NegaDeath wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 19:08:
But it SHOULD have had an effect on the ending. Shepard knows that he'll be stranding his friends on earth if the relays are destroyed. That was one of my first thoughts when the brat gave me the options. If the endings were set up so that red destruction took out all Reaper based tech, and blue control preserved Reaper tech, a LOT more people would stop to consider the "blue" route. Shepard sacrifices his humanity to preserve the shred of galactic unity that remains and allow his surviving friends to go home. Just that one simple change would have made a world of difference. As it is now it seems the red route is by far the most taken.

Of course, the choices you make with your companions will affect which option you personally want to pick, but it doesn't affect which options you are allowed to pick. Lets say you saved the Geth, does that mean that no AI is ever going to cause the eventual destruction of all organic life? And what if you cured the genophage. Does that mean now you can save the mass relays and only destroy the reapers? That's what I mean when I say choices you make with your companions won't necessarily have an effect on the ending. The choices you make with them are personal, and affect one group of people or species. The choice you make with the Catalyst is on a galactic scale, with millions of years of momentum behind it. The available paths are set long before Shepard and co made their impact on the galaxy.

Bhruic wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 18:20:
You saved the Geth vs the Quarians - what changed in your 3 colour choice? You betrayed the Krogans instead of saving them - what changed in your 3 colour choice? Morinth killed herself to save her daughter - what changed in the 3 colour choice?

Those endings happened before the epilogue. That story is complete and does not necessarily have to be reflected in the last several minutes of the game. Unless you can demonstrate what rule requires all ending-type material in a trilogy to only happen in the last few minutes of the last game...

Creston wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 18:34:

briktal wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 16:57:

Creston wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 16:50:

EricFate wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 15:37:
But will the extended cut scenes be properly color coded?

Here's a screenshot of the new ending.

Creston

I like this one better.

I will see your raise, and re-raise you again, sir!

Collect all three!*

*separate charge applies to each DLC flavor

The problem isn't solely that the ending ignores everything personal about your journey; it's that it's a really shitty ending. The more analysis I read about it, the more pissed off I become.

They need to go back to the drawing board and retcon that motherfucker.

Bhruic wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 19:01:
Ok, so let's see... "Your choices with TIM". Um, yeah, ok, the choice you make at the end of the game affects the end of the game. Yeah, real winner you've started with. And how do any of your previous 3 games worth of choices affect that?

Your choice of romantic companion affects who magically spontaneously teleported on to the Normandy at the end. Yes, very believable, considering said romantic companion was last seen charging the beam with me in London.

And your total score... The only thing that has any impact at all. And considering that "your score" has no real reflection on your choices, just on how much effort you put into system scanning and multiplayer, that's barely a choice at all.

In other words, your choices have no measurable impact on the game ending.

Well, actually no, because the end sequence with TIM changes depending on your interaction with him throughout the game.

The Normandy sequence, in my interpretation, is the most of the crew survived, since the ship is intact. The fact that any of your romantic options can step out of the ship means that any of those characters are potentially a survivor. They only show you your romantic interest to avoid having to animate every possible permutation of final crew composition.

And yes, the final score is the one major factor on your choice of cinematics. Viewed as a stand alone ending, it is disappointing. However, like I've been arguing the whole time, the final cinematic is only one portion of the ending, which takes place throughout the latter half of the game. My point is, ME3 had a bad ending cinematic, but not a bad ending. In any case, which choices that you make throughout the series do you think could've had a significant impact on the final sequence with the catalyst?

Yifes wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 18:53:
Yes, it does affect your characters, and I think if you were in a romantic relationship with Tali, she's the one who steps out of the Normandy in the ending sequence. So we can assume that in most endings, she survives the crash with the rest of the crew. What I was arguing, was that the choices you make with Tali throughout the series are not significant enough to affect your outcome with the reapers; Not that your choices with the reapers should not affect Tali.

But it SHOULD have had an effect on the ending. Shepard knows that he'll be stranding his friends on earth if the relays are destroyed. That was one of my first thoughts when the brat gave me the options. If the endings were set up so that red destruction took out all Reaper based tech, and blue control preserved Reaper tech, a LOT more people would stop to consider the "blue" route. Shepard sacrifices his humanity to preserve the shred of galactic unity that remains and allow his surviving friends to go home. Just that one simple change would have made a world of difference. As it is now it seems the red route is by far the most taken.

Had they actually allowed the writing team to brainstorm on that section like they did the rest of the game who knows what might have happened.

I don't think that the Shroud was the only thing that made the air breathable, to be honest. It's not as if the biosphere is gone or anything.

My recollection of Mordin introducing it was that it was still doing air processing. And according to the wiki:

Regardless of which you choose the Shroud is eventually destroyed as it explodes, although the consequence of destroying the Shroud has yet to be seen as it was effectively keeping Tuchanka's air breathable.

Yifes wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 18:48:
Your total score at the end affects which ending you can choose, and how battle is progressing on Earth. Yes, the options are limited compared to all the choices you had to make throughout the series, but like I said before, those choices were resolved outside of the final sequence.

Dude.

I just stepped into this thread. Really, read what you just posted. The ONLY thing that affects which ending you can choose is your score. That's NOT a decisive option made to the player. It's a forced grinding mechanism to ensure multiplayer replay. The choices made prior to the end sequence are completely 100% irrelevant to the issue at hand (much like the player's decisions toward the ending).

How do you not get it? The Deus Ex ending of picking 1 of 3 available buttons (based on an arbitrary score to boot) is simply not good enough for a game of this scope and magnitude.

That's already been covered. Your choices with TIM affects whether Shepard lives or not in the end. Your choice of romantic companion affects who steps out of the Normandy. Your total score at the end affects which ending you can choose, and how battle is progressing and what's back on Earth. Yes, the options are limited compared to all the choices you had to make throughout the series, but like I said before, those choices were resolved outside of the final sequence.

Ok, so let's see... "Your choices with TIM". Um, yeah, ok, the choice you make at the end of the game affects the end of the game. Yeah, real winner you've started with. And how do any of your previous 3 games worth of choices affect that?

Your choice of romantic companion affects who magically spontaneously teleported on to the Normandy at the end. Yes, very believable, considering said romantic companion was last seen charging the beam with me in London.

And your total score... The only thing that has any impact at all. And considering that "your score" has no real reflection on your choices, just on how much effort you put into system scanning and multiplayer, that's barely a choice at all.

In other words, your choices have no measurable impact on the game ending.

NegaDeath wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 18:47:
But the resolution of the Reaper arc profoundly affects your characters. Tali in particular. Over the course of 3 games we learn about the Quarian exile from their homeworld. You (possibly) set that right in this game. Now she's either stranded on Earth or whatever planet the Normandy landed on. She got to stand on her homeworld and breath it's air for like 15 minutes and left to help you, now it's taken away. Factor in that Rannoch was on the opposite side of the galaxy, that FTL drives need to discharge their cores in gravity wells so they can't travel a direct route, and that they also have to take the long way around the galactic core for safety, and she won't be going home anytime soon. If ever. That's a major development in her story.

Or hell maybe she died off screen. We don't know.

Yes, it does affect your characters, and I think if you were in a romantic relationship with Tali, she's the one who steps out of the Normandy in the ending sequence. So we can assume that in most endings, she survives the crash with the rest of the crew. What I was arguing, was that the choices you make with Tali throughout the series are not significant enough to affect your outcome with the reapers; Not vice versa: that your choices with the reapers should not affect Tali. This was in response to people complaining that your choices throughout the game do not affect the ending.

Bhruic wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 18:44:

So with 1000 Krogan babies born to every mother, on a planet that has no capability to sustain itself, that Krogan Renaissance means that every single one of them will soon be like the Drell: Murdering each other over scraps of food and sips of fresh water.

Not to mention the fact that as part of the cure (assuming you did the cure), the building that was responsible for the planet having any breathable air got destroyed. I've often wondered why no one (in the game) commented on that at all.

? I don't think that the Shroud was the only thing that made the air breathable, to be honest. It's not as if the biosphere is gone or anything.

Creston

NegaDeath wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 17:51:
I don't recall people complaining when that EXACT thing happened at the end of Mass Effect 2.

Why would anyone have complained at the end of ME2? It wasn't supposed to be a happy ending, it was supposed to satisfy the player and leave them wanting more and hoping for greater resolution in the obvious climax to the series.

Can you imagine The Empire Strikes Back with an ending like the one at the end of Return of the Jedi? It would be absurd, same as the opposite.

Bhruic wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 18:40:

How is that dodging the question?

It's dodging the question because it's not answering it. How exactly does anything that you've chosen affect the ending? You've been asked that many times now, but rather than answering, you keep going back to "well, your choices affect other stuff before the ending". Well duh. We all knew that. Have you heard anyone complaining that your choices don't affect anything? No, you've heard people complaining that your choices don't affect the ending. So unless you actually want to step up and try and make a case for how your choices affect the ending, just admit they don't.

That's already been covered. Your choices with TIM affects whether Shepard lives or not in the end. Your choice of romantic companion affects who steps out of the Normandy. Your total score at the end affects which ending you can choose, and how battle is progressing and what's back on Earth. Yes, the options are limited compared to all the choices you had to make throughout the series, but like I said before, those choices were resolved outside of the final sequence.

This comment was edited on Apr 5, 2012, 18:54.

Bhruic wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 18:27:

10 , 100 or 1000 or even 10000 times faster than light is still INCREDIBLE slow, given the ranges involved.

Depends what your definition of "slow" is. If they had FTL that was 10000x the speed of light, even the Quarians could get home in ~8 years. And they'd have the farthest to travel of anyone. I wouldn't call 8 years fast, but most of them would be alive when they got there, all other conditions being equal. They certainly are used to traveling through space.

Mass Effect's FTL travels at approximately 12 light years a day, so it'd take Tali & Co about 25 years or so to get home. But that's assuming that

A) They know the way. (yes, it's funny, but think about it.)
B) They can actually navigate the entire journey there. With Mass Gate technology, nobody ever created star maps, so to speak.
c) They will undoubtedly run into issues trying to discharge their drive cores.


But okay, that's a lot of nitpicking. I'd like to know what happens in the two or so years after I fix the entire fucking galaxy only for Bioware to offer me the three endings button.

Creston

Yifes wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 18:36:
? How is that dodging the question? The point is, the choices you make regarding your companions profoundly affects your companion on a personal level. That gets resolved. The final sequence with the reapers deal with issues on a galactic level, and whether Tali or Miranda, or Wrex dies or not is not significant towards resolution of the reaper story arc. That was Shepard's decision. In Planescape Torment do you find out what happens to Mort and Dakkon after TNO starts fighting in the Blood War? No, because its not relevant.

But the resolution of the Reaper arc profoundly affects your characters. Tali in particular. Over the course of 3 games we learn about the Quarian exile from their homeworld. You (possibly) set that right in this game. Now she's either stranded on Earth or whatever planet the Normandy landed on. She got to stand on her homeworld and breath it's air for like 15 minutes and left to help you, now it's taken away. Factor in that Rannoch was on the opposite side of the galaxy, that FTL drives need to discharge their cores in gravity wells so they can't travel a direct route, and that they also have to take the long way around the galactic core for safety, and she won't be going home anytime soon. If ever. That's a major development in her story.

Or hell maybe she died off screen. We don't know.

So with 1000 Krogan babies born to every mother, on a planet that has no capability to sustain itself, that Krogan Renaissance means that every single one of them will soon be like the Drell: Murdering each other over scraps of food and sips of fresh water.

Not to mention the fact that as part of the cure (assuming you did the cure), the building that was responsible for the planet having any breathable air got destroyed. I've often wondered why no one (in the game) commented on that at all.

How is that dodging the question?

It's dodging the question because it's not answering it. How exactly does anything that you've chosen affect the ending? You've been asked that many times now, but rather than answering, you keep going back to "well, your choices affect other stuff before the ending". Well duh. We all knew that. Have you heard anyone complaining that your choices don't affect anything? No, you've heard people complaining that your choices don't affect the ending. So unless you actually want to step up and try and make a case for how your choices affect the ending, just admit they don't.

Yifes wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 17:00:
Well, you know the status of your remaining companions, at least the ones on the Normandy.

Who all was on the Normandy, other than Joker? Everybody else was down in London with me. I see Joker get out of the Normandy, nobody else. Or, if I choose the pretty green ending, I see Joker and Edi, and sometimes Ashley step out. What happened to Liara? What happened to James? What happened to Jarvik? What happened to Garrus?

They live, seeing as Joker and the crew are alive.

You don't know that. You ASSUME that. I've seen 3 people step out of the Normandy. (Two of whom were in the final battle with the Reaper Destroyer with me...) I had 7 squad mates.

You know the status of the different races: Geth/Quarians working together, a Krogan renaissance etc, that was resolved before the end. The galaxy is not fucked, as they still have FTL technology. Just relatively isolated.

The Krogan Renaissance is now happening on a world that no longer has a mass effect gate, and it's happening to a race that has no spaceships of its own because of the demiliterization. So with 1000 Krogan babies born to every mother, on a planet that has no capability to sustain itself, that Krogan Renaissance means that every single one of them will soon be like the Drell: Murdering each other over scraps of food and sips of fresh water.

Yay?

Also, I paid Bioware around $200 to play 3 games, not for a 10 minute cinematic. If that's the only thing you care about, no wonder you feel screwed.

Because it is physically IMPOSSIBLE to enjoy the whole series, and think the ending is utter shit, correct? Alright man, we'll fall in line with your Bolshevism.

Creston

Bhruic wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 18:29:

I've addressed this before. Each individual character gets resolution of their story arc. Those are the endings of your companions, but are not significant enough on a galactic scale against the reapers

You mean you've dodged the issue before. You claim that you are arguing against people complaining that their choices don't matter to the ending. But where is it? Yes, the choices you make matter during the rest of the game, but who's talking about the rest of the game? We are talking about the ending. You know, the ending where you get to pick one of three possible outcomes. How do any of your choices affect that?

Of course, you'll just dodge the question again, because you already know they don't. Why you won't just admit that and move on, I don't know, but it's probably why people are labeling you a shill.

? How is that dodging the question? The point is, the choices you make regarding your companions profoundly affects your companion on a personal level. That gets resolved. The final sequence with the reapers deal with issues on a galactic level, and whether Tali or Miranda, or Wrex dies or not is not significant towards resolution of the reaper story arc. This part of the story is Shepard's decision alone. In Planescape Torment do you find out everything that happens to Mort and Dakkon after TNO starts fighting in the Blood War? No, because its not relevant.

briktal wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 16:57:

Creston wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 16:50:

EricFate wrote on Apr 5, 2012, 15:37:
But will the extended cut scenes be properly color coded?

Here's a screenshot of the new ending.

Creston

I like this one better.

I will see your raise, and re-raise you again, sir!

This comment was edited on Apr 5, 2012, 18:51.