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On Bioware's blog this morning, the company's co-founder, Dr. Ray Muzyka, directly addressed the concerns of gamers over the ending of Mass Effect 3. After acknowledging that the feedback from the gaming community was "incredibly painful" to hear, Muzyka promised that Bioware would address the gamers' questions and concerns with new content.
"Exec Producer Casey Hudson and the team are hard at work on a number of game content initiatives that will help answer the questions, providing more clarity for those seeking further closure to their journey. You’ll hear more on this in April. We’re working hard to maintain the right balance between the artistic integrity of the original story while addressing the fan feedback we’ve received. This is in addition to our existing plan to continue providing new Mass Effect content and new full games, so rest assured that your journey in the Mass Effect universe can, and will, continue.
"The reaction to the release of Mass Effect 3 has been unprecedented. On one hand, some of our loyal fans are passionately expressing their displeasure about how their game concluded; we care about this feedback, and we’re planning to directly address it. However, most folks appear to agree that the game as a whole is exceptional, with more than 75 critics giving it a perfect review score and a review average in the mid-90s. Net, I’m proud of the team, but we can and must always strive to do better."
So it looks like the passionate response of gamers to the ending has been successful. It seems as if Bioware is planning to address concerns. While we won't know what that actually means until April, it's not too early to speculate. My guess: The first DLC that's released will change/explain the ending to Mass Effect 3.
My question: Could this have been Bioware's plan all along? Even though Muzyka's post lays out the opposite scenario, a more cynical person might think Bioware created the ending of Mass Effect 3 in order to make the first piece of DLC more "indispensable" than it would have been otherwise. Also: If an "unpopular" ending can be changed by enough complaints, how does this affect the idea of games as an art form?
All of the best people are following Stephen Johnson's twitter feed. Also, email me if you wanna.
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bigman61
I agree with part of this 90% of this game, but the endings took my erection and broke it in half, as well as my heart, i expected answers to years worth of questions, not days of frustration and confusion.
pnathan28
i really don't think it is a lot to ask for a fixed ending. lets not even talk about happy ending, before launch the mass effect community was promised these things an excerpt from gameinformer in may last year with the ME3 cover story
In Mass Effect 3, you know you need to take back Earth, but the path to victory is less clear at the outset. You won t just find some long-lost Reaper off button; says Hudson
From a section called OLD CONFLICTS, NEW ALLIES:
Don t expect to win the loyalty of the galaxy by simply completing a series of fetch quests,
This is a text block entitled MASS EFFECT MEETS MULTIPLAYER?
When the teaser for Mass Effect 3 first released, rumours were swirling that the project was actually a multiplayer title set in the Mass Effect universe. Those rumours turned out to be false, but it got many gamers thinking about how a multiplayer component would fit into the Mass Effect trilogy. Rest assured, the team has thought about this, too. As a single-player experience, and just as a world that people want to immerse themselves in and share, we ve been trying to think of a way that makes sense for people to experience Mass Effect with their friends, says executive producer Casey Hudson. We haven t yet come up with a way to do that, so we don t have anything to announce at this time. But, obviously, multiplayer is something we want to do more of in the future as a company.
In a section called BEYOND THE TRILOGY:
part of what you re trying to do is save the universe so you can live in it. That s part of the promise, I think, for any great IP. It has to be a world worth saving I think Mass Effect has that quality to it. If you get rid of the Reapers and win that, wouldn t it be amazing to just live on the Citadel or just take a ship to Omega? That makes sense.
also you have to remember its a customer service fact that for every person that complains , there's 8-10 more that don't bother complaining but will just not buy your product or services again.
G4codetalker
Alright I haven't played the game, but had to see the ending myself, on youtube. And from what I seen, I liked the ending and think it should stay the same. Cause it's the creator's rights to tell his story the way he wants. Besides, there are way too many games with good endings, where the hero always lives. But with ME3 endings it's good to see where the hero doesn't live and doesn't save the world.
Also I say that BioWare shouldn't change it, cause I still haven't beat the first one yet.
suffywuffy
i think i speak for almost everyone when i saw this (read it all, dont troll you see the first sentence), the ending's were fantastic and emotional... however they were not the correct endings for mass effect, that type of ending on almost any other game would have been a brilliant way to end, but for a game where your choices from ME1-ME3 don't just determine whether a charector lives or dies, but an entire race lives or dies, and then to have that choice and everything you have played for taken away at the very end... just the wrong type of ending for a mass effect game that was supposed to be the conclusion of shepard's story. Now im not saying the game should end with shepard sipping on a beer on a beach getting a tan relaxing, im saying that should of been an option if you played everything right, after all ME2 was a suicide mission, and yet if you played everything right you could bring everyone back alive, why is there not the choice for that in ME3?
pnathan28
these guys are still circling back to well yeah the ending was bad , but we shouldn't be asking for a new ending cause bioware gave us an amazing ride, blah blah blah. Bioware gave us nothing!! We bought and paid for a product they were selling!! as a consumer Damn right i'm complaining if it's bad.
PredatorHell
For all DLC they will for this "other" ending and others, there is 1 thing I dont like. Mass Effect Uniserve DOES NOT CONTINUE!!!!
NO SPOILERS: When you finish the game, your save goes back in time 3 missions before the end, so that mean any DLC of another story will only be other side missions like there allready is in the game.
For me, thats a bite dissapointing! In a way, its not surprising, to my surprise in ME2, the DLC Arrival can be done before you finish the game. If doing that, it does not make sense with ME2 story.
PredatorHell
For all DLC they will for this "other" ending and others, there is 1 thing I dont like. Mass Effect Uniserve DOES NOT CONTINUE!!!!
NO SPOILERS: When you finish the game, your save goes back in time 3 missions before the end, so that mean any DLC of another story will only be other side missions like there allready is in the game.
For me, thats a bite dissapointing! In a way, its not surprising, to my surprise in ME2, the DLC Arrival can be done before you finish the game. If doing that, it does not make sense with ME2 story.
McTaylor24
I still think that the biggest issue with the endings is the fact that we never really saw the consequences of our choice. Sure, when the three happen in the beginning they'll be pretty similar, that was to be expected. But the ideas behind them would have created entirely new galaxies essentially, and we never got to see how drastically different they were. I knew as soon as I saw the others after my first playthrough that they would be expanding and probably showing how your choice "effect[ed]" the galaxy. I don't think they'll be rewriting the endings, but rather you'll see the continuation of your choice.
But... I have no clue how they'll do that if your Shepard bit the dust at the end...
Jacan
The Author of this article hits the nail right on the head.
EA wants to make money so what do they do, they take out the 20+ endings which are promised and sends them out as DLC giving 2-3 at a time so they can earn tons of cash.
Smart business idea but i hope people will pirate the ..... out of this DLC.
roadrsher
I don't think the real reason that people were upset about the ending was actually caused by how the game was concluded. They were upset because Mass Effect is a game that is all about player choices and those choices being persistent though-out the franchise, except that the ending did not take take in account a single player choice. And I also think that the A, B, C ending style did not benefit the game. If all the ending were going to be the same anyway, admittedly with small differences, then just make one ending that everyone gets. However, I am a cynic and can see how EA might have influenced the ending of the game to sell DLCs. Everything about the very last part of the game felt rushed, almost like Bioware didn't have enough time, which they did. (And why was the Illusive Man's choice, control the reapers, the "Paragon" ending?)
Snakepond
After finishing the game I will not lie it was not the best. After all that time spent I wish I could have had more options to close my Shepard story.
That being said it is a work of art in my opinion and like any work of art we should leave it the way the artist intended it.
lightning579
the ending was great they just didn't give much closure on it, iw was a perfect ending, a gripping story, and bioware is going to capatilize on your concerns and give conclusion to the greatest game ever bioware ended it perfectly so stop bitching
YourLastHope
I have yet to play any game in the ME franchise. But after reading about the ending, I can understand why the fans are so upset. From my point of view, it would be like Master Chief blowing his brains out at the end of Halo 3, an ending so bad it must be repealed.
Gungan
Nevermind that the endings seemed to be written by a twelve year old. We as consumers have a right to get the product we were told we were getting as advertised. Artistic integrity goes right out the window when you started telling total falsities mere weeks before the ship date.
(Sorry for the multiple posts, but somewhere in here was one word the profanity filter didn't like, and I still don't know what it was.)
Gungan
Fans want to make sure that they see things resolved, they want to get some closure, a great ending. I think they re going to get that.
Mass Effect 3 is all about answering all the biggest questions in the lore, learning about the mysteries and the Protheans and the Reapers, being able to decide for yourself how all of these things come to an end.
Interviewer: So are you guys the creators or the stewards of the franchise?
Hudson: Um You know, at this point, I think we re co-creators with the fans. We use a lot of feedback.
- Casey Hudson (Director) 03/02/3012
No closure, no resolutions to mysteries about Protheans or Reapers.
Interviewer:
[Regarding the numerous possible endings of Mass Effect 2] Is that same type of complexity built into the ending of Mass Effect 3?
Hudson:
Yeah, and I d say much more so, because we have the ability to build the endings out in a way that we don t have to worry about eventually tying them back together somewhere. This story arc is coming to an end with this game. That means the endings can be a lot more different. At this point we re taking into account so many decisions that you ve made as a player and reflecting a lot of that stuff. It s not even in any way like the traditional game endings, where you can say how many endings
there are or whether you got ending A, B, or C.....The endings have a lot more sophistication and variety in them.
We have a rule in our franchise that there is no canon. You as a player decide what your story is.
- Casey Hudson (Director) 01/10/2012
The ending is exactly word for word what he just said it was not going to be... just weeks before launch.
Gungan
Every decision you've made will impact how things go. The player's also the architect of what happens."
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.
Because a lot of these plot threads are concluding and because it's being brought to a finale, since you were a part of architecting how they got to how they were, you will definitely sense how they close was because of the decisions you made and because of the decisions you didn't make
- Mike Gamble (Associate Producer) 02/02/2012
This set of quotes is even worse because they were specifically interviewing him about the ending of ME3, during which none of that happens.
"Of course you don t have to play multiplayer, you can choose to play all the side-quests in single-player and do all that stuff you ll still get all the same endings and same information, it s just a totally different way of playing"
-Mike Gamble (Associate Producer) 02/02/2012
Another lie. You absolutely have to play multiplayer to get "the best" (and I use the term very loosely) ending of the game. There is no other way to get it.
Gungan
And, to be honest, you [the fans] are crafting your Mass Effect story as much as we are anyway.
- Mike Gamble (Associate Producer) 02/06/2012
We were until last last possible moment where that statement was revoked.
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
- Mike Gamble (Associate Producer) March 2012 (I think)
Lying through his teeth.
Gungan
I m always leery of saying there are 'optimal' endings, because I think one of the things we do try to do is make different endings that are optimal for different people
- Mac Walters (Lead Writer) 03/05/2012
That's a lie. All the endings produce the same all encompassing consequences.
Gungan
The artistic integrity argument flies right out the door for the following reasons:
[The presence of the Rachni] has huge consequences in Mass Effect 3. Even just in the final battle with the Reapers.
- Mac Walters (Lead Writer) 02/28/2012
Straight up lie. They do nothing of consequence in the game, and especially in the final battle. You wouldn't even notice they were there if you didn't bother with that side mission.
Gungan
Why does this darn webpage keep telling me to not use profanity, when I'm not using any?
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