Mass Effect 3 SPOILER THREAD: LOTS OF SPECULATION FROM EVERYONE

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35 hrs in mine. But I searched all the levels for upgrades, I also went every where in my ship after every major mission to talk to everyone. I also did that at the Citadel, listened to all the side conversations.

If you didn't do all that it could do a lot faster.

I did that except for talking with Vega and his buddy down in cargo. I guess I fast forwarded through dialogue because I just read all the subtitles, but that hardly seems like enough to account for 8-10 hours of gameplay.
 
Some one at BSN posted this, don't know if I believe but quite an interesting read, and a lot better than the ending we got.


After checking these boards, bioware forums, the twitters of various people involved with the game, audio file rips as well as some information I've gathered from other sources, I decided to talk with someone who used to run their own review website who still has ties to some people in the video game industry. That includes Bioware (they had sent him early review copies of the first ME). Anyway that's not what's important. The point is what I'm about to say you can take with a grain of salt if you want. I'm not here for attention or because I'm a fanboy of bioware. I'm simply here to help you all make sense of this situation. It will make a lot of sense and put the little things you've all found together. The reasoning for the ending change was they needed more time to implement it (this was supposed to be the reason for the delay) but Kinect implementation and the desire by some people (perhaps EA) to have an ending where things are left to interpretation messed with this. The ending was quickly altered which is why things don't "fit" and there are plot holes. Anyway, below is how things were supposed to happen.

The original ending was SUPPOSED to be extremely varied. Everything remained the same up until the part when Harbinger shoots at you and your team. This is when information that has appeared here already comes into play. There were going to be various outcomes determining how you reached the citadel and it was HOW you got there that determined what endings would be available to you. The following were the different scenarios from worst to best (based on EMS and war assets)

A: Your whole squad gets wiped out (the two crew members you took with you, Anderson). You struggle to make it to the citadel. Right as you're about to make it to the beam, Harbinger talks to you, saying you've been defeated and he kills you. Joker tries to swoop down to save you, but he also gets shot down.

B: Most of your squad gets wiped out. Still only you are able to make it to the citadel. Once up there, you must confront the illusive man alone. Because of this, unless you have high reputation and either talk him down or renegade interrupt and shoot him, he kills you and tries to control the reapers, but fails as he discovers he was indoctrinated.

C: You and Anderson make it up to the citadel together and make your way to the control panel where you confront TIM. The same thing plays out where you can talk him down. With high enough reputation, you can "save" Anderson but its not necessary for you to make it to the next part. Anderson dies after TIM is shot or kills himself like in the ending we got.

D: You and Anderson make it up to the citadel together while you're two squad maters, who clearly survive, are holding off the reapers from following you to the citadel. Everything continues the same here as "C" until after TIM is shot and killed and the final conversation that Anderson and Shepard have (which is much longer than what we got). You get the shorter convo in C.

[The following you only see with outcome "C' and "D"] Shepard looks out at the war going on and activates the crucible. Hacketts says its not working. This is when Harbinger talks to Shepard through TIM as he lies on the ground. Harbinger tries to convince you that you've fail but you can argue with him. Harbinger says that he has your crew in his cross hairs. We see the Normandy arrive (the joker dialogue that was cut) and the rest of your friends help the two squad members you brought with you face off against Harbinger and his reaper minions.

You basically have a choice. You can submit to him and he claims he will spare your squad and earth until the next cycle because he is impressed that you were able to make it this far. This is when the motive of the reapers is more clearly established. Harbinger reveals that in the previous cycle, the prothean empire became too vast and they began to control all the other races, which would have prevented all of our races from developing. However, through more discussion, Shepard can uncover their true motives. They fear that they will be rivaled by something more powerful than they are (that this cycle will create AI that can topple the reapers). This implies they are merely fearful for their own survival and that is why they purge all life but they convince themselves they are protecting us.

Either way, you can submit to him and save your people or take your chances. Having 4000 EMS, not submitting to him you would lose everyone, but still eventually get to the three choices we actually got (more on this in a second). Having 5000+ and depending on how you resolved conflicts between characters and races, certain people will live or die.

After rejecting him (whether you lose everyone or not), you end up in the area where vent boy was but hes not there. It's just you and "Harbinger". He explains that a new solution is needed. The solution he tries to convince you to take is merge (to perseve his kind). But if you have high enough reputation once again, you can open the control and destroy option. Harbinger tries to talk you out of it by discussing how your races are divided and mentioning the geth incident. You convince him otherwise, and it is at this point, the control option opens next where he admits that shepard may have a perspective he never considered. Harbinger tells Shepard that if he destroys them, the relays will be destroyed as will the geth (which is true. This is the only ending where the relays are destroyed).

Now for the four endings.

If you submit to him before the three main choices, the reapers leave earth but end up wiping out every other race who haven't proved themselves worthy. Shepard dies.

If you merge, the reapers leave and like the ending we got, we see all the characters we know with green eyes as a green light brightens the sky. Shepard dies for the same reasons in the ending we got.

The control option, the reapers leave. Everyone cautiously celebrates while joker and your LI look up to the sky and wonder what exactly happened. Life goes on but its hinted that the reaper threat may return. This ending ends on a cliffhanger.

The destroy ending does destroy the relays, but its implied that with all the races on earth, they, together, will restore what they lost and will attempt to work together. if shepard lives, your LI leading your squad, will be looking for you. You are beamed back down to earth (its assumed shepard was somehow blasted into the beam? this is the only questionable part). It ends with shepard's hand coming out of the rubble and breathing. Still a cliffhanger of sorts, but you can assume they will find him/her obviously.
 
and somehow they failed to explain either cerberus or the reapers in a satisfactory manner. The Illusive man, a wonderfully written character was given a pretty bad ending. Granted, it was a little different depending on choices made, but very little was explained in the end concerning his true motivations and his way to them. He claimed he needed the crucible to "control" the reapers, yet worked against the alliance and its construction and then tipped of the reapers to its existance and purpose. If he needed it, why did he do that?

Also, the plan to control the reapers was something that he hinted at even before he knew about the crucible and the catalysts purpose, so how was he planning on doing that before he was aware of what would become the crucial piece of the puzzle? There was this loose talk about controlling the reapers in the same manner that they controlled husks, but that was barely touched upon, and hardly a good explanation. In my ending i simply shot him, and he went down with 1 bullet to the chest, even with all those robotic implants. The whole thing was just so anticlimatic.

He's been indoctrinated since the First Contact War, but do to the way he was exposed and his own will he'd been able to resist it up till ME3 or so. Those hunches he had about the Collectors came from his indoctrination. It's also why he has cyborg eyes like Saren.
 
I think we've just become so conditioned throughout the years in video games to expect a fairy tale ending that we become legitimately shocked and indignant about something heavier. What's the point of having stakes if they ultimately always lead to the good guys winning. Life isn't always fair, and most good drama's mirror this.

That's not the endings' problem. The issue is there's little closure and much confusion from it.

I am curious why Bioware said certain things that are just flat out wrong during the pre release window. With the exception of the ending, the game was great. They didn't need to lie to get sales and yet Gamble, Hudson, and Walters all have quotes that are just straight lies. It is unfortunate.

That quote about not having an A, B, and C ending choice still slays me.
 
Guys, I wouldn't read anything from the PR tweets. It's unlikely they have any insider knowledge.

I mean, I think in general it's a good idea to not have too many know about in development stuff to begin with.
 
“Mass Effect 3 emotionally wrecked me. It’s Bioware’s game so it’s their choice. And obviously the game was effective to get that response, but I still feel like shit,” one fan told me. “I don’t play games to feel like this after [they’re over]. How do I trust Bioware to not wreck me again if I decide to join them on their next epic?”

Here’s the rub: You don’t know that they won’t wreck you again. This is one of the amazing things about dramatic works. You begin to like your characters, and maybe even love them, and there is nothing keeping the people who have control of those characters from killing them off or making you feel complex emotions. Good drama is much like life; you don’t have much control over the fate of people you care about. They come and go. Gamers are used to the idea that if they do everything right, they are owed a happy ending and they get to keep the image of their happy avatar forever and ever. Bioware was going for something a little braver, and much heavier. This move was telegraphed multiple times throughout the game, and it wasn’t hard to catch. There was never a guarantee that Shepard would survive, and it was all but promised the journey would come at a massive mental and physical cost. The ending kept the tone and thematic arc of the series."

From the article.

I think we've just become so conditioned throughout the years in video games to expect a fairy tale ending that we become legitimately shocked and indignant about something heavier. What's the point of having stakes if they ultimately always lead to the good guys winning. Life isn't always fair, and most good drama's mirror this.

You seriously just don't get it, do you? People aren't pissed off that Shepard died. They're pissed off that it was "LULZ, SPAAAAACE MAGIC. MINT! CHERRY! BERRY!!!!!!!" The ending just made no sense, and was random as all hell. It's full of plot holes and is a huge kick in the nuts to everyone who played the first 2 games. The entire series is built upon player choice, and in the end, NOTHING you do in the other games makes a damn bit of difference to the overall outcome.
 
That's not the endings' problem. The issue is there's little closure and much confusion from it.



That quote about not having an A, B, and C ending choice still slays me.
There is an even more hilarious quote from the lead writer, from last month, about how the endings would really varied and different depending on your game. :lol
 
Let's not fool ourselves. Bioware's DLC team, assuming it is comparable to those who worked on ME1 and ME2 DLC, would take between six months and a year to actually re-build a decently high-end ending. We don't even know if the game has capability to change anything except add new planets that tie into the main war assets plot before attacking the Cerberus base.
 
wall of text
I mean this sounds better but I feel like someone just made this up with tweaks to the current ending.
and the desire by some people (perhaps EA) to have an ending where things are left to interpretation messed with this. The ending was quickly altered which is why things don't "fit" and there are plot holes.
they sure accomplished that, clap for them
 
Some one at BSN posted this, don't know if I believe but quite an interesting read, and a lot better than the ending we got.

<snip>

Now THAT is an ending I would have been extremely happy with, not perfect in every way (but no ending is ever going to be perfect). The person that decided to ditch that ending and go with Space Casper should hang their head in shame.
 
Damn, this may be true. Especially if you are mean and say multiplayer maps don't count (or use it as a reference to point out that the game single player lost stuff to multiplayer design). I'd like to think that the main storyline was simply meatier in terms of number of areas/quests, but my memory can't easily compare these two since it has been so long. At the very least though, ME3 fights are a hell of a lot more fun than they were in ME2. On the downside they end up having more bullshit enemies/fights in them (there was only really one or two bullshit fights in ME2. Collector's Ship mainly.)



Does he say son if Shepard is female? This isn't really a Mass Effect question. I don't know what the female equivalent of casually calling someone son is.

He says "you did good, kid"
 
I'm not even bothered by the deus ex machini that much. The sad thing is, your decisions DID matter up until the very end. You changed the course of history throughout the galaxy with the choices you made. And most of the questions were answered until you took a space elevator up to hell.

Shame, because they had it all right there.

Actually your choices DON'T matter since the endgame is one giant reset button. Unless, like me, you subscribe to the indoctrination theory. As it stands nothing you do makes any difference since we're left with a creepy old man telling a story about something in the past (or made up) and since there is no space travel according to the old man nothing you did makes a bit of difference.
 
I have the urge to make videos and edit sound from Gurran Lagann

Such as when all the spaceships showup "Who the hell do you think we are"
Have Shepard biotic charge someone so hard, they rip a hole in the fabric of reality and kick reason to the curb

EDIT: He should biotic charge a galaxy across another galaxy
 
Actually your choices DON'T matter since the endgame is one giant reset button. Unless, like me, you subscribe to the indoctrination theory. As it stands nothing you do makes any difference since we're left with a creepy old man telling a story about something in the past (or made up) and since there is no space travel according to the old man nothing you did makes a bit of difference.

He never says there is no space travel. He says maybe the kid will see things he could never imagine, which alludes that this is taking place far in the future
 
Oh that explains it :lol. The script extracted from the November built is pretty close with what we got in the retail code except it add more scenes to explain some details. Guess someone made that whole thing up.

Well the hand reaching out of the rubble is on the Collecter's edition


lolool
 
"Then we will attack india. I don't care. We will attack every 3rd world country if it makes a difference." lol I am dying laughing at that thread. I feel these guys though. I give them my full emotional support.

Eh, the OP doesn't have any games registered, and seems trollish.
 
Why are people so quick to blame EA for every bad thing BioWare does? Does the thought they could be douchebags/idiots on their own not cross your minds? That would require a whole lot of indoctrination given the stuff they say in interviews.
 
What's wrong with them fixing the ending through DLC?

It brings up some pretty serious ethical and moral issues and sets a really bad precedent. No one really gave a shit with Fallout 3 because it wasn't a story driven game plus we actually got more content out of that DLC.
 
Why are people so quick to blame EA for every bad thing BioWare does? Does the thought they could be douchebags/idiots on their own not cross your minds? That would require a whole lot of indoctrination given the stuff they say in interviews.

EA owns Bioware, EA has shareholders to please
 
Why are people so quick to blame EA for every bad thing BioWare does? Does the thought they could be douchebags/idiots on their own not cross your minds? That would require a whole lot of indoctrination given the stuff they say in interviews.
New discussion BioWare or EA, who is the Reaper who is the Catalyst? You decide.
 
Having a discussion with a friend who's a firm believer of the indoctrination theory. It's... Interesting.

I still think the theory's shit, though. :lol
 
I think FTL exists but it's very slow compared to mass relay travel. The idea would be now the races need to figure out a faster FTL. And the problem is the ending is it doesn't give us any idea of the new state of the galaxy, are systems now cut off by years, decades, centuries, what? Just how isolated are they now? There's an absence of world-building here.

FTL travel for a "typical" vessel is ~5600 times the speed of light, according to figures given by the codex. At this speed, it would take roughly 25 years to cross the two furthest points of the galaxy. Earth to Eden Prime would take far less time than this. The Normandy is also considerably faster than a typical vessel.

Any colony or mining base within about a 50 ly radius of Earth would be "Easily accessible"
 
Well, I've read through (some of) this thread. It seems that its alright if I buy the game, and the end isn't so terrible to invalidate the rest of it? ME3 is still an experience worth having?
 
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