Meh, even as the indoctrination theory is becoming the general agreement on the ending issue it still isn't that much better. I'd rather see "The Developers once known as Bioware" completely frak up a trilogy's ending than have them say to your face 'you got an "complete" product for €60, would you like a €10 product to make sense of it or another one to "extend" it?'
The only indoctrination i believe in is one of Bioware by EA.

I chose "Other" so I feel I should explain myself and it's been really hard for me to comment on the endings of Mass Effect 3 as an aspiring writer myself and I know I personally would be a little "down" if a large group of vocal people had extreme dislike for my work but also (at least myself personally) wouldn't put myself in this sort of position to begin with. I would at least have knowledge of what I had written before and would at least take the time to look at all 3 works before I published the final to make sure it made sense. I personally think the ending of ME3 is bad, plot holes, unexplained characters and stuff, no real closure, choices being negated pretty much, its not up to the standards that Bioware has set out in previous games. I feel that there is this massive disconnect between the ending and the rest of the game like they were written by two different people. Its like the guy who wrote Mass Effect: Deception wrote the ending, that guy obviously didn't have a lot of knowledge on the series or chose not to use the given knowledge he had to write the story and hence the reason the book is getting "patched"

Now I think that suing Bioware or reporting Bioware or using a giant inflatable Harbinger that spews his quotes to run over EA headquarters is a little much (however that last one made me giggle a bit in a way I should probably tell a therapist props to who thought that up) Giving well thought out constructive feedback on the forums that the company claims they read by a company who claims they take player feedback seriously? Completely ok, and the correct way to do things. I myself would have been satisfied with what everyone has been calling the "happy" ending (Shepard lives, Reapers die all is well with the galaxy) because I personally didn't see this series ending any other way. We literally have been building up to that moment across 3 games pretty much. When it was announced that there would be no "Reapers win" ending I knew something was going to be different because the opposite of the "happy" ending is the "bad or sad" ending. I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and they have let me down, do I expect them to fix it? No not really they don't HAVE too, I would just think as this company that talks themselves up as the "Company of the Player because we listen to player feedback" would want too.

I don't really have a dog in this fight but I should say that almost all of the non-gamers I've heard talk about this, ones who have only encountered gamers complaining about it online or in person, uniformly think the reaction is silly and immature. Take that how you will I guess.

peruvianskys:
I don't really have a dog in this fight but I should say that almost all of the non-gamers I've heard talk about this, ones who have only encountered gamers complaining about it online or in person, uniformly think the reaction is silly and immature. Take that how you will I guess.

Take this how you will, but growing up, almost every single non-gamer I ran across thought the hobby was silly and immature. People tend to have arrogant, presumptuous attitudes about things they don't enjoy or don't understand. News at eleven.

IamLEAM1983:
Editing the endings in response to fan concerns isn't authorial control. We haven't actively shaped the third opus' development, all we've done is stomp out feet until the company caved in. We aren't screenwriters, animators, level designers or playtesters. We're BioWare's audience. Plain and simple.

Also, ad hominem attacks? Seriously? Have I gone out of my way and expressly called anyone a moron? Have I insulted anyone? Nope. I'm well aware that there's people in the protest groups who can put a reasonable argument together. The problem is that even though the endings aren't ideal, even though there's plot holes and even though the full scope of our choices isn't adequately represented in the third game, the core argument I keep hearing over and over is that BioWare LIED to us. THIS is where the protesters are leaving all sensible discourse behind and reaching ridiculous levels of entitlement.

Yes, the Dreaded E-Word. I'll keep using it, too, because it definitely applies, no matter how much you might want to rationalize your argument and no matter how much you, as an individual, might be able to approach this whole debacle sensibly. If you are, congrats to you. Unfortunately, those I've seen invoking laws and accusing EA or BioWare of false advertising aren't.

They obviously had to cut corners. They obviously have a lot of interesting stuff lying around on the cutting room's floor. Time constraints, budgetary constraints and maybe even executive meddling caused some of these plot points and other elements to be dropped. This does not equate to lies in any shape or form.

BioWare isn't to blame if you didn't appreciate the ending's tone. Some of the decisions they took are questionable, yes, but it's THEIR decisions. As simple fans of the franchise, that's what we should be understanding. I'm all for letting them know that it wasn't exactly ideal, but the problem is we're not just asking for polite consultation or discussion. We aren't setting up a table and asking BioWare to sit down - the more vocal protestors are treating BioWare as though the decision-makers in the company were Saturday-morning cartoon villains who'd screwed up the last ten minutes of the third game simply out of spite.

I'm also aware that we don't live in a perfect world and that corporations and companies can indeed make false claims, but this isn't the case, here. BioWare isn't Enron. BioWare has simply fallen prey to its own PR talk, the same way Peter Molyneux keeps delivering impassioned speeches about his supposedly game-changing innovations, when the final products are usually middling at best.

Has anyone ever sued Molyneux for his PR talk? Obviously not. Why should we do it for BioWare? Why should we DEMAND anything? There's one heck of a difference between constructive exchanges and destructive criticism. That's what people aren't seeing, and this is where the entitlement issues associated with this problem are located.

Using consistently undermining language to portray people with an opposing viewpoint as foolish is a form of attack, yes. For an intellectual exercise, ask your girlfriend about something she cares about, and then start ridiculing it. Accuse her of 'raging', exaggerate her perspective into cartoonish absurdity and then tear it down, and fling around trite, snotty labels. See how the tone of the discussion progresses from there. The fans clamoring for a new ending have actually been the more civil of the two sides on this debate, and they've occasionally acted like abusive lunatics.

Yes, they obviously did cut corners. Through ineptitude, laziness or graft they utterly bungled the most essential element of their narrative...a narrative they package, promote, and sell to us as a product. While I do believe authorial intent should be respected, I certainly do not think that it is infallible. Charles Dickens was not infallible. Ridley Scott was not infallible. History is littered with examples of great creative minds listening to and adapting to feedback. The creative process is not so fragile that any form of input that questions authorial control causes the entire exercise to collapse into mass market schlock.

I'm not unhappy at the blow back Bioware has been getting over this fiasco. They clearly did NOT learn any lessons with Dragon Age 2 in terms of lazy corner cutting translating directly into toxic word of mouth. DEMANDING consistent quality from a developer, DEMANDING fulfillment of advertising promises...these are positive behaviors and Bioware should be embracing them wholeheartedly. A demanding fan, however annoying to deal with, is a still a fan. The alternative, so often suggested here, is that we shouldn't trouble Bioware with our nonsense, and should simply vote with our wallets and cease to buy their games altogether. Why this would be a preferable outcome for them, I'll never understand.

Chairman Miaow:
The people fighting against the people against the ending are worse. It has gotten somewhat out of control, but I have yet to see a single person opposed to these movements for a better ending talk about this without either generalising, dismissing it as "You just want a happy ending", or something like that. I would be happy to hear someone defend the endings sensibly, so if you feel you can, go ahead.

They can't, many of the have conceded the fact the ending suck, but because people feel more strongly about the ending and want to change it, they feel like it is their duty to put others down.

Plus, they are one of the main reasons these ME3 threads are still around.

BloatedGuppy:

peruvianskys:
I don't really have a dog in this fight but I should say that almost all of the non-gamers I've heard talk about this, ones who have only encountered gamers complaining about it online or in person, uniformly think the reaction is silly and immature. Take that how you will I guess.

Take this how you will, but growing up, almost every single non-gamer I ran across thought the hobby was silly and immature. People tend to have arrogant, presumptuous attitudes about things they don't enjoy or don't understand. News at eleven.

This is what I allude to in my OP. Many people still look down upon the industry as a sort of lesser animal to other mediums. We recently had a politician demand video games be labelled "WARNING: Exposure to violent video games has been linked to aggressive behavior." and the reaction by gamers to controversies such as ME3 will only add fuel to that fire.

Whilst some might say 'haters are gonna hate', I'm sure we can all agree that over the years the perception of video games has slowly, but surely, become more accepted with each generation. I like to think that both the industry, and many gamers, have matured, increased in numbers, and are fully aware of the positive impact games have on our lives, and the potential for artistic expression.

Over these same years we've seen a huge change in attitudes. Parents taking up the Wii/ kinect/ move. Non-gamers enticed into playing games due to their movie like cinematics or realistic graphic quality. The Telegraph and Guardian having articles dedicated to the artistic and financial value of games. None of this thought possible 20 years ago. And I am positive in the decades to come games will easily become equal, if not surpass the importance of other mediums.

However, this seems not to be one of those milestones but, in my opinion, counter-productive in forwarding our hobbies' social acceptance.

I've got the feeling many here have mis-interpreted my OP. I'm not arguing whether people should be angry about a mis-selling of a game. I'm questioning the methods employed to express disappointment. It's great to see people showing such passion for a game like Mass Effect. Seriously, the effort put into the 10 Reasons... video clearly shows skill and respect for a franchise. But it's becoming no less perverse than the unhealthy, obsessive characteristics shown from other fanatical groups (to which I used 'Twilight' as a key example).

Whilst this really comes down to personal opinion, I'm under the impression that a company that mis-sells a product does not give buyers permission to act unprofessionally. Whilst some of the tactics used to show their anger and disappointment of the ME3 ending are justified, and productive, some of them seem not to be, and it's more than likely these unprofessional methods are the ones that will be heard and remembered most by those both within, and outside of our community. After all, the screaming child makes more noise than a reasonable parent.

So fighting for the right to indirectly force a private company to change their creative work because it doesn't fit your personal standards is now something worth fighting for? Methinks that ~451 people need to be brought down to Earth and finally be taught that they don't get to demand change in creative works they're completely uninvolved in, and that they're not important enough to even think about asking to do so.

On a similar note, can I now whine like a bitch about how I didn't like Blade Runner and they should completely remake the film so it can be more like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?? 'Cause that's pretty much the same situation, the only difference being that the ME3 whiners have numbers. I think it's pretty safe to say, though, that even if I had a few thousand people (or even a few hundred thousand) demanding a remake, the film wouldn't be remade, and the public at large (including neutral and defending parties) would lose all respect for us and laugh at us. As we'd rightly deserve.

JCBFGD:
So fighting for the right to indirectly force a private company to change their creative work because it doesn't fit your personal standards is now something worth fighting for? Methinks that ~451 people need to be brought down to Earth and finally be taught that they don't get to demand change in creative works they're completely uninvolved in, and that they're not important enough to even think about asking to do so.

On a similar note, can I now whine like a bitch about how I didn't like Blade Runner and they should completely remake the film so it can be more like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?? 'Cause that's pretty much the same situation, the only difference being that the ME3 whiners have numbers. I think it's pretty safe to say, though, that even if I had a few thousand people (or even a few hundred thousand) demanding a remake, the film wouldn't be remade, and the public at large (including neutral and defending parties) would lose all respect for us and laugh at us. As we'd rightly deserve.

Bioware isn't a private company. It's fully owned by a publicly traded company.

wintercoat:

JCBFGD:
So fighting for the right to indirectly force a private company to change their creative work because it doesn't fit your personal standards is now something worth fighting for? Methinks that ~451 people need to be brought down to Earth and finally be taught that they don't get to demand change in creative works they're completely uninvolved in, and that they're not important enough to even think about asking to do so.

Bioware isn't a private company. It's fully owned by a publicly traded company.

Oh, okay. Well, if the majority of the shareholders demand a better ending, then BioWare should go ahead and do it. That's the responsible thing to do.

I don't think that's the case, though. And since that's not the case, BioWare can go ahead and do whatever they damn well please. Which, last time I checked, was give a bunch of whiny people an undeserved ego boost by bending to their inane demands.

Terramax:
Whilst this really comes down to personal opinion, I'm under the impression that a company that mis-sells a product does not give buyers permission to act unprofessionally. Whilst some of the tactics used to show their anger and disappointment of the ME3 ending are justified, and productive, some of them seem not to be, and it's more than likely these unprofessional methods are the ones that will be heard an remembered the most by those both within, and outside of our community. After all, the screaming child makes more noise than a reasonable parent.

1. Buyers are not "professional consumers" so it's impossible for them to behave "unprofessionally".
2. You're quite correct about squeaky wheel syndrome in terms of the most obnoxious commentary getting the most attention, but this is part and parcel of living in an information age and have a population that is deeply enamored of spectacle and controversy. Spend a few minutes observing the worst behavior of any demographic, and you're going to come away with a pretty dim view of things, if you're the sort of person who leaps to conclusions based on biased data.

Gamers NEED to get over this fucking persecution complex. Yes, it's a young medium, and yes, it's experienced the same growing pains that young mediums always do, but that doesn't mean we need to toe the line or wheedle for affection. The strength of the art form will determine the size of the audience, not the behavior of the fans. When I rent a film or take a book out of the library to read, I'm not immersing myself in the fan culture, I'm consuming the media. If you're worried about gaming growing as a hobby and becoming legitimized as an art form, worry about companies turning out slipshod, half-baked rubbish and then hand waving criticism from their customer base as the whining of entitled children.

JCBFGD:
Oh, okay. Well, if the majority of the shareholders demand a better ending, then BioWare should go ahead and do it. That's the responsible thing to do.

The shareholders will want to do whatever most positively influences the bottom line.

The way I see it, Mass Effect has a huge amount of fans, it's one of the bigger franchises out there right now, and about 90 percent of the people who frequent Bioware's forum are unhappy with the ending. Now sure, to people who aren't fans of the series it would seem we're just whining because we didn't get the ending we wanted, in other words the ending was sad and the fanboys just couldn't deal with it, but that's not the case, some of the best stories end on a bittersweet note, I was actually looking forward to that, but the ending wasn't bittersweet, it seemed like it was from a different game, so instead of a final end to the trilogy, some closure that allows us to look back on Mass Effect fondly we got nothing, like we had played through the trilogy and just stopped without finding out how Shepard won.
Honestly yes, people are taking it too far, but people always take it too far, they took it too far when Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes, they took it too far when the Star Wars prequels came out, when the last Indiana Jones movie came out, and those are just the ones I care enough to know about. People who are not on the escapist, or some other site, the ones who aren't a part of the culture have no idea whats going right now, they don't care, all the crappy legislature against video games are a result of ignorance, people who look at the showy, violent well publicized games like Call of Duty and ignore games like Journey, or Shadow of the Colossus, or see 10 seconds of hot blue alien ass in the original Mass Effect and condemn it all on sight.
Frankly, I don't see this as such a bad precedent, no other medium has really had this happen before (besides Sherlock Holmes) but video games aren't like any other medium, it probably won't happen again but I can assure you Bioware would come out on top if they did change the ending, just loads of good publicity and happy fans.

I'm embarassed to an extent.

I'll agree that the ending was inconsistent, ridden with plot-holes and lacked closure. I can see where the rage and whatnot is coming from. But for fuck sake, a lawsuit? Really?

You gotta remember that not everyone who disliked the ending is a raving nutjob, plenty of people have been showing their distaste in a mature and civil manner. Unfortunately the retards of the internet never learned to use their inside voice. I'm all for rage but yeah, plenty of people have gone overboard.

Then again at least there's been a few good things to come out of it all:

BloatedGuppy:

1. Buyers are not "professional consumers" so it's impossible for them to behave "unprofessionally".

Well, when I wrote 'unprofessional', what I really meant was among the lines of 'immature, extreme, undignified', etc, but I didn't want to upset anyone, so tried settling with the most neutral word I could think of. I apologise if this confused anyone.

2. You're quite correct about squeaky wheel syndrome in terms of the most obnoxious commentary getting the most attention, but this is part and parcel of living in an information age and have a population that is deeply enamored of spectacle and controversy... spend a few minutes observing the worst behavior of any demographic, and you're going to come away with a pretty dim view of things, if you're the sort of person who leaps to conclusions based on biased data

Much of this is true. However, just because society has apparently become growingly more infatuated with controversy, does it free us of the obligation to be civilized, reasonable adults?

And if we simply accept the worst behaviors in a given demographic, won't this potentially allow things to get worse? Should irrationality and the worst behaviour be tolerated or taken seriously?

Should Bioware, or anyone, take fans seriously if they show such intense fanaticism of their games?

When I rent a film or take a book out of the library to read, I'm not immersing myself in the fan culture, I'm consuming the media.

If you're simply 'consuming the media', then why complain about an unsatisfactory ending, or at least why go to such extreme extents to get your voice heard by its makers? I thought that the resentment to the ending was, at least, partially due to the emotional investment those put in the game as much as financial. People stating they'd spent X amount of time in the story, characters, manipulating its story to their liking?

Fable, amongst other games, apparently didn't deliver on promises, but most gamers were not as enthusiastic to make such outlandish vocal statements. I thought ME3's backlash was due to the exceptional personal impact that it had on gamers having been ruined?

I personally think the rage over the ending is absurd. None of them were stellar, true, but none of the endings were "terrible". And although the final bit is same-ish for most people, it isn't universal. Plus, I don't think people have considered the fact that Bioware set a conclusion to Mass Effect, so now EA can't run it into the ground like other series have been.

The Child's Play donation is awesome, and even if Bioware doesn't do anything, the money has gone to a good cause. The rest? Especially the FTC thing? Nonsense. People just want to whine because they didn't get their perfect ending. My opinion? If you didn't like the game's ending, return it. Demand a refund from wherever you bought it and move on with your life. Screaming about it on the internet doesn't make much sense.

Flaw-- you just compared Mass Effect and an interactive universe that players create with their own actions to a series of books published that apparently didn't have an unsatisfying conclusion and must have had plenty of closure.
You're comparing a Television show people watched in seasons that ended unsatisfactory to games people participated in.
Its an interactive medium. That was my Shepard. And nothing i did mattered. I didn't even get an epilogue-- I'll wager that if there had just been an epilogue that more than half of this wouldn't even be an issue.
But no. Boom. I never payed to watch lost. And I never intend to read Twilight. But comparing mediums that you experience through observation and a medium you experience through interaction and immersion seems off.

Nearly 50% think this is something worth fighting for...
I've nothing against the people who voted for this. But I can say my faith in the gaming community just dropped severely.

People! It's an -ending-! From what I hear the rest of the game is pretty great in fact! So where on earth is the problem? One final ending is too much? I mean boy this has happened before - mine-craft had a poor ending and everyone yelled about how terrible it was and demanded it changed.

People who say they're having their money stolen.... see now that's where they've gone too far. You paid for a -game-. Nothing else. You didn't download a DLC that gives you an ending! This was part of the game, you got the game part of the game, the ending is just one bit.
I'm pretty sure Yahtzee is right on this one - people aren't pissed off because the ending (or endings I don't know) are bad - it's because it's ending at all.

Every time I've tried to talk this reason into the forums I'll get attacked for ignorance of the ending. But unless it's a 9 minute long block of non-stop text with no cinematic, choices or alternates - then there is no more to be said, the ending is fine - not the best perhaps but this is getting embarrassing on how far this has gone over the top.

JCBFGD:
So fighting for the right to indirectly force a private company to change their creative work because it doesn't fit your personal standards is now something worth fighting for?

If your landlord turned off your water because he felt it would be more "creatively pleasing" that way, wouldn't you complain? There's a point at which "it's mine, and I can do what I want" runs smack up against what the customer paid for, and there should be some accountability there.

Stories, be they video games or otherwise, require complete endings that flow naturally from the events that came before. In the case of Mass Effect, this ending was described to us, built up for us for years to be something that our choices would affect, in a massive and profound way. The ending to this video game is, in many ways, the reason we bought Mass Effect 3. Hell, it's the reason many of us bought Mass Effect 2. And then, the ending we recieved bore no relation to what was described, to what was advertised, so suddenly there are a lot of fans out there out 120 bucks and wondering why a proper ending cinematic documenting the effects of their choices was too much to ask.

If you promise something for which people are paying, you need to deliver on it. If you are a comercial artist selling a product and you do not accept returns, that art needs to be pleasing. And yes, it needs to be pleasing in its entirety.

If you end the work in a betrayal of the entire continuity up to that point, if you ship an ending that is clearly not even the same sort of thing as the ending you promised, if you somehow manage to enrage the clear majority of your customers, then you should not blame people for whining about it on the internet and maybe, maybe alerting some other poor fans before they sell off any of their organs to buy it. Someone needs to warn us, and since this disappointing ending aparently slipped by the majority of reviewers we might as well be warned by us.

GraveeKing:
Nearly 50% think this is something worth fighting for...
I've nothing against the people who voted for this. But I can say my faith in the gaming community just dropped severely.

People! It's an -ending-! From what I hear the rest of the game is pretty great in fact! So where on earth is the problem? One final ending is too much? I mean boy this has happened before - mine-craft had a poor ending and everyone yelled about how terrible it was and demanded it changed.

People who say they're having their money stolen.... see now that's where they've gone too far. You paid for a -game-. Nothing else. You didn't download a DLC that gives you an ending! This was part of the game, you got the game part of the game, the ending is just one bit.
I'm pretty sure Yahtzee is right on this one - people aren't pissed off because the ending (or endings I don't know) are bad - it's because it's ending at all.

Every time I've tried to talk this reason into the forums I'll get attacked for ignorance of the ending. But unless it's a 9 minute long block of non-stop text with no cinematic, choices or alternates - then there is no more to be said, the ending is fine - not the best perhaps but this is getting embarrassing on how far this has gone over the top.

Great, people don't share the same opinion as you so you proceed to denounce them by belittling their opinions. Why don't you hear them out?

So many people on this forum have given clear and concise reasons as to why they think the ending is trash, yet in its defense all you can say is it wasn't that bad. Good glad to know the game wasn't THAT bad, but then again thousands of other people don't feel that way and are simply voicing their opinions. But when they suddenly try to address problems it becomes too much. Out of curiosity what do you think the unhappy consumers should do?

The fact that you think the entire gaming community is responsible for things like the lawsuit, is rather pathetic. It is just a hand full of individuals. You have clearly only looked at this issue from a surface level if you believe people are just upset about the games ending. The ending shouldn't have been this bad, when even people that are defending Bioware admit the ending was bad, you should know that they fucked up. People expected a quality ending for the game but they didn't get that at all, they have every right to be angry and address the problem. Bioware and EA cut corners and it showed.

You think the Mass Effect rage is embarrassing? I'll tell you whats embarrassing, when game developer and publisher push out a highly anticipated game, rushed and incomplete, fail to deliver on their promises and yet, and yet they still get away with it because speaking up is considered "going to far."

This is a cause worth fighting for.

Das Boot:

BloatedGuppy:

peruvianskys:
I don't really have a dog in this fight but I should say that almost all of the non-gamers I've heard talk about this, ones who have only encountered gamers complaining about it online or in person, uniformly think the reaction is silly and immature. Take that how you will I guess.

Take this how you will, but growing up, almost every single non-gamer I ran across thought the hobby was silly and immature. People tend to have arrogant, presumptuous attitudes about things they don't enjoy or don't understand. News at eleven.

Take this how you will but the majority of gamers think those complaining about mass effect are silly and immature and giving gaming as a hobby a bad name. You guys are acting like spoiled little children screaming in the grocery store.

This poll, unscientific and limited in sample size as it is, seems to disagree with you. Out of curiousity, which one are you using for reference, or are you perhaps claiming the support of gamers everywhere with no evidence whatsoever? :-P

Das Boot:
Take this how you will but the majority of gamers think those complaining about mass effect are silly and immature and giving gaming as a hobby a bad name. You guys are acting like spoiled little children screaming in the grocery store.

Take this how you will, but any individual who claims to speak for "the majority of gamers", and then uses that farcical starting point as a soapbox from which to hurl juvenile insults, should think long and hard about calling others "immature".

Terramax:
Well, when I wrote 'unprofessional', what I really meant was among the lines of 'immature, extreme, undignified', etc, but I didn't want to upset anyone, so tried settling with the most neutral word I could think of. I apologise if this confused anyone.

Ya see, 95% of the evidence you have for "extreme, undignified" behavior is posts on message boards. You'll pardon me if I don't get as hot in the pants at posts on messages boards as some of you lot. There seems to be some ongoing idiotic perception that if someone posts about something on a message board, they've absolutely lost their minds, and are 15 seconds away from storming the streets with flaming brands held aloft. Oh noes, some gamers gave Bioware feedback in their feedback thread. WHAT ON EARTH HAS SOCIETY COME TO?

Terramax:
Much of this is true. However, just because society has apparently become growingly more infatuated with controversy, does it free us of the obligation to be civilized, reasonable adults?

So, I'm sorry...what are you doing, exactly, to dampen controversy, other than getting ridiculously hyperbolic about a gaming company receiving feedback on the ending of a game? Getting into slap fights with people on the internet is not fighting the good fight for common sense and decency. Every single person who has come into these threads to shout at the people who are shouting at Bioware are just adding to the noise they claim to deplore. What on EARTH is your stake in this?

Terramax:
If you're simply 'consuming the media', then why complain about an unsatisfactory ending, or at least why go to such extreme extents to get your voice heard by its makers? I thought that the resentment to the ending was, at least, partially due to the emotional investment those put in the game as much as financial. People stating they'd spent X amount of time in the story, characters, manipulating its story to their liking?

Uh...I'm not sure if you're deliberately misunderstanding here, so let's try again. The growth of a medium has nothing to do with the quality of its fanbase, and everything to do with the quality of the medium. No one shops for fanbases. They shop for media. Suggesting otherwise is ridiculous, and suggesting the behavior of gaming fans is setting back gaming as a medium is so fucking ludicrous it gives me a headache just thinking about it.

GraveeKing:
But unless it's a 9 minute long block of non-stop text with no cinematic, choices or alternates - then there is no more to be said, the ending is fine - not the best perhaps but this is getting embarrassing on how far this has gone over the top.

What's "over the top" exactly? What earth shaking developments have occurred that I'm ignorant of? Did someone gun down Casey Hudson? Did an angry mob set fire to Bioware's corporate offices?

Oh wait, no...I know what happened. Some fans gave Bioware some feedback, and gave some money to charity.

What's the world coming, to, seriously? So, so far over the top. Messages on forums! My word.

the reactions are completely justified. although i dont plan on joining any cause to change it, i sincerely hope that they do. the ending was a slap in the face to any real fan of the series.

if so many people werent reacting the way they are, it would be the same as saying its okay for a game developer to not even attempt to deliver on their promises. it would be saying that its okay for them to just not give a shit, because well pay them anyway.

and if Bioware doesnt do something to rectify the situation, im not even sure if ill be able to trust them again. i cant imagine people that are hardcore fans of both Mass Effect AND Dragon's Age. Bioware has delivered crushing disappointment to those unlucky folks, twice.

I've gotten over it, but then I wasn't a die hard fan of the franchise, just a casual one.

Though the whole issue is starting to grow a bit bubonic, and I think it's time for everyone to lacerate their sores and move on to other things.

JediMB:

Veldt Falsetto:

JediMB:

You make it sound like BioWare is a person with a unified and clear vision of how the game should have ended.

In fact, though, BioWare's writers were debating back and forth how they were going to end the game, since they were forced to rewrite it after the original script leaked.

In November they still hadn't come up with a better ending, so the lead writer supposedly vetoed the other writers and pushed through the contradictory crap we got.

Obviously Bioware isn't one person.

May I ask, if anyone knows what the original ending was to share it?

I don't know the details, but it involved harvesting humans (for their genetic diversity) in order to create a Reaper capable of solving the problem with dark energy causing stars to rapidly age... which was eventually going to lead to every star in the galaxy going supernova.

They could've made that one of the worst possible endings. :/

Yopaz:

Savagezion:

Yopaz:
Sure, if you sell a faulty product believing it to be working OK and it turns out it doesn't and you get injured for it the one who sold it is responsible. However Mass Effect 3 is not a faulty product. If the story didn't end the way you want it, then that's subjective. A story with a poor ending and a car without working breaks can't really be compared by any law.

So here is where you're wrong. Their subjective statements about the game doesn't match your subjective statement of the game. That does not mean they told an objective lie. I think I'll leave it at that.

What are you talking about? Did you read my post at all? No, if I sell you the book "Twilight: New Moon" and tell you it is a book about Frankenstein and that it definitely isn't about vampires because a book about vampires would be terrible, that is falsely advertising. That is what happened in Mass Effect. Those quotes in the link are specific. This isn't us saying Bioware lied because they said the ending is gonna be 'awesome' or some other subjective statement. They said very specific things that turned out to be very specifically the opposite. Some of these things were said while the games were being shipped out to stores.

"[The presence of the Rachni] has huge consequences in Mass
Effect 3. Even just in the final battle with the Reapers."

"The trick is, because it's a BioWare game, there will be more than one ending. Which means there's more than one ending to Shepard's story. It's not a matter of saying, "Here's an optimal ending." There's gonna be different options, different endings."

Those were stated in an interview on Feb 28, 2012. 1 week before copies could be sold at retail. The game was finished and in shipment.

"There are many different endings. We wouldn't do it any other way. How
could you go through all three campaigns playing as your Shepard and
then be forced into a bespoke ending that everyone gets? But I can't
say any more than that..."

March 5, 2012 in response to the leak on the internet and word spreading the game had only 3 endings that were all the same except for color. They lied specifically to deter people away from the leaked info. That was 1 day before the release of the game.

If you see that as merely subjective, then let me know when you are in the market for a car and I will sell one to you. Just know that I can't go below asking price, the car cost me exactly whatever price I happen to relay to you. I also know just the car. After you fill out a questionnaire, its crazy how likely this car was made to your tastes even if you don't realize it.

Seeing as there are people who actually are satisfied with the ending, then yes. I do see this as a subjective matter. How do you know they didn't feel they did deliver on their promises? As I said, I knew the content of your links before you posted them in your last post. I just disagree with your stance that Bioware tells lies.

"Satisfied and "apathetic" are not the same thing. There are people that don't give a shit about story in games. A giant chicken could have shown up at the end and they wouldn't care so long as the gameplay was fun. That just means some people are easily satisified and have no standards for quality of writing. Further, some people love Bioware and will say they liked it just to throw balance against the overwhelming rage assault against their favorite company. It's not that they liked it, they are just indifferent and claim the term "like".

In the end, best case scenario Indoctrination theory is true and the game has NO ending to like. It would be like at the end of a Christmas Carol Scrooge didn't wake up. Or the "secret ending" his eyes open and roll credits. There is no freakin' ending in that scenario. Just because the story ends doesn't mean an ending was there. You get no resolution, no answers. Just a bunch of stuff that leads up to nothing.

You'll get answers to everything. That was one of the key things. Regardless
of how we did everything, we had to say, yes, we're going to provide
some answers to these people.

How do I know they didn't deliver? Really? The Rachni choices makes NO damned difference. The endings are commonly being reffered to as "destroy, control, synthesis". (A.K.A endings A, B, and C.) The fact that "no bespoke ending everyone gets" but so many people are shouting "the endings are all the same and my choices didn't matter."

Your argument has no merit. So people claim they are satisfied with the ending on the internet, a point you have probably used to say that boycotters will "buy anyways". which happens to go against the grain of a large outcry across not only the internet but the game industry. This is a huge outcry of dissatified customers. If you say "I want to buy a car so long as it isn't red." SO I sell you one and then when you see it you see this:

That's Chevrolet orange buddy, I didn't sell you a red car. By the way, there are no new refunds and you can't repaint the car because I retain the rights to it. (Bioware isn't mod friendly) I'll let you pick a different color for extra money though.

Hehe, Bioware no longer feels they owe shit to the consumers in return for their money, not even an ending. So you take the "io" ("I owe") out, replace it with "EA" and you have a more fitting name for their products:

BE.A.WARE.

While reading, a pestering fear of running into spoilers hung over me. Not pleasent.
OT: Indeed, I remember a thread about "being done with Bioware" from a couple of days ago, so I might as well just repeat what I said there.

NastoK:

endtherapture:
Now...after Dragon Age 2, ME3 and THAT ending, how many of you are actually going to abandon Bioware?

Still didn't start playing ME3, and I've no idea what kind of ending could cause such controversy, but DA2 caused some as well, and I never understood why people disliked its gameplay. Even more so, I found it baffling when my friend told me he skipped DAO because he heard the gameplay was bad. Think about that for a second.

The way I see it, some people get disappointed, angered, or whatnot, they make their voices heard on the internet, and people start repeating those words. But it being the internet, people tend to go to extremes, and instead of a simple "The ending is poor" we get, well,

endtherapture:
THAT ending

as if it were infectious.

So, yeah, I think people are forgetting themselves. So what if the ending was bad? Tribes: Vengeance felt unfinished, but even so, I love the game, and find myself playing it again and again, almost annually.

I still read 'ME3' as 'MW3' after all those weeks it has been a big thing...

Didn't play the game, but as far as I've read about it, people are making a way too big a fuss about it. What's wrong with the occasional bittersweet ending? Does everything need to have a happy ending?

ElektroNeko:
Didn't play the game, but as far as I've read about it, people are making a way too big a fuss about it. What's wrong with the occasional bittersweet ending? Does everything need to have a happy ending?

Maybe if you'd played the game, or actually read a few of the topics discussing it, before wading in and offering up your opinion, you'd know that virtually no one gives a shit about whether or not the ending was happy.

Honestly guys, really? This is the third or fourth "I have no idea what's going on in this thread, but here's mah opinion!" post we've had on this topic. Is this a new thing? Is it "take pride in not knowing what the fuck is going on" day?