Mass Effect 3 Spoiler Thread

@Grubber788

The kid/God represents the very final outcome... [spoiler]of the technological singularity that took place, the very being(s) that started the every-50k-year harvest cycle which has been around for millions of years (or as Harbinger used to put it, 'time beyond your comprehension').

Technological Singularity, the 'chaos,' that the kid/god tells you about at the end is basically the other spectrum of the 'origin' theories like big bang or god or whatever. It's also an intellectual event horizon. So pretty much anything flies. The concept of technological singularity and the existance of the god kid actually makes no less scientific sense than any of the made up crap like 'ezoo mass reactors' or 'mass relays' or whatever. Too many people shoot down synthesis as a 'space magic' when really, mass relays and magic ruins that teach you and show you things telepathically are no less nutty in concept.

And before people say Technological Singularity is last-minute made up crap, it isn't necessarily. Even way back in ME1, they clearly do allude to it (albeit only once in a very ambiguous conversation that is almost never explored ever again) in the conversation with the harbinger. Just about everything he stated has been true, and fits the cycle being an old outcome of a technological singularity perfectly well. Other than introducing god himself (and crossing dangerously into the territory of religion in a very literal sense), there really aren't very many other ways to explain the origin/existence of reapers.

I do believe the ending fits.. well it fits the lore and the story from a purely logical point of view.

Where I divulge from the proponents of the ending is that the ending doesn't really fit the overall narrative they've been telling throughout the trilogy, and it doesn't really fit the medium, especially an over-100-hour game built heavily on player choice or at least the illusion of it as an important game/narrative mechanic.

If this really was the ending they had in mind from the beginning of the trilogy, then it's definitely an example of a very cheap usage of deus ex machina, or failure to focus the narrative on executing what could have been a brilliant ending (I can think of very very few instances over the course of the trilogy that barely proves the ending wasn't pulled completely out of a thin air at the last minute).

Just beaten. Here are my thoughts:

Spoiler:

I chose the "death to all synthetics" ending, and am not at all satisfied. It's a difficult choice to make because I don't like ANY of the options. I just wanted to end the cycle and keep the peace I'd brokered - instead, the Geth, Reapers, and EDI were all wiped out... I guess this is the best choice in my mind because it's the closest to what I'd wanted to do. Still, poor Joker. And after the Quarians and Geth finally came to terms with each other...

To me, the kid/god was whatever force behind the Reapers presenting itself to Shepard. It knew that the kid's death affected Shepard pretty deeply, and so chose that form to speak to Shepard in. That said, it's a terrible way to end it because there's no explanation behind it, aside from "the Reapers are my solution." Why? Who are you? The "space magic" choice is absolutely ridiculous. I was with the game up until the point that Shepard collapses on the platform inside the Citadel. Everything up to that point was easily one of the best gaming experiences I've had, and then it goes right out the window.

My readiness was 3900, and that's with every quest and all scans in the game completed, so I think I'll play the multiplayer until I get over the 4000 mark, because I think that gives me a choice with Anderson at the end; I didn't see one before, unless talking the Illusive Man down with the three paragon pursuade options into shooting himself counts as "saving" Anderson.) It also allows for Shepard to survive that final encounter. After that, I'll likely do a New Game + run, because I want to see what the "secret" thing is for beating the game twice. As far as the ending, I guess we'll just have to see what the DLC brings, but using DLC to properly end your game is a lesson I'd have thought people would have learned with Bethesda's misstep with F3.

@Pikey26

Well put. I'm willing to give the kid/God explanation a bit more thought, but you nailed it in your last paragraph. Deus ex machina might be the explanation we will have to settle with.

Xenos, regarding Anderson and your readiness score:

Spoiler:

Anderson dies no matter what. The only choice you get is whether or not he lives long enough to tell you he is proud of you. Otherwise the Illusive Man executes him.

The score does affect whether or not Shepard is alive at the very end of the game. I think over 5000 and you get a scene with Shep's N7 armor and him/her waking up.

Maybe it was all a dream.

Grubber788 wrote:

Xenos, regarding Anderson and your readiness score:

Spoiler:

The way I've seen it described, then, is that Shepard lives if you have a readiness rating over 4000 and you "save" Anderson (that is, Illusive Man shoots himself and Anderson expires "naturally") and then choose to destroy synthetics.

If your readiness is over 5000, Shepard lives if you don't "save" Anderson and then choose to destroy synthetics. Although, I think this is a threshold - Shepard lives either way, but it's made easier if you "save" Anderson. The higher the readiness, the less you need to rely on this final action to save you.

Shepard dies regardless of your readiness rating if you choose merge or control, which makes sense - in either case, Shepard sacrifices herself. The only option that has a shot of her living is destroy, despite what the kid says.

A great article from Forbes about how Bioware has lost a lot of goodwill with its DLC issues and the ending of the game.

I like this article because it portrays opponents of the ending as being rationale (compared to other sources writing opponents off entirely)

I got yelled at for asking this in the main ME 3 thread, so here goes.

I'm one of those guys who often catches up on a series or game franchise years later. Most famously, I crammed five seasons of Lost to get ready for the big finale, only to be utterly disappointed by the ending.

Keeping that in mind, I'm currently playing through ME 1 and trying to decide if it's worth playing the entire series over the next couple months only to get to a thoroughly unsatisfying ending. So, is the ending so bad you'd recommend someone new to ME not even bother? Or are there redeeming qualities?

jdzappa wrote:

I got yelled at for asking this in the main ME 3 thread, so here goes.

I'm one of those guys who often catches up on a series or game franchise years later. Most famously, I crammed five seasons of Lost to get ready for the big finale, only to be utterly disappointed by the ending.

Keeping that in mind, I'm currently playing through ME 1 and trying to decide if it's worth playing the entire series over the next couple months only to get to a thoroughly unsatisfying ending. So, is the ending so bad you'd recommend someone new to ME not even bother? Or are there redeeming qualities?

My recommendation is to follow the LarryC school of thought and play for the journey. I imagine by the time you get to the end of ME3, BW will have addressed the ending in one form or another.

Mass Effect will always have had some of the best writing and most interesting characters of any video game series I have ever played. Now that you know the ending isn't very good, at least you can go into that particular part of the journey with reduced expectations, which may turn out to be a good thing.

It is definitely worth to play it for the journey imo.
Though I feel the same way about Lost, BSG etc.

There is a ton of closure to be found throughout ME3 for individual characters, side-stories etc.

jdzappa wrote:

I got yelled at for asking this in the main ME 3 thread, so here goes.

I'm one of those guys who often catches up on a series or game franchise years later. Most famously, I crammed five seasons of Lost to get ready for the big finale, only to be utterly disappointed by the ending.

Keeping that in mind, I'm currently playing through ME 1 and trying to decide if it's worth playing the entire series over the next couple months only to get to a thoroughly unsatisfying ending. So, is the ending so bad you'd recommend someone new to ME not even bother? Or are there redeeming qualities?

I think you'd be stupid not to. Think of it the same way you would a long running TV show. Most TV series have extremely unsatisfying endings, and in many ways for the same reasons, but it's totally worth watching. Would you watch Lost, the Sopranos, Deadwood? You not only would, you should, because the ride is amazing.

So, is the ending so bad you'd recommend someone new to ME not even bother? Or are there redeeming qualities?

No way to know until you've finished, but my personal experience suggests that the better you like the game and the characters in it, the more bitterly disappointed you'll be with the hacks at Bioware when it completes. There's an illusion presented that what you're doing matters, and the end is almost completely independent of anything you've ever done. So you could skip the entire game and get the exact same ending, when they just spent the last 150 hours pretending like your decisions have consequence.

Basically: every friend you make in the whole series? You're going to ruin their f*cking lives, and that's assuming you don't kill them outright. It'd be much easier to play the last ten minutes without the rest of the game, because at least then you'd be doing it to strangers.

Oh, and:

It's been more than a decade and a half since Chrono Trigger, things have changed. Costs have changed. Expectations have changed. Costs have REALLY changed.

Okay, fine. But so have revenues. Bethesda seems to be able to handle this okay. You might not agree with the ending of Fallout 3, but by god, it had one, it made sense, and you got to see what happened to all the people you'd interacted with. And you can't say it wasn't a modern game in terms of budget.

Grubber788 wrote:

A great article from Forbes about how Bioware has lost a lot of goodwill with its DLC issues and the ending of the game.

I like this article because it portrays opponents of the ending as being rationale (compared to other sources writing opponents off entirely)

Wow, that was a great, thoughtful article. He's right on. He's also right to point out that part of this whole mix is EA. The EA purchase of Bioware has done little good for Bioware and only seeded distrust among fans at best.

DSGamer wrote:
Grubber788 wrote:

A great article from Forbes about how Bioware has lost a lot of goodwill with its DLC issues and the ending of the game.

I like this article because it portrays opponents of the ending as being rationale (compared to other sources writing opponents off entirely)

Wow, that was a great, thoughtful article. He's right on. He's also right to point out that part of this whole mix is EA. The EA purchase of Bioware has done little good for Bioware and only seeded distrust among fans at best.

It's true. I still remember back when EA bought BioWare in 2009 (?) and the general reaction among the gaming community was "Oh sh*t."

Does your game have an epic, engaging story? Does your game have a large cast of amazing, complex characters? Do you want the ending to give you, your story, and your characters some closure after the final struggle? Here's how it's done properly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu2sztIxQko

That's how you end a f*cking game. That's how you get CLOSURE.

Pikey26 wrote:

oo many people shoot down synthesis as a 'space magic' when really, mass relays and magic ruins that teach you and show you things telepathically are no less nutty in concept.

Sure, but it's a difference between starting off a story with "It was a time umpty-throms and diddly-bongs (and here's how they work)" and going "and the the nurf appeared and proclaimed that verily, thou must choose between the humpty or the dumpty or the frumpty and then I will huudle-fuudle the varsuum" during the last five minutes of the story. Sure, they're equally silly, but the first is part of the buy-in for the story, and the latter is a cheap deus ex machina.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:
Pikey26 wrote:

oo many people shoot down synthesis as a 'space magic' when really, mass relays and magic ruins that teach you and show you things telepathically are no less nutty in concept.

Sure, but it's a difference between starting off a story with "It was a time umpty-throms and diddly-bongs (and here's how they work)" and going "and the the nurf appeared and proclaimed that verily, thou must choose between the humpty or the dumpty or the frumpty and then I will huudle-fuudle the varsuum" during the last five minutes of the story. Sure, they're equally silly, but the first is part of the buy-in for the story, and the latter is a cheap deus ex machina.

Someone listens to the Mark Kermode & Simon Mayo podcast

Take this with a pinch of salt, being mostly internet hearsay, but apparently the ORIGINAL motivation for the reapers / ending was changed dramatically once Drew was shifted over to work on SWTOR...

Spoiler:
"The Reapers' goal was to find a way to stop the spread of Dark Energy which would eventually consume everything. That's why there was so much foreshadowing about Dark Energy in ME2.

The Reapers as a whole were 'nations' of people who had fused together in the most horrific way possible to help find a way to stop the spread of the Dark Energy. The real reason for the Human Reaper was supposed to be the Reapers saving throw because they had run out of time. Humanity in Mass Effect is supposedly unique because of it's genetic diversity and represented the universe's best chance at stopping Dark Energy's spread.

The original final choice was going to be "Kill the Reapers and put your faith in the races of the galaxy in finding another way to stop the spread with what little time is left" or "Sacrifice humanity, allowing them to be horrifically processed in hopes that the end result will justify the means."

stevenmack wrote:
Alien Love Gardener wrote:
Pikey26 wrote:

oo many people shoot down synthesis as a 'space magic' when really, mass relays and magic ruins that teach you and show you things telepathically are no less nutty in concept.

Sure, but it's a difference between starting off a story with "It was a time umpty-throms and diddly-bongs (and here's how they work)" and going "and the the nurf appeared and proclaimed that verily, thou must choose between the humpty or the dumpty or the frumpty and then I will huudle-fuudle the varsuum" during the last five minutes of the story. Sure, they're equally silly, but the first is part of the buy-in for the story, and the latter is a cheap deus ex machina.

Someone listens to the Mark Kermode & Simon Mayo podcast

Take this with a pinch of salt, being mostly internet hearsay, but apparently the ORIGINAL motivation for the reapers / ending was changed dramatically once Drew was shifted over to work on SWTOR...

Spoiler:
"The Reapers' goal was to find a way to stop the spread of Dark Energy which would eventually consume everything. That's why there was so much foreshadowing about Dark Energy in ME2.

The Reapers as a whole were 'nations' of people who had fused together in the most horrific way possible to help find a way to stop the spread of the Dark Energy. The real reason for the Human Reaper was supposed to be the Reapers saving throw because they had run out of time. Humanity in Mass Effect is supposedly unique because of it's genetic diversity and represented the universe's best chance at stopping Dark Energy's spread.

The original final choice was going to be "Kill the Reapers and put your faith in the races of the galaxy in finding another way to stop the spread with what little time is left" or "Sacrifice humanity, allowing them to be horrifically processed in hopes that the end result will justify the means."

And that ending makes far more sense then what ended up happening.

Yeah, that was foreshadowed repeatedly.

Spoiler:

Two instances I can think of offhand are the star going nova from dark energy, and Mordin's comments about how humans are so incredibly variable compared to all other sentient races.

That would have fit much, much better.

Wow, if that's true... damn. What's the source on that? Anything more than forum speculation?

stevenmack wrote:

Someone listens to the Mark Kermode & Simon Mayo podcast

I have no idea why you'd think that. What a silly thing to suggest.

I like that version much better, but really, just about anything is an improvement on the ending they gave us, because everything about the catalyst and that choice is completely unearned. Simply cutting all that nonsense would result in something better. When the crucible docks, it fires. Reapers die, the Mass Effect relays blow up, without the Normandy scenes. Cut back to Shepard, bloodied, watching the fireworks next to his dead friend. Maybe Shepard's head drops down as well. Roll curtain. Cue Faunts song. Fin.

Grubber788 wrote:

Wow, if that's true... damn. What's the source on that? Anything more than forum speculation?

mostly just rumours from something awful based on feedback from 'a journalist' who had early access to a review copy and relayed some gossip he heard while at Bioware - so like I say, pinches of salt all round.

Certainly SOUNDS very feasible though, and is backed up by the various hints and conversations you can have in ME2 ( I think I counted at least four or five references to Dark Energy build up aside from Haestrom's sun on my last playthrough).

Alien Love Gardener wrote:
stevenmack wrote:

Someone listens to the Mark Kermode & Simon Mayo podcast

I have no idea why you'd think that. What a silly thing to suggest.

I like that version much better, but really, just about anything is an improvement on the ending they gave us, because everything about the catalyst and that choice is completely unearned. Simply cutting all that nonsense would result in something better. When the crucible docks, it fires. Reapers die, the Mass Effect relays blow up, without the Normandy scenes. Cut back to Shepard, bloodied, watching the fireworks next to his dead friend. Maybe Shepard's head drops down as well. Roll curtain. Cue Faunts song. Fin.

I see what you did there

I've skimmed this thread to catch up, and I can't help thinking the problems with the last 15 minutes are rooted much earlier in the series, or that they didn't have a good overall plan for the trilogy story, or that they did and didn't follow it.

The way the crucible plan just popped up on Mars and was accepted set off a bit of a warning bell to me. I felt they also tried to shove too much, or the wrong type of stuff into ME3. As a possible alternative I think they could have cut 80% or heavily compressed the collectors/crew gathering from ME2 and concluded most of the Cerberus plotline within ME2, leaving ME3 to be more focussed.

Malor wrote:

It would feel, in other words, like what you had done mattered, that taking the time to go search all those worlds and run all those FedEx quests made a difference. It doesn't have to be a HUGE difference, since they are pretty basic FedEx quests, but it should be visible, and it should be identified to the player in some way. ("Hey, Shepherd, this is Kirrahe. We've got these Brutes, you just keep going.")

Yes, small things like that would've made it better.
But it still would've left me going "wtf?" after the last 15 minutes.

Conrad Verner spoilers:

Spoiler:

I met him on my Renegade playthrough! Wow. Didn't expect that. Threw himself in front of a Cerberus bullet for Shepard. No hesitation. Wow. He gives you a War Asset!!! Wow. Conrad Verner.

Been thinking more about the ending...

Spoiler:

I am convinced that Bioware is planning on DLC to finish the story. Some of these has been mentioned before but the following I feel are all signs that everything after he enters the light is a dream....

Sheppards armor doesnt look right
Sheppards has a gun with unlimited ammo
When moving towards the console Anderson should be in visual site
Nothing about the room looks like the Citadel
No question when talking to the EM he is being controled
Dream sequence slow walk
Boy who appears as a God, often mentioned in descriptions of Reaper
The fact that if you destory the reapers you appear on Earth
Old man says he will tell one more sheppard story
Bioware has stated they want everyone to keep their last save

And the final fact...

The autosave for your playthrough resets itself after you beat the game to JUST BEFORE you enter the light. I know for a fact that the autosave feature kicked in several times after that point so they are CHANING the save point for that save. I think this is a clear indication that with a new DLC there will be a reason to re-live that point in the game.

LarryC wrote:

Conrad Verner spoilers:

Spoiler:

I met him on my Renegade playthrough! Wow. Didn't expect that. Threw himself in front of a Cerberus bullet for Shepard. No hesitation. Wow. He gives you a War Asset!!! Wow. Conrad Verner.

Spoiler:

Hahaha. And then (at least in my playthrough) the chick you save from the bar in the first game pops up and says "Oh, yeah, I sabotaged that guy's gun. Hey Conrad, lookin' gooooood." Hi-larious.

jdzappa wrote:

Keeping that in mind, I'm currently playing through ME 1 and trying to decide if it's worth playing the entire series over the next couple months only to get to a thoroughly unsatisfying ending. So, is the ending so bad you'd recommend someone new to ME not even bother? Or are there redeeming qualities?

The fact that jd is even being prompted to ask this is actually making me mad. Not at you, jd: it's a perfectly valid question. Judging from this thread you'd think the ending to ME3 is about babbystabbing in a Hitler outfit.

Seriously, guys, whatever happened to 'the journey is its own reward'? Years and years of work were poured into this game, you've *by your own admissions* had countless great moments with the series ... and you're all tossing it away and declaring BioWare the newest Great Satan because you disagree with how they chose to end their story?

Do you know what happens at dev studios when crap like this gets posted on huge blogs? Devs go home wondering why the hell they bothered in the first place. Why they bothered wasting years of their lives, forgoing relationships, decent food, exercise, denying themselves the ability to have fun so they could make fun for other people.

They go home and they say to their wives and husbands stuff like, "Maybe I should get into some other line of work." Whatever, I guess. Would hate for us to get anything less than 'what we deserve'.

To be fair to Kotaku, even though it put forward that awful article, it also has Owen talking about how ridiculous the notion of a petition to change the end of ME3 is.

Xeknos wrote:

And that ending makes far more sense then what ended up happening.

Not really, there are plenty of reasons why that rationality for the Reapers doesn't make any more sense, and in many ways less, than what they wound up with. I won't go into all of them, because it's been discussed ad nauseam on other forums and you can google search it if you want, but primarily it doesn't give much in the way of rational for why the 50,000 year cycle began in the first place.