The Mass Effect 3 "New" Ending Thread

[Florena]

I don't mind a 'grey' ending. But is that really what we got? The blue one is pretty positive, Shephard becomes the reapers to defent the weak etc, green the whole galaxy is at peace etc, red is the only grey one really.

I would have preferred the original ending with the dark energy, where the choice was to either destroy the reapers and put your faith in the races of the galaxy, or sacrifice humanity for the greater good to help the reapers solve the dark energy problem.

[Skorpionss]

I give BioWare props for releasing such a DLC Free and giving the Fans who wanted Clarity and Closure and some of the Plot Holes fixed up just that bit extra.

But I'm still frustrated as fuck at the Ending. For me, it never was about Clarity and Closure, it was the whole premise and thematic stance of the Endings.

But what did it for me with the EC, and why I selected "DLC may not have even existed" ... Was the implementation of Refusal.

I've never seen a Developer give such a massive "FUCK YOU" sign to a heavy portion of it's Fans before in my life. I talked with some people who didn't mind the Original Endings all that much and even some of them were saying that it would be nice to actually USE your EMS properly and have a situation where if you had gathered and unified enough of the Galaxy you could beat the Reapers conventionally.

It's just disgraceful that BioWare even added that option in. Don't like our Space Magic? Well then go fuck yourself, the next Cycle will just use the Crucible and some other Commander Shepard of the future will proc one of the Three. I got back to Space Kid and saw that option one my first EC play and just about WET MY PANTS, I WAS SO EXCITED. I was like YES... This is IT BioWare has listened, now with my 100% MAX EMS my Shep is going to get on the Normandy, make some big speech and we'll defeat the Reapers conventionally and it'll show cutscenes of all your gathered forces in Action. NOPE. Start Again and pick one of our options since it was our 'Artistic Vision'. KTHXBYE.

Ugh. So yea I respect BioWare for going out of their way to give fans that extra kick. But honestly they opened up more Holes. Created a Big Fuck You to some of their Fans and had some of the worst PR throughout this entire ordeal. They've lost a BIG fan here who has never missed a BioWare release, and I actually am sad to say that because KOTOR, ME1/2 and DAO were some of the greatest games I've played (KOTOR sits as my NO.2 of all time)... I would try to have hope for the future, but honestly with EA taking complete control now (It's clear they had little interference with games already in production like ME2 and DAO and then with DA2 and ME3 'assumed direct control'), it's only going to get worse.

well it's not bioware's fault u expected unrealistic stuff from the ending... the reapers were unbeatable even if every able'd ship in the galaxy was there for the big fight(which wasn't the case)... you seem to forget that all the quarian fleet had to fire multiple shots at the weak point of a reaper after shepard pointed it to them with that laser targetin system thing... ALL THE FUCKING QUARIAN FLEET - 1 reaper.... there were probably as many reapers as there were allied ships.... I'm actually surprised shep got to the fucking beacon....

[Nerraw]

I don't mind a 'grey' ending. But is that really what we got? The blue one is pretty positive, Shephard becomes the reapers to defent the weak etc, green the whole galaxy is at peace etc, red is the only grey one really.

I would have preferred the original ending with the dark energy, where the choice was to either destroy the reapers and put your faith in the races of the galaxy, or sacrifice humanity for the greater good to help the reapers solve the dark energy problem.

I'd say becoming a super-being of unmatched knowledge, power, and potential is a pretty scary thing. And Synthesis is all about forcing the pinnacle of evolution on everyone. How can Shepard justify such a thing?

[Faerillis]

well it's not bioware's fault u expected unrealistic stuff from the ending... the reapers were unbeatable even if every able'd ship in the galaxy was there for the big fight(which wasn't the case)... you seem to forget that all the quarian fleet had to fire multiple shots at the weak point of a reaper after shepard pointed it to them with that laser targetin system thing... ALL THE FUCKING QUARIAN FLEET - 1 reaper.... there were probably as many reapers as there were allied ships.... I'm actually surprised shep got to the fucking beacon....

It's almost like we took incredible pains to build a galactic superweapon that needed the power of the largest Mass Relay to work...
I think with the ending they decided to have, these were probably the best we could have hoped for; we shouldn't have been given Godchild, but as long as he's stuck in there, we can't get better than this.

[Saent]

I promised Miranda I'd find her, then they didn't let me find her, so as of now they made my Shepard a liar, and I don't care for that. But hes alive and all the reapers are destroyed, so if they do a Mass Effect 4 where I can play Shepard again and make good on his promise, then I am happy with that ending. I also liked how in this new ending it looks like the Relays will just get repaired and be fine, as before I could of sworn they were totally blown up, instead of badly damaged.
I disliked though how it didnt give a death scene for EDI, I went red and she should have died, but they didn't show it, or jokers reaction to it. Missed moment there.

And screw all the sequel haters, I want another 20 hours of content playing Shepard, and 20 more after that.

---------- Post added 2012-06-29 at 11:36 PM ----------

It's almost like we took incredible pains to build a galactic superweapon that needed the power of the largest Mass Relay to work...
I think with the ending they decided to have, these were probably the best we could have hoped for; we shouldn't have been given Godchild, but as long as he's stuck in there, we can't get better than this.

I do like that they gave him Harbinger's voice, or at least I think thats his voice. So maybe it was all lies and hes trying to get you to make the wrong choice. Something like going Blue puts you in their control not them in yours, going green turns every living thing into a reaper, going red kills them all. Only red really ends it. Then if you made the wrong choice at the start of the next game Anderson shows up and shoots you right before you can go through with it, then blows them all to hell.

---------- Post added 2012-06-29 at 11:38 PM ----------

well it's not bioware's fault u expected unrealistic stuff from the ending... the reapers were unbeatable even if every able'd ship in the galaxy was there for the big fight(which wasn't the case)... you seem to forget that all the quarian fleet had to fire multiple shots at the weak point of a reaper after shepard pointed it to them with that laser targetin system thing... ALL THE FUCKING QUARIAN FLEET - 1 reaper.... there were probably as many reapers as there were allied ships.... I'm actually surprised shep got to the fucking beacon....

All the Quarian Fleet or 2 missiles off the back of a truck! Maybe Quarian guns just suck.

[Nerraw]

All the Quarian Fleet or 2 missiles off the back of a truck! Maybe Quarian guns just suck.

The Quarian ships had to pry open the outer shell of the Destroyer, the 2 Thanix missiles hit it squarely in the "eye".

[Grizzly Willy]

The Quarian ships had to pry open the outer shell of the Destroyer, the 2 Thanix missiles hit it squarely in the "eye".

I wouldn't call it prying it off. They shoot the eye as it's firing.

[Rukh]

I do like that they gave him Harbinger's voice, or at least I think thats his voice. So maybe it was all lies and hes trying to get you to make the wrong choice. Something like going Blue puts you in their control not them in yours, going green turns every living thing into a reaper, going red kills them all. Only red really ends it. Then if you made the wrong choice at the start of the next game Anderson shows up and shoots you right before you can go through with it, then blows them all to hell.

Well the endings are pretty explicit that doesn't happen. He definitely dies in the control and synth endings though. In control the thing talking at the end has his voice-ish but it does explicitly state that Shepards will was imprinted on this new construct and it exists only to carry out his will. Sort of like how the catalyst couldn't do anything but follow the will it was imprinted with, and spread that will through indoctrination slowly making others unable to do anything else either.

[Shadowygoodness]

All the Quarian Fleet or 2 missiles off the back of a truck! Maybe Quarian guns just suck.

2 missiles and all those missiles Hammer proceeds to fire afterward

[Deleted]

the only good thing is that they expanded the everyone dies ending, which was the only ending i accepted in the original game, so whatever rage against me, i'm done with bioware, dragon age 2 was a huge disappointment, mass effect 3 was really good until the last 5 minutes and this "extended cut" killed it for me, but i had no prospect to this so...this time there was no disappiontment

[Sargerus]

Even Angry Joe found the EC to be satisfatory

[Florena]

I don't see the refusal ending as a 'fuck you.' I see it as a realistic interpretation of the idea in ME's universe. We hard hammered throughout the trilogy, 3 in particular, that we CANNOT defeat them conventionally. It's why the Crucible is so important. It is made clear throughout the entire game, it takes tremendous effort to even destroy a single reaper. Killing just sovereign had a massive toll, and it can be debated that if Shephard hadn't killed Seren/Sovereign its shields wouldn't have gone down.

It wasn't a 'FU' to the fans, but what would realistically happen within the established universe. At no point in 3 is it hinted that you could have bested the reaper fleet without the crucible. The final battle on earth even drives this home, giving everything you've got only two people, shephard and Anderson, even make it to the Crucible in the end.

I agree it would have been nice to see scenes of the battles anyway, of our war assets going out in a blaze of glory etc, and get some more closure to that ending, but if you wait until after the credits, even Refusal has a silver lining.

Using Liara's data, the next cycle is able to defeat the reapers, though exactly how they go about this is not explained. So it wasn't all in vain, your sacrifices meant something in the end.

[OrcsRLame]

The extended cut was disappointing. I chose destroy, because that's what I chose originally. Youtubed the other endings. I didn't like the endings before, I don't like them now. The extended cut itself felt rushed as hell. Still pictures? Really? Also, why the fuck didn't they follow up on Shepard living in the destroy ending? They even confirmed that he is in fact alive via moderator post on BSN, as the mod referred to it as the Shepard lives ending. Not even like a little 5-10 second thing of Shepard being pulled out of the rubble?

They didn't really wrap up any characters storylines like they said they would. Most of the stuff that was changed was actually before the endings. The extended cut stuff after the original endings was all narrative and still pictures. There was zero exposition. Would it have really killed them to throw in a little dialogue with party members/supporting characters? Like, for alive Shepards you get to talk to Hackett, and possibly have a short conversation with other party members? Maybe for those that chose synthesis/control you get to play as your love interest, (or if no love interest James Vega as he was sort of a blank slate character that can't be romanced and is also Alliance military) and talk to people for a few minutes about how great Shepard was. That'd have been cool. Sort of like the Dragon Age: Origins ending where you got to talk with every single party member after the final boss fight if you lived. That was fucking cool, and one of the best endings I've ever seen. It provided so much closure!

Also, I gave up on Space God and synthesis making any kind of sense months ago. I still feel the ending is poorly written overall. The exposition with Space God was cool, but there's still enough plot holes to drive a Geth Dreadnaught through. Refusal was funny though, and on one level kind of cool. It's my favorite ending next to destroy.

I would only have been happy though if the Reapers could be defeated militarily. Personally, I think if you have over 10k EMS, (or fuck, make it 20k if that makes people less butthurt about the Reapers being impossible to kill. I'll raise an army of those little multiplayer N7 bastards if I have to!) you should still defeat the Reapers in the refusal ending. That would be fucking awesome.

[Grizzly Willy]

I would only have been happy though if the Reapers could be defeated militarily. Personally, I think if you have over 10k EMS, (or fuck, make it 20k if that makes people less butthurt about the Reapers being impossible to kill. I'll raise an army of those little multiplayer N7 bastards if I have to!) you should still defeat the Reapers in the refusal ending. That would be fucking awesome.

It's impossible to get over 10k. Doing so would require you to have both Kaiden and Ashley alive, have killed and saved Wrex at Virmire, etc, and even then the best you could accomplish would be 8730. I'm sorry, but I don't see a conventional war being winnable against the Reapers. If you wanted to get there through promoting characters from MP, you would need 31 characters to reach 10,000, assuming you are at the maximum legitimately attainable EMS value of 7700.

[OrcsRLame]

It's impossible to get over 10k. Doing so would require you to have both Kaiden and Ashley alive, have killed and saved Wrex at Virmire, etc, and even then the best you could accomplish would be 8730. I'm sorry, but I don't see a conventional war being winnable against the Reapers. If you wanted to get there through promoting characters from MP, you would need 31 characters to reach 10,000, assuming you are at the maximum legitimately attainable EMS value of 7700.

Don't care! I'd do it!

[Drihan]

The DLC definitely game the game a respectable ending, but what is the most disappointing is loads of very important stuff that you do in ME1 and ME2 doesn't matter.

Kill the Rachni Queen in ME1 -> the reapers make a new one.
Blow up the Collector base in ME2 -> the freaking power core of the human reaper survived, how convenient.

There is a big thread on the official forums listing all of those types of sinkholes and even listing all the loose ends that were dropped off in ME2. The game itself is magnificent, but it's entirety doesn't live up to the glory of the Mass Effect series we would expect from the ending to Shepard's story, and there really isn't any DLC that can fix those things. Casey's team made a big doodoo on this one, but at least the ending was good, however I completely fail to see how they will EVER be able to make any future ME games with such an ending.

I went the refusal ending as I felt it just fit better to how Shepard would have dealt with it.

[Florena]

If only they hadn't changed the ending from the original dark energy one. I find the new, extended cut to be...acceptable but I'm still not thrilled with the ending. But I no longer hate it at lest. Except synthesis, I like the other three but don't care for this one. But I can deal with the new control, destroy and refusal endings. Though I still wish they'd added more of an epilogue, a DA Origins style one that details what happens to your squad mates/major characters and the immediate future of the various races, such as how well the Quarian recolonization of Rannoc is going, how the Korgans are doing depending on which leaders were still alive and whether the genophage was cured, etc.


I have a question btw, are there any renegade choices that lead to better war assets? It seems that paragon always seems to be the better option, such as the council owing you for saving them, being able to recruit the rachni, I can't imagine giving the collector base to IM did any good, etc.

[Adam Jensen]

If only they hadn't changed the ending from the original dark energy one. I find the new, extended cut to be...acceptable but I'm still not thrilled with the ending. But I no longer hate it at lest.

Could not have said it myself.

I no longer cringe at the end of ME3. I like the ending . . . more or less . . . now. But Synthesis . . . when the husk looked at the soldier he was just wrestling two seconds earlier, with a look on his face like he was saying "can we be best friends" I started laughing.

[Grizzly Willy]

The DLC definitely game the game a respectable ending, but what is the most disappointing is loads of very important stuff that you do in ME1 and ME2 doesn't matter.

Kill the Rachni Queen in ME1 -> the reapers make a new one.
Blow up the Collector base in ME2 -> the freaking power core of the human reaper survived, how convenient.

There is a big thread on the official forums listing all of those types of sinkholes and even listing all the loose ends that were dropped off in ME2. The game itself is magnificent, but it's entirety doesn't live up to the glory of the Mass Effect series we would expect from the ending to Shepard's story, and there really isn't any DLC that can fix those things. Casey's team made a big doodoo on this one, but at least the ending was good, however I completely fail to see how they will EVER be able to make any future ME games with such an ending.

I went the refusal ending as I felt it just fit better to how Shepard would have dealt with it.

If you keep the collector base in two it becomes harder to get the synthesis ending, and it gives you the brain, worth 110 MS instead of the 100 ms the heart provides. Also, if you save the Rachni queen in ME1 she helps you after saving her in ME3, whereas saving the Reaper-made Rachni queen ends up betraying you and taking away from your EMS.

To say that the choices you made in the past games have no effect on you in ME3 is rather short sighted. Whether or not the effects where impactful enough, I'll accept that as a valid avenue of discussion. I'm personally fine with how my choices impacted the entirety of ME3, since I sort of see the entire game as the end of the story. I know not everybody agrees with that, so I'm not going to claim that the opinions of others are wrong.

[Anjerith]

All the endings benefited from the changes but they also suffered due to the fact that they were obviously needed for the masses to understand them.

Ironically the same people that demanded the changes now state they arn't enough. Go figure.