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Sir_Brizz

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Nah, accidentally stepping onto a 1/2 inch tall rock and then not being able to step off was the real highlight.
That was another great one, although it is hard to beat moonwalking into outer space.
 

dragonfliet

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Extended Cut is out, though it's an add-on, rather than just a patch, meaning you have to manually find it (go to game, additional content, etc.) and choose to install.

I have to say that I am as pleased as I could possibly be with this fixed ending. The game still has problems (seriously, Liara is the WORST Shadow Broker ever) and the ending is still flawed, but they have finally expressed what they were going for without stumbling and falling all over themselves, accidentally creating (painfully flawed) conspiracy theories and the like. It is annoying that this is DLC though, instead of a patch, as the original ending is simply broken, flawed writing and execution.
 

Sir_Brizz

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I'm trying to decide if I even want to bother seeing them in-game or if I'd rather just see them on Youtube or something. Either of you know if the endings are tuned enough to your playthrough to make it worth it?
 

Wulff

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Go watch on youtube, its just the same endings but a little extra, even the extra bit is repeated for all the endings except the voice-over and maybe 30 seconds of footage, and of course the new ending is completely different.
 

dragonfliet

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I'm trying to decide if I even want to bother seeing them in-game or if I'd rather just see them on Youtube or something. Either of you know if the endings are tuned enough to your playthrough to make it worth it?

So the endings reference the actions you took (re: Krogans, Mordin, etc.), but not in a really expansive way. I played through the way that I felt it SHOULD have been (my paragon character did the synthesis), but I did watch the other endings on youtube. I'll eventually go through the game another time or two (I thought it was an excellent game), and see the more individualized versions of them, but it isn't a huge deal either way.

~Jason
 
I think I'll just watch a video if I'm curious, but I don't think I'll be curious. It would have meant more if it was applied to the actual game I played, not an afterthought. I think they should have stuck to their guns, even if people didn't like it. It just smacks of a concerned business panel scrambling to appease consumers after a defective purchase, not the action of someone standing by their fiction for better or worse.

Jeez, that sounds as if I almost have a moral obligation not to download it...what have I become?
 
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Sir_Brizz

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I think I'll just watch a video if I'm curious, but I don't think I'll be curious. It would have meant more if it was applied to the actual game I played, not an afterthought. I think they should have stuck to their guns, even if people didn't like it. It just smacks of a concerned business panel scrambling to appease consumers after a defective purchase, not the action of someone standing by their fiction for better or worse.

Jeez, that sounds as if I almost have a moral obligation not to download it...what have I become?
I would generally agree with this. In this case, though, the ending breaks so many plot elements from the first and second games that it's unbearable.

I just watched all the endings and they are still all horrible. At least the "Refuse" ending makes sense. It's like they read a couple of complaints about the endings and said "Hmm, yeah, that doesn't make much sense" and fixed those 5-6 things. The rest of what they added was dumb and there are still all sorts of story problems with these endings.
 

dragonfliet

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I would generally agree with this. In this case, though, the ending breaks so many plot elements from the first and second games that it's unbearable.

I just watched all the endings and they are still all horrible. At least the "Refuse" ending makes sense. It's like they read a couple of complaints about the endings and said "Hmm, yeah, that doesn't make much sense" and fixed those 5-6 things. The rest of what they added was dumb and there are still all sorts of story problems with these endings.

How so? I don't see how the endings don't make sense, to be honest.

The game has problems that no real changes to the ending are going to fix, but I think that this change is pretty much exactly what it needed to be. I admire that they didn't really change anything in a meaningful way. The ending is still the ending that they originally wanted it to be, they simply fixed the problems that they'd had, clarifying what was going on (ambiguity is good, having no idea what you're choosing, really, is bad) and giving context to your actions. A willingness to fix problems in the story is necessary (because bad writing is like a bug in gameplay: it is a problem), and yet sticking to their guns is admirable.
 

Sir_Brizz

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As one example off the top of my head, the Normandy leaves Sol only moments after the rest of the fleet, but they are left "running" from one of the beams while everyone else is safe? Uhhh....

Also, there is still zero explanation of how people who were on Earth with you to storm the beam end up back on the Normandy.

There is still no explanation for what "problem" the Reapers were meant to solve other than the original "synthetics will destroy organics if we don't step in" (or, as one image put it, "I created synthetics to kill you so you won't be killed by synthetics". WTFH?)

And it still just needlessly retcons plot elements from previous games and plot elements from the same game. It's cool that they are sticking to their guns, I guess, but where the ending is just so horribly wrong (never mind how bad it is) the extended cut still leaves a lot to be desired. I guess it was frivolous to hope otherwise, though. The expanded scenes really only helped to add consistency between scenes in the ending itself. It did nothing for making the ending seem like a better ending.
 

dragonfliet

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As one example off the top of my head, the Normandy leaves Sol only moments after the rest of the fleet, but they are left "running" from one of the beams while everyone else is safe? Uhhh....

Also, there is still zero explanation of how people who were on Earth with you to storm the beam end up back on the Normandy.

There is still no explanation for what "problem" the Reapers were meant to solve other than the original "synthetics will destroy organics if we don't step in" (or, as one image put it, "I created synthetics to kill you so you won't be killed by synthetics". WTFH?)

And it still just needlessly retcons plot elements from previous games and plot elements from the same game. It's cool that they are sticking to their guns, I guess, but where the ending is just so horribly wrong (never mind how bad it is) the extended cut still leaves a lot to be desired. I guess it was frivolous to hope otherwise, though. The expanded scenes really only helped to add consistency between scenes in the ending itself. It did nothing for making the ending seem like a better ending.

Oh. All of this is actually answered. You have to play from the last mission (while the bulk of the new stuff is in the added cinematics, there is information spread throughout the game a bit). Your crewmembers who are with you on the ground are injured in the attack and Shep is all: someone has to live, I'll go on, so they go back to the ship.

The Normandy is the fastest ship in the fleet and is trying to outrun an explosion. It doesn't work, but they get farther than everyone else. Turns out: it wasn't a real explosion. Whee.

The Reaper thing is twisted logic, but it makes perfect sense. The basic explanation is that organics will always eventually create synthetics, but that synthetics will always turn on their masters, one of the two wiping each other out. When these genocides happen, entire species are lost, as well as their history and culture, which is a huge loss. By destroying the civilization and creating a new reaper, they are "saving" the species by preserving their knowledge. It is like a zoo, only completely worse. In essence, the Reapers are the Borg, eliminating individuality into a homogenized collective that "saves" the species by completely taking up all of their information. Like I said, it's twisted logic, but it computes.

I'm still not sure what's being retconned, either. The Reapers are coming, they think they are "saving" everyone by murdering them and blahblah--all seems pretty consistent with the fiction from the first 2 games to me.
 
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Sir_Brizz

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[m]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvrIFIjTGt0[/m]
This entire conversation is moot based on the ending. I guess Sovereign was a dummy that didn't understand what the Reapers were trying to do. It sure doesn't sound like he is worried about losing the history or anything else of the human race.

This "collecting" plot element was something added in ME2 that also didn't make much sense. Why were the reapers creating a human reaper? What about the history of the other races? Humanity hadn't even created synthetics. If Sovereign had been successful at the end of ME1, they wouldn't have even had the ability to build that Reaper.

Also, the primary substance of the ending is a plot element that was already resolved in this game. The Geth supposedly had no interest in destroying the Quarians so why would there be any threat of synthetics destroying organics?

I read about the other things, I guess I'll have to go back and finish my playthrough again to see the rest of the things they changed.

But there is still so much that is just senseless. Why would Hackett order the fleet to retreat leaving everyone that was still fighting down on Earth to fend for themselves for who knows how long? The supposed upcoming Leviathan DLC adds even more confusion, but you probably haven't looked into that much.

At any rate, the new endings do fix the internal consistency, I just don't feel like they do anything to make the endings fit better into the plot.
 

dragonfliet

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It makes perfect sense. The reapers, even in the first one, are harvesting advanced civilizations--not all organic life, just advanced civilizations. Sure, it is changed, but no more than the Darth Vader killed your father/certain point of view kind of a revelation. It is different from what they implied, but it works fine. Sovereign is an arrogant masterrace speaking to an individual that it will harvest; it speaks down and refuses to really elaborate, instead spouting rhetoric. It is a change that makes sense. Also, while they changed the ending (it was originally going to be that they were harvesting them to create reapers to fight the dark energy--god that was dumb--changed to they are harvesting them to create reapers to preserve them in a messed up twisted logic), both endings are fully encompassed in this conversation.

The collectors were a backup plan once the invasion didn't work (because the Protheans rewired the keepers and then sovereign failed) to create more reapers. The collecting was happening in the massive battle at the end of 3 (Shepard references that the citadel had been made like the collector base), and was how they originally did it, so they ARE building a reaper, and had always planned on it.

And while it does indeed seem like the idea had been resolved: you can make peace with the Geth, that is a very shallow resolution. After thousands of years of war (well, mostly a cold one), under the threat of an invasion on the magnitude to DESTROY ALL LIFE, the Quarians and Geth decided to work together. That is no real promise of peace, and the history of warfare suggests that after they finish fighting off the bigger badguy, they'll soon go back to killing each other. Is it a lingering problem that the stupidstarchild doesn't address this as an inconsequential development? Yes, but the argument that a temporary peace usurps an inevitable consequence (as calculated by the star child thingy) is pretty easily overturned.

Why did Hackett order the fleet to retreat? Because the giant ass gun was firing and he told people to get the fuck away from it. Makes sense to me. What about the upcoming Leviathan DLC? Apparently not everyone was able to make agree with the program of murdering to save and were resentful about being made a reaper. It's almost like individuals sometimes disagree with the government (here the gov. being the starchild supercomputer, the reapers being the individuals).

I don't think that ME is anywhere near flawless, but the ending makes perfect sense for the series.
 

Sir_Brizz

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I disagree but I'm not real interested in having a quote/wall of text war about it. Even with the increased consistency in the endings, I still think they are all crap and a terrible way to end an otherwise great series.
 

dragonfliet

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I'm not thrilled with the endings, but for me it is a problem with what they wanted to do (the plot) and what they almost accidentally do best (the characters).

This ending is a resolution, largely, of all of the big elements that they wanted to resolve. You disagree with this, but I think that they pretty neatly tie up almost all of their threads and it resolves the major plot of the series while leaving the door open for more mysteries. Which is cool.

But truth be told, I don't really care all that much about Shepard, nor about main plot. I mean, yeah, badass Super Agent X on the plot to stop Z from destroying the world/universe is cool and fun, but it isn't intellectually engaging at all (particularly when so many of the plot points are contrived. Seriously. Why is Liara the worst Shadow Broker in the universe? frustrating). What I care about is the personal connections that I have formed and how my interactions with them has bloomed. Stumbling across Garrus and Tali? WONDERFUL. The connection that was formed, even as tenuous as it was with Tali and Legion? Striking. The trust that Wrex came to have for Garrus and Grunt with Mordin also was memorable. Joker and EDI was great in ME2. You know, before she became a creepy giant boobed sexbot. shudder. Seeing Jack in ME3 was an excellent moment for me because it was what moved the character beyond the mildly interesting caricature in ME2 into a person that I know and understand. I could honestly go on.

Which leads me to my real problem. A number of the things I have just praised are tenuous, a great majority underdeveloped and almost the entirety is made essentially worthless by the end. Why? Because the developers seem to think that Shepard is a particularly interesting character. He/she isn't. Shepard is an object that must do what they do to save the universe. This is why the expanded ending is a great improvement for me: it goes back to the things that actually mattered within the game. What it fails to do, however, on a fundamental level, is to make the choices throughout the game have a more powerful and meaningful effect.
 

Sir_Brizz

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I honestly thought that storytelling in ME3 was great, up until you return to Earth. Everything beyond that point of the game was really just shoddy and not well put together.

I can see why you are mostly ambivalent to the ending after the Extended Cut. I just wholesale reject the purposes behind and the reasons given for the actions of the Reapers. The sad thing is that I am generally very forgiving of these types of things, before I had even finished the game I thought for sure people were over exaggerating and that the endings were probably just fine. But I don't find them that way at all. There are dozens of games I have forgiven a somewhat subpar ending on, but I just can't stand it here. I felt like they started with such good source material that it is the brink of insanity what they did with the series after the first game. For example, Shepard dying and being "reborn" was one of the most contrived and pointless plot elements I think I have ever seen. It didn't serve any legitimate purpose other than to undermine the character and what he had done in the first game. It's almost like they couldn't figure out how to make the first matter at the beginning of the second game without a full reset.

And flaws like that are just strewn throughout the series but none more obvious or fully brazen as the ending. And that's why I reject it and my suspension of disbelief fails.