[MikeRoz]

"Ah, yes. "Trolltutta." We have dismissed that claim."

Post if you saw this interview on BSN or elsewhere before seeing it here.

[Unknown Target]

So...really late to the party, I guess, but I just beat it. I chose the synthesis ending...I thought it was really cool. Kind of ties in with BSG and a lot of modern thought. I was a bit disappointed how we did the final charge and  there was no closure as to the state of my squadmates (Tali and Garrus), however since I saw Tali in the final cutscene I guess they all made it out alive. The ending was emotionally fulfilling for me; the lack of my decisions having an impact didn't really bother me - I liked that I had a final decision in the end to choose.

All in all I found it really satisfying, though I'll be the first to admit I'm a pretty big fanboy of the ME series.

[General Battuta]

So...really late to the party, I guess, but I just beat it. I chose the synthesis ending...I thought it was really cool. Kind of ties in with BSG and a lot of modern thought.

no, no it doesn't

it does tie in with 4/20 though, that's today

[Unknown Target]

So...really late to the party, I guess, but I just beat it. I chose the synthesis ending...I thought it was really cool. Kind of ties in with BSG and a lot of modern thought.

no, no it doesn't

it does tie in with 4/20 though, that's today

Well I feel like it does...the concept of the singularity, of the merging of organic and synthetic life. In BSG it was the same concept; a never ending cycle that finally ends (?) with a new future, in the merging of the synthetic and the organic; Reapers and organics in ME, Boomer and Helo's baby in BSG. It's a similar underpinning between both universes.

[General Battuta]

The Singularity is an interesting if flawed piece of philosophical exploration (I should know, I won a free ride to college writing about it). Mass Effect 3's ending has nothing to do with it. It tries to drop the name but doesn't actually put any thought into what it's saying - it's simply spewing empty jargon about 'a new framework, a new DNA', like a salesman who doesn't really understand what he's talking about. This is because the writers on the team who actually understand the concept of a technological singularity either left BioWare or were marginalized during the writing of the ending.

You also missed the point of the BSG ending, which is interesting; the cycle isn't broken, it's happening all over again but there's maybe a possibility that something will happen. Of course, the thing about BSG is that the ending derives from themes present throughout the whole series, whereas the ending of Mass Effect 3 is actively opposed to the themes of everything before.

If you smoke a joint and get high enough that you can't really think about much except whoa, man, it totally seems like it's profound, though

[Unknown Target]

Well there are many different potentials for the "singularity". I won't say it's a definite, just something that's a possibility, and a very wide one at that. That's cool that you won a free ride to college just for writing about it.

And I don't know; the possibility of bio-machines, of machines that can grow - at what point does chemistry end and biology begin? Where does mechanical engineering become surgical restructuring? There's been some very divided lines in the past that I think are starting to become blurred, and I personally think that's a good thing. "A new DNA" could mean the purposeful altering of current organic life to be more accepting to synthetic life; or the redesign of synthetic life to essentially be organic life. Would a heart pumping blood in the veins of a machine make it a human? If that machine broke down oxygen to generate power in a chemical reaction, but had a silicon brain that was powered by it...what then?

With the BSG ending, I feel like we're both saying the same thing;

; a never ending cycle that finally ends (?) with a new future,

and your quote;

but there's maybe a possibility that something will happen.

But I don't follow this, could you explain it a bit more?

whereas the ending of Mass Effect 3 is actively opposed to the themes of everything before.

[General Battuta]

Well there are many different potentials for the "singularity". I won't say it's a definite, just something that's a possibility, and a very wide one at that. That's cool that you won a free ride to college just for writing about it.

Writing brilliantly

And I don't know; the possibility of bio-machines, of machines that can grow - at what point does chemistry end and biology begin? Where does mechanical engineering become surgical restructuring? There's been some very divided lines in the past that I think are starting to become blurred, and I personally think that's a good thing. "A new DNA" could mean the purposeful altering of current organic life to be more accepting to synthetic life; or the redesign of synthetic life to essentially be organic life. Would a heart pumping blood in the veins of a machine make it a human? If that machine broke down oxygen to generate power in a chemical reaction, but had a silicon brain that was powered by it...what then?

These are all interesting questions which Mass Effect 3, and its ending, do not give a **** about and have not put one whit of thought into. The game's ending can only gesture suggestively in the direction of superior works while invoking mere magic.

The idea of the Geth suddenly sprouting tumorous lumps of flesh is pretty horrifying, though, I think they'd much prefer to be destroyed

Really I think the most powerful symbol of the intellectual and ludic laziness of Mass Effect 3's ending - particularly the synthesis ending - is Joker's hat. It's a symptom of how enormously rushed the whole affair was that even his inanimate baseball cap gets the green Synthesis veins.

[Unknown Target]

Writing brilliantly

Haha, I don't doubt it.

These are all interesting questions which Mass Effect 3, and its ending, do not give a **** about and have not put one whit of thought into. The game's ending can only gesture suggestively in the direction of superior works while invoking mere magic.

The idea of the Geth suddenly sprouting tumorous lumps of flesh is pretty horrifying, though, I think they'd much prefer to be destroyed

To be fair the ending was a bit shortened; they didn't expand on some very basic things, like whether or not my squad died in the final assault. But I like that the opening left the door open for these discussions.

As for the Geth...I doubt you really thought I was saying they'd be sprouting lumps of flesh.

Really I think the most powerful symbol of the intellectual and ludic laziness of Mass Effect 3's ending - particularly the synthesis ending - is Joker's hat. It's a symptom of how enormously rushed the whole affair was that even his inanimate baseball cap gets the green Synthesis veins.

Ok, while they could have put the detail and effort in for that, I'm sure it's more like a technical issue with the game engine and how the models were put together for the rest of the game.

[General Battuta]

It's certainly a technical issue, but it's one that would've been sorted out if the ending weren't written and hacked together at the last minute.

[Unknown Target]

I don't know if it was written and hacked together at the last minute; Mass Effect was originally planned to be a trilogy from the beginning. I feel like the ending was planned from the beginning, they just ran out of time. I think EA might have put extra pressure on BioWare to get this title out on time.

[General Battuta]

I don't know if it was written and hacked together at the last minute; Mass Effect was originally planned to be a trilogy from the beginning. I feel like the ending was planned from the beginning, they just ran out of time. I think EA might have put extra pressure on BioWare to get this title out on time.

You are unfortunately wrong. If you've read this thread you know that I've spoken at length with members of the Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3 writing team about the ME3 ending. Additionally, there's extensive behind-the-scenes material available from the same guy who did the behind-the-scenes doc for Portal 2. This ending was not planned from the beginning (a fact confirmed both by ME3 behind the scenes material, my own interviews, and members of the ME1 writing staff), and in fact the lead writers were struggling to come up with an ending until the very last months of ME3 development. They had to delay recording with Martin Sheen because they didn't even have his dialogue written.

After months of struggle, lead writer Mac Walters - after a night of drinking - scrawled out the outline of the ending on a piece of notebook paper with the infamous conclusion LOTS OF SPECULATION FOR EVERYBODY, and it was then hastily developed by the lead writer and the lead developer without input from the rest of the writing team (for example, the guys responsible for the superlative Tuchanka level.) This is why much of the Mass Effect 3 writing staff quietly dislikes the ending and and why we're getting an Extended Cut to try to fix it.

The original ending for the series planned during Mass Effect 2 development, by the original lead writer Drew Karpyshyn, involved dark energy and a plot very similar to that one TNG episode where warp drive turns out to be damaging space-time. It was ditched after he left, but you can still see the foreshadowing set up in ME2 with the Haestrom subplot.

Patrick Weekes told me that they're going to try to work these loose plot threads from the old ending into the Extended Cut so it all ties together better. I personally think that ending is just as bad, so I'm glad they didn't go with it.

[Unknown Target]

I haven't read the thread because by now it's 30 pages and I just finished the story...I haven't had time to finish the game. :\ I did read your interview, thanks for doing that though. That's too bad that it wasn't planned from the beginning, though, I still feel like the ending was good enough for me to be satisfied with the series, though I can understand how some people might have large issues with it.

To be fair, it would have been hard to end this series; they made it all to be so massive, the stakes so high...I guess rewriting the fabric of life was a good way of doing it, at least IMO.

[BrotherBryon]

To be fair ME3 ends up being the most mediocre chapter in the series due mostly in part to the entire retake earth mission, endings and few other obviously rushed aspects of the games. This is despite having the most well put together missions in the entire series in the form of the Krogan and Quarian Homeworlds. The shortfalls of the rest of the game just utterly ruins it's replay value and this is from some one who played the hell out of the previous two titles with well over a dozen runs to import into the last chapter.  I've tried to bring myself to do more than one playthrough but I just can't do it and I've been forced to play that buggy as hell multiplayer just to try to get my money's worth out of the damn Collectors Edition. At this point I'm just praying that Diablo 3 delivers enough to make me forget this whole fiasco. I haven't joined the whole retake movement going on over there on BSN but I have stated that I will no longer blindly trust Bioware and by extension EA to produce a quality game enough to preorder from them ever again. I got burned on both DA2 and now ME3 so any future purchases will be made well after the first price drop and no more preorders.

[Luis Dias]

Yes, the stakes were high and they were not up for the challenge. However, I don't think it would be required some kind of a genious of a writer. Just someone competent knowledgeable about the plot themes and the inducing vertigo that they pose philosophically. Which perhaps is a rarity of itself I dunno. I can say one thing though. When we reach Virmire and we get that dialogue with Sovereign, they fooled me into thinking they were going to do something extraordinary.

[TrashMan]

You also missed the point of the BSG ending, which is interesting; the cycle isn't broken, it's happening all over again but there's maybe a possibility that something will happen. Of course, the thing about BSG is that the ending derives from themes present throughout the whole series, whereas the ending of Mass Effect 3 is actively opposed to the themes of everything before.

Is it? In what way?

And if it is - so what? Is there a requirement to stick to a pre-concieved theme like glue?

[Spoon]

Do you really want people to waste their time to explain it to you *again*?   

A requirement? I guess not.
A good idea? Definitely.
Unless you think that it would be a good idea to end a 2 hour long romance chick flick with a 10 minute gorey action scene in which the whole cast is horribly screwed over.

[Mongoose]

Throwing out a tacked-on ending that completely ignores all of the themes expanded on in the work is pretty much a textbook definition of "bad writing."

[TrashMan]

Only if you think that one must stick to what you percive as a main theme.

For some, anything other that giving the reapers the finger is a betrayl of the main theme. What IS ME's theme?
At least for me, themes carry little significance. Life has no theme.

[QuantumDelta]

This is about survival!

[Mongoose]

At least for me, themes carry little significance. Life has no theme.

Which would explain why you're not a writer.