"The Catalyst could very easily be a VI designed to interact with anyone who made it that far. EXACTLY the same as Vigil was a Prothean VI to help anyone who eventually got to Ilos. The Catalyst does not profess to be anything more or less (that I can recall) so I think assuming it was a final fail safe for any mortal on the verge of using the crucible doesn't seem far fetched. I mean, VIs are really common in the ME universe. Again, never stated, but, is it that hard to believe?
As for the conflict at the end. I agree, some of the catalyst dialog seems a little lack luster. But I can also see this dialog as being vague in the same way the Reaper dialog with Sovereign and the Reaper on Rannoch were also vague. Sovereign says they come from a plain of existence beyond Shepard's comprehension (paraphrasing), but nothing is ever explained about that. I am deeply curious about why the cycle had to be implemented in the first place. What happens if things go too far? Is it a technological singularity? Has this happened in the past, that nearly obliterated the galaxy? What could possibly be so enormous that the Reapers deem it unfathomable to organics? What if they are actually right?
What if organics carrying on the way they are (without Reaper intervention) could actually lead to some galactic catastrophy? I stated about 30 pages back one such catastrophy in the "Entropy Theory", which ultimates deals with the Heat Death of the universe(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe). That is one such event that would have galactic, and even universal consequences. Sounds like something worth creating a cycle for, anyway. But that's just an example. It could all just start with the simple building of AI, and snowball from there.
Anyway, about the idea of Shepard being alive in future ME games. I don't see how it would be a possibility from a technological standpoint of BioWare, to still be able to carry on a contextual universe, that still incorporates everyone's different choices. Imagine if Star Trek had to write two completely different universes. One where Romulans rule, and one where the Federation rules, based on people's choices. It would be a nightmare to have to create, and carry on. I think it was even a nightmare for them to do this for just these 3 Mass Effect games. I think now, they can start to build on their Sci Fi Dynasty. To do that, though, they need to finally have a piece of story that they can say is certain. The Relays are gone, the Citadel is gone. Shepard is gone. Go.
I think Mass Effect was miss interpretted as a series where your choices will eventually affect the outcome of the trilogy. I think the choices you make more or less allow you to role play, and carry forward nuances of your character. The reason I think that, is because in the face of the Reaper threat, the only way for the threat to be as real and devastating as it is, is for there to be no difference what choices you've made. Nothing you can do will stop the Reapers phyisically, and there is a reason.
Because you have developed along the path they have chosen. There was never anything you could do to win the war with the reapers because you have already followed their path. And every species in the galaxy has built their entire civilization relying on their relays, and their citadel. Every species is at a level of evolution exactly as planned. All the patterns repeat, and all the events unfold like they have for every cycle prior.
This is why I think it makes no sense for the species in the galaxy to openly welcome the use of the Reapers' Mass Relays, and the Citadel, knowing why they were created. They were created to prevent life from ever achieving anything beyond. They are basically like taking the Prime Directive, and saying, "no, screw it! You will develop how we choose you to. And anything that would have been unique to you, is now altered due to our influence"
If the Crucible were designed by the same original creators of the Reapers, as a galactic "OFF" button, then there is no reason to assume that they are detonating the same way they did when an asteroid collided with one in The Arrival DLC. The ending imagery was far to vague to assume explosions were happening. And if those were explosions, you'd probably see pieces of the galaxy shift around and morph with the sudden change in gravity and what not. I think it's safer to assume that the technology people refer to as "Space Magic" is no different than the reason Mass Relays work in the first place. No one knows how they actually work, or they would build their own. Is it also too hard to assume the relays can send shut down and deactivate messages to eachother?
Again, all of this is just my own speculation. But I feel like most people are too ready to yell about the ending, without thinking about how this really doesn't have a bad effect on the universe. It breaks my heart to see so many ME fans having such a hard time with the ending, when it is actually awesome, In theory. The presentation could use work, I grant you that.
Mass Effect 3 ended with a new cycle beginning. Shepard was the single witness and the actual catalyst of the next stage in evolution. A stage no other cycle has seen, or experienced. It's bad ass, I tell you!"
Finally finished the game friday night - spent too much time playing MP and not SP - and yeah, I'm disappointed with the ending. it wasn't bad, per se, but the games were so epic that it just felt like something was missing at the end. I get that the three choices were cool in a sci-fi sense, but after all this time fighting to stop the Reapers, I'm not sure the end suited the story.
I'm honestly not all that upset by it, except I don't understand why Joker is flying the Normandy away from the wave, which doesn't seem to harm other alliance ships over Earth, yet damages and crashes the Normandy. Was just a big WTF moment for me and pulled me out of the story/ending.
I played the ending all three times to see each and didn't mind them. However, they did all leave things a bit too vague for me. How could Shepard possibly be alive in the "red" choice? Like others have said, why is Joker making a dash for it? What happens to all the Systems where Relays were destroyed? Also, what's happened to Earth? There was significant numbers of species and their populations on and around it. Is everyone just stuck in that solar system? What happened to them all? Way too much left wide open. It'll be interesting to see what this new "ending" DLC will do to clear things up.
Eesh. Finished last night nearly all Paragon. I had already lowered my expectations for the story finale, but I was really disappointed at the gameplay segments leading into it. I will never appreciate any game that ends with abondoning the gameplay you've enjoyed for so many hours, in favor of some sort of simplified(?), restricted(?)other thing.
I enjoyed the game as a whole and thought it was well done as a whole.
Since i generally don't over analyse the shit out of everything, movies, tv shows or video games like some people do, i found the ending to be fulfilling and complete. The three major options were interesting, I wasn't going to pick 'control', but i stuggled with the hybrid DNA choice and the destruction but ultimately decided destruction was the path I was on thru three games so why change now. I didn't feel the argument that they cycle of synthetic destroying organic life would continue infinitely and who am I to decide everyone should be made synthetic. So blow the reapers up was the obvious choice for me.
I thought the father/grandfather son thing at the end was well out into the future talking about the legend of Shepard and his crew. It worked for me.
Since i generally don't over analyse the shit out of everything, movies, tv shows or video games like some people do, i found the ending to be fulfilling and complete. The three major options were interesting, I wasn't going to pick 'control', but i stuggled with the hybrid DNA choice and the destruction but ultimately decided destruction was the path I was on thru three games so why change now. I didn't feel the argument that they cycle of synthetic destroying organic life would continue infinitely and who am I to decide everyone should be made synthetic. So blow the reapers up was the obvious choice for me.
I thought the father/grandfather son thing at the end was well out into the future talking about the legend of Shepard and his crew. It worked for me.
Tank,didn't you think it was odd how Joker and crew were running away?The crew i had with me on the ground when the beam hit is suddenly teleported to the Normandy when she crashes? Or that you couldn't really question the starchild?My Shepard wouldn't stand for his explanation,he would have argued with the starchild,who by the way you never hear from or about until the last minute.
The whole series is great until the last 10-15 min.
Rush job.Due to EA most likely.Everything they touch,they taint.
Since i generally don't over analyse the shit out of everything, movies, tv shows or video games like some people do, i found the ending to be fulfilling and complete.
Oh, THAT'S my problem! Wish I had known that before I sunk literally hundreds of hours into this series. I guess I do tend to overanalyze stuff. You're right, it's a great ending. That cute little star child with his amazing explanation really gave me closure...as did Joker's death-defying flight through the Sol system to the Mass Relay. He's such a hero. He's probably the one who installed the Star Trek "beam up" machine which transported Shepard's squad mates to the ship while Shepard.....ah I think you get the point.
Oh, THAT'S my problem! Wish I had known that before I sunk literally hundreds of hours into this series. I guess I do tend to overanalyze stuff. You're right, it's a great ending. That cute little star child with his amazing explanation really gave me closure...as did Joker's death-defying flight through the Sol system to the Mass Relay. He's such a hero. He's probably the one who installed the Star Trek "beam up" machine which transported Shepard's squad mates to the ship while Shepard.....ah I think you get the point.
Did he develop the miracle crop that fed all the races on thousands of ships trapped in orbit around Earth or did they all crash land on magical lush jungle planets as well?
In other news, Pachter makes me want to kick him in the balls...
Ya there was a continuitiy issue there with the normandy crash landing depending on who you took with you on the final mission. But shit you get that in TV shows and Movies too.
The starchild thing is this game was stupid but whatever, wouldn't be the first movie I watched where the overall premise was awesome then they threw some stupid shit in there . The movie Abyss was one of the worst for me, it was an awesome movie until they threw all that alien shit into it. So i jsut kinda felt that way about the whole starchild thing in ME3. It opened up alot of problematic questions like what is the star child and how far back in history does it go, did it or its people build the reapers... SO ya that whole thing is stupid and opens up a whole other back story that is never explained.
I wound up writing a four-part series on my blog about my thoughts on the ending. In summary, I think the reason behind the seemingly restricted options in the ending is that BioWare never really let you interact with the idea of the galaxy's dependence on the Reaper cycle.
Honestly, I don't care about their free DLC add-on to the ending. I believe I made a mistake buying the game new, a mistake I won't repeat. Also, I will no longer listen to critic reviews. The fan reviews are what I'm after. They're the ones who tell the truth and actually care about the series. Preorders? Done with those. ME3 is already down to $30 in some places and it's still April. I already don't purchase any DLC at full price. They always have a half off sale at some point, so that's my plan there.
Live and learn. Bioware got me on DA2 and ME3, but they won't get me again.
Just finished SP last week or so myself and here are some random thoughts I had about it.
1) To me, the ending just reeked too much of a BSG 'start the cycle anew' and we saw how well that worked for them.
2) From a meta-perspective, this is how you kill a game franchise. They didn't have to do ANYTHING fancy with this ending. Get to the citadel, push the button (sans the Deux Ex Machina 'Starchild'), Shepard lives/dies (if you like) taking out the Reapers, and then you have rich universe in place for people to imagine what happens next in a universe without a Reaper death sentence. Did you save the Krogan from the genophage? What will their thirst for revenge mean for the galaxy post-reaper? What place will the Geth take? What about the Rachni? This decision closes all those doors and trivializes the agony the player felt at making tough choices like sacrificing Mordin to cure the genophage, or sparing the Rachni, or siding with the Geth.
Instead, with this ending, I just don't see a way that you can continue telling stories in the ME universe that will be credible without seeming to be hand-wavey space magic. This is how you end a story when you want to say 'I've told all the stories I care to in this universe, time to move on to something else'.
3) The ending defies genre conventions, but not in a good way. You just simply can't create a heroic saga with a character that your fans invest themselves emotionally in, and then make it all look like it doesn't matter. Of course people are going to be betrayed. Of course people are going to react negatively to the god machine Starchild who deigns to give you a choice that isn't a choice. Nobody wants to feel like the ending comes down to the whim of an entity who, one moment, is convinced on the morality of its course for controlling chaos, but then in the next decides 'Oh, what the heck. You worked so hard to get here, I guess I better give you something. Anywayz, I'm bored, so pick your explodey color.'
4) If you're going to do a crazy, 'it was indoctrination all along', you absolutely have to do a quick montage of scenes at the end to support that explanation so that your audience believes that was a governing part of the story all along. The Sixth Sense, Memento, The Machinist...great examples of this kind of story telling. Book of Eli...example of bad version of this storytelling. This, of course, is predicated on the belief that the Indoctrination Theory is true....which I don't buy for a moment.
So, even though I've bashed on it a bit, I think the ending was just OK. Would I go back to an ME4? I don't know. Like others have said, I liked 99% of the game, so I think I'd give it a chance. But man, screwing up a 'gimme' ending....that's rough.
Someone please explain to me how the Reapers tried to destroy Cerberus' plans to control them, (Sanctuary) but the Star Child is perfectly ok with it.
Got this from a post in the Bioware forums.
"The Catalyst could very easily be a VI designed to interact with anyone who made it that far. EXACTLY the same as Vigil was a Prothean VI to help anyone who eventually got to Ilos. The Catalyst does not profess to be anything more or less (that I can recall) so I think assuming it was a final fail safe for any mortal on the verge of using the crucible doesn't seem far fetched. I mean, VIs are really common in the ME universe. Again, never stated, but, is it that hard to believe?
As for the conflict at the end. I agree, some of the catalyst dialog seems a little lack luster. But I can also see this dialog as being vague in the same way the Reaper dialog with Sovereign and the Reaper on Rannoch were also vague. Sovereign says they come from a plain of existence beyond Shepard's comprehension (paraphrasing), but nothing is ever explained about that. I am deeply curious about why the cycle had to be implemented in the first place. What happens if things go too far? Is it a technological singularity? Has this happened in the past, that nearly obliterated the galaxy? What could possibly be so enormous that the Reapers deem it unfathomable to organics? What if they are actually right?
What if organics carrying on the way they are (without Reaper intervention) could actually lead to some galactic catastrophy? I stated about 30 pages back one such catastrophy in the "Entropy Theory", which ultimates deals with the Heat Death of the universe(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe). That is one such event that would have galactic, and even universal consequences. Sounds like something worth creating a cycle for, anyway. But that's just an example. It could all just start with the simple building of AI, and snowball from there.
Anyway, about the idea of Shepard being alive in future ME games. I don't see how it would be a possibility from a technological standpoint of BioWare, to still be able to carry on a contextual universe, that still incorporates everyone's different choices. Imagine if Star Trek had to write two completely different universes. One where Romulans rule, and one where the Federation rules, based on people's choices. It would be a nightmare to have to create, and carry on. I think it was even a nightmare for them to do this for just these 3 Mass Effect games. I think now, they can start to build on their Sci Fi Dynasty. To do that, though, they need to finally have a piece of story that they can say is certain. The Relays are gone, the Citadel is gone. Shepard is gone. Go.
I think Mass Effect was miss interpretted as a series where your choices will eventually affect the outcome of the trilogy. I think the choices you make more or less allow you to role play, and carry forward nuances of your character. The reason I think that, is because in the face of the Reaper threat, the only way for the threat to be as real and devastating as it is, is for there to be no difference what choices you've made. Nothing you can do will stop the Reapers phyisically, and there is a reason.
Because you have developed along the path they have chosen. There was never anything you could do to win the war with the reapers because you have already followed their path. And every species in the galaxy has built their entire civilization relying on their relays, and their citadel. Every species is at a level of evolution exactly as planned. All the patterns repeat, and all the events unfold like they have for every cycle prior.
This is why I think it makes no sense for the species in the galaxy to openly welcome the use of the Reapers' Mass Relays, and the Citadel, knowing why they were created. They were created to prevent life from ever achieving anything beyond. They are basically like taking the Prime Directive, and saying, "no, screw it! You will develop how we choose you to. And anything that would have been unique to you, is now altered due to our influence"
If the Crucible were designed by the same original creators of the Reapers, as a galactic "OFF" button, then there is no reason to assume that they are detonating the same way they did when an asteroid collided with one in The Arrival DLC. The ending imagery was far to vague to assume explosions were happening. And if those were explosions, you'd probably see pieces of the galaxy shift around and morph with the sudden change in gravity and what not. I think it's safer to assume that the technology people refer to as "Space Magic" is no different than the reason Mass Relays work in the first place. No one knows how they actually work, or they would build their own. Is it also too hard to assume the relays can send shut down and deactivate messages to eachother?
Again, all of this is just my own speculation. But I feel like most people are too ready to yell about the ending, without thinking about how this really doesn't have a bad effect on the universe. It breaks my heart to see so many ME fans having such a hard time with the ending, when it is actually awesome, In theory. The presentation could use work, I grant you that.
Mass Effect 3 ended with a new cycle beginning. Shepard was the single witness and the actual catalyst of the next stage in evolution. A stage no other cycle has seen, or experienced. It's bad ass, I tell you!"
Finally finished the game friday night - spent too much time playing MP and not SP - and yeah, I'm disappointed with the ending. it wasn't bad, per se, but the games were so epic that it just felt like something was missing at the end. I get that the three choices were cool in a sci-fi sense, but after all this time fighting to stop the Reapers, I'm not sure the end suited the story.
I'm honestly not all that upset by it, except I don't understand why Joker is flying the Normandy away from the wave, which doesn't seem to harm other alliance ships over Earth, yet damages and crashes the Normandy. Was just a big WTF moment for me and pulled me out of the story/ending.
Yeah,they say they" listen "but they don't "hear" what people are sayin'.
I played the ending all three times to see each and didn't mind them. However, they did all leave things a bit too vague for me. How could Shepard possibly be alive in the "red" choice? Like others have said, why is Joker making a dash for it? What happens to all the Systems where Relays were destroyed? Also, what's happened to Earth? There was significant numbers of species and their populations on and around it. Is everyone just stuck in that solar system? What happened to them all? Way too much left wide open. It'll be interesting to see what this new "ending" DLC will do to clear things up.
Eesh. Finished last night nearly all Paragon. I had already lowered my expectations for the story finale, but I was really disappointed at the gameplay segments leading into it. I will never appreciate any game that ends with abondoning the gameplay you've enjoyed for so many hours, in favor of some sort of simplified(?), restricted(?)other thing.
I enjoyed the game as a whole and thought it was well done as a whole.
Since i generally don't over analyse the shit out of everything, movies, tv shows or video games like some people do, i found the ending to be fulfilling and complete. The three major options were interesting, I wasn't going to pick 'control', but i stuggled with the hybrid DNA choice and the destruction but ultimately decided destruction was the path I was on thru three games so why change now. I didn't feel the argument that they cycle of synthetic destroying organic life would continue infinitely and who am I to decide everyone should be made synthetic. So blow the reapers up was the obvious choice for me.
I thought the father/grandfather son thing at the end was well out into the future talking about the legend of Shepard and his crew. It worked for me.
Tank,didn't you think it was odd how Joker and crew were running away?The crew i had with me on the ground when the beam hit is suddenly teleported to the Normandy when she crashes? Or that you couldn't really question the starchild?My Shepard wouldn't stand for his explanation,he would have argued with the starchild,who by the way you never hear from or about until the last minute.
The whole series is great until the last 10-15 min.
Rush job.Due to EA most likely.Everything they touch,they taint.
Oh, THAT'S my problem! Wish I had known that before I sunk literally hundreds of hours into this series. I guess I do tend to overanalyze stuff. You're right, it's a great ending. That cute little star child with his amazing explanation really gave me closure...as did Joker's death-defying flight through the Sol system to the Mass Relay. He's such a hero. He's probably the one who installed the Star Trek "beam up" machine which transported Shepard's squad mates to the ship while Shepard.....ah I think you get the point.
Did he develop the miracle crop that fed all the races on thousands of ships trapped in orbit around Earth or did they all crash land on magical lush jungle planets as well?
In other news, Pachter makes me want to kick him in the balls...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/04/07/pachter-believes-ea-...
Ya there was a continuitiy issue there with the normandy crash landing depending on who you took with you on the final mission. But shit you get that in TV shows and Movies too.
The starchild thing is this game was stupid but whatever, wouldn't be the first movie I watched where the overall premise was awesome then they threw some stupid shit in there . The movie Abyss was one of the worst for me, it was an awesome movie until they threw all that alien shit into it. So i jsut kinda felt that way about the whole starchild thing in ME3. It opened up alot of problematic questions like what is the star child and how far back in history does it go, did it or its people build the reapers... SO ya that whole thing is stupid and opens up a whole other back story that is never explained.
It's stupid so i just igonore the stupid parts :)
I still can't believe Bioware let this ending pass through.It's almost like they had nothing to do with the ending.
Just have to wait to see if the upcoming dlc is going to be so much bullshit.
I wound up writing a four-part series on my blog about my thoughts on the ending. In summary, I think the reason behind the seemingly restricted options in the ending is that BioWare never really let you interact with the idea of the galaxy's dependence on the Reaper cycle.
http://www.robf.com.au/2012/04/16/why-mass-effects-fans-are-wrong-about-...
http://www.robf.com.au/2012/04/18/why-mass-effect-3%e2%80%b2s-fans-are-w...
http://www.robf.com.au/2012/04/20/why-mass-effect-3%e2%80%b2s-fans-are-w...
http://www.robf.com.au/2012/04/23/why-mass-effect-3%e2%80%b2s-fans-are-w...
Honestly, I don't care about their free DLC add-on to the ending. I believe I made a mistake buying the game new, a mistake I won't repeat. Also, I will no longer listen to critic reviews. The fan reviews are what I'm after. They're the ones who tell the truth and actually care about the series. Preorders? Done with those. ME3 is already down to $30 in some places and it's still April. I already don't purchase any DLC at full price. They always have a half off sale at some point, so that's my plan there.
Live and learn. Bioware got me on DA2 and ME3, but they won't get me again.
Just finished SP last week or so myself and here are some random thoughts I had about it.
1) To me, the ending just reeked too much of a BSG 'start the cycle anew' and we saw how well that worked for them.
2) From a meta-perspective, this is how you kill a game franchise. They didn't have to do ANYTHING fancy with this ending. Get to the citadel, push the button (sans the Deux Ex Machina 'Starchild'), Shepard lives/dies (if you like) taking out the Reapers, and then you have rich universe in place for people to imagine what happens next in a universe without a Reaper death sentence. Did you save the Krogan from the genophage? What will their thirst for revenge mean for the galaxy post-reaper? What place will the Geth take? What about the Rachni? This decision closes all those doors and trivializes the agony the player felt at making tough choices like sacrificing Mordin to cure the genophage, or sparing the Rachni, or siding with the Geth.
Instead, with this ending, I just don't see a way that you can continue telling stories in the ME universe that will be credible without seeming to be hand-wavey space magic. This is how you end a story when you want to say 'I've told all the stories I care to in this universe, time to move on to something else'.
3) The ending defies genre conventions, but not in a good way. You just simply can't create a heroic saga with a character that your fans invest themselves emotionally in, and then make it all look like it doesn't matter. Of course people are going to be betrayed. Of course people are going to react negatively to the god machine Starchild who deigns to give you a choice that isn't a choice. Nobody wants to feel like the ending comes down to the whim of an entity who, one moment, is convinced on the morality of its course for controlling chaos, but then in the next decides 'Oh, what the heck. You worked so hard to get here, I guess I better give you something. Anywayz, I'm bored, so pick your explodey color.'
4) If you're going to do a crazy, 'it was indoctrination all along', you absolutely have to do a quick montage of scenes at the end to support that explanation so that your audience believes that was a governing part of the story all along. The Sixth Sense, Memento, The Machinist...great examples of this kind of story telling. Book of Eli...example of bad version of this storytelling. This, of course, is predicated on the belief that the Indoctrination Theory is true....which I don't buy for a moment.
So, even though I've bashed on it a bit, I think the ending was just OK. Would I go back to an ME4? I don't know. Like others have said, I liked 99% of the game, so I think I'd give it a chance. But man, screwing up a 'gimme' ending....that's rough.