games shown to have an impact.

Take the fact that the consumers didn't get what they were promised and then throw in a previously completely unknown, unacknowledged, and unmentioned antagonist to go with three cookie cutter endings and voila! Instant fan rage. It's not the content of the interaction with the Star Child people were pissed off about. It's because it happened in the first place.

and i do understand that. at no point did i ever say, "people shouldn't be pissed off about the ending of the game." displeasure with games will always be a largely subjective matter and that's something i never judged anyone on. my point has always pretty much solely been that the ending, whether it was what was promised or not, what we ended up getting actually made sense just fine and was a fine ending in and of itself. like you said, the content and interaction with the star child was not the problem.

so no, i am not the confused one, you are, at least in terms of what you think i'm trying to say. because i have never expressed an opinion one way or the other about displeasure with the ending, all i have ever talked about in this line of thinking has only been about story logic and plot holes. i have never once condemned anyone for their fan rage. hell i even acknowledge the validity of it:

and really, you thought the ending was stupid? well then sorry to say, you bought a game with a stupid ending, better luck next time.

[Matthias]

I was with you to a point up until this. The Crucible itself is not a conventional weapon. It's ancient knowledge researched by an extinct race that was designed to stop the Reapers. You can have Shepard winning after the speech by utilizing the Crucible without the retarded astro boy endings even taking place. You're working so hard to validate your opinion of the series that you're ignoring things that are plain as day.

um bro. i was commenting about this:

though i will say the indoctrination theory was not the worst alternate ending i've read on the net. i remember reading one that the person actually wrote out a script for, where shepard declines the catalyst's three options and insists they'll win the war on their own terms. so he returns to the normandy and gives a big speech to the fleet which invigorates them, leading them to defeat the reaper fleets. so... after three full games building up the reapers as virtually unbeatable, after emphasizing over and over again that they cannot be beaten conventionally and how they were annihilating the allied fleets at every turn... a little pep talk was all it took to overcome those odds and beat them.

to which elcura had responded with:

I'd prefer a pep talk to my galaxy peeps than what we actually got, which was just a dumb talk with the Star Child instead.

in other words, what you just said is exactly what i was explaining to elcura. and what you were criticizing was what elcura had said, that i was trying to explain the lack of logic in.

try to keep up k? cos you're working so hard to invalidate my opinion of the series that you're ignoring things that have been said on this board as plain as day.