why I'm here

I joined this community because I'm not sure I can ever bring myself to play my favorite video game ever again, and that's terrible.

I'm tired of being called entitled or whiny just because I got emotionally invested in a story. How many of the people who lob these terms around cried at a movie or devoured a book in a day? Is my experience less than because it was a video game?

And a damn fine game it was, too. Parts of it were downright (I say without hyperbole) epic. But, like the rest of you, what's really eating me alive is the giant dump of unimportance and meaninglessness that the final ten minutes takes all over the last minute of the game, with particular care and attention to crapping on your relationships with your teammates.

I was crying at the end of the game, and why not -- the stakes were so high! Miranda (Shepard) might never see her squadmates again, or her boyfriend! With her Earthborn/Sole Survivor background, her squadmates were the only family she had! Dramatic Disney-princess end-of-the-world sobbing! When Garrus ordered her to come back alive, I swore that by god she was going to and sent her off to do her thing, even as it damn near killed her. And Bioware set me up to fail her entirely.

And that right there is the reason it actually, physically hurt to see that nonsense cutscene in which the Normandy crashes and everyone gets out, even the people she'd taken with her to the deciding battle. How would they leave her? Why would they leave her? After Joker stumbled out, the camera panned up to the first crewmember's exit, and it was Garrus. And at that point I didn't feel like crying any more, I just felt sort of numb and cold, because the feeling I suddenly got was that nothing Shepard had done mattered, nor had it ever. If I bring her back alive, who she coming back to? 100-some hours of gameplay nuked from orbit in a five-minute cutscene. Not tragedy, just nihilism. Unreality.

I explained this to my husband with an analogy of walking into our apartment and catching him with another woman. Or, perhaps even more viscerally, that first moment in middle school or thereabouts where a treasured friend does a 180 and hangs out with new people while pretending not to know you. In that instant you realize your profound unimportance, and it casts doubt on everything you had up until that point. First the horrible realization that this person does not, in this moment, care about you, then the endless questions of whether that person ever cared about you in the first place. Was this moment a lie? Was that time? Was all of it? Because what's in front of you is suddenly running completely counter to everything you knew about your relationship with them and the incongruity with your reality is staggering.

My Shep went through a lot with her squadmates. They were all fighting a war together, but she helped each one of them through their own personal battles as well. She led them through a suicide mission and brought each one of them back alive. They'd every last one of them go to hell and back for her, which some of them have even told her in no uncertain terms. The absolute best thing about that game -- the reason I tried playing in the first place and the reason I stayed -- was my Shep's crew. The relationships she had with them, the family they composed. But the ease, the casualness with which those men and women stepped out of their downed ship and looked around made me actually wonder for a second if any of that had been real. Death is one thing. But to see her lose everyone she loved by their conscious decision is infinitely worse.

And I don't think that's what Bioware was ever trying to do, and that's why we deserve a proper ending.

Welcome aboard Im sure Lil One wont mind if i give you a cookie from her . Yes to all your reasons . Join the comm box and get to know us .

Luckylotto, I couldn't agree more.

Here is my sad story, slightly different, but I do believe the majority of the people being here could basically copy+paste it and be fine with it.

Bioware is well known for good, if not excellent story-telling. The Mass Effect series were my first Bioware games. I just saw all these oustanding critics and all and thought "Damn I like good story, nice gameplay, talking, making decisions, nice movie-like staging etc."
So I played the first part and was literally blown away. I've never experienced anything like that before. Same thing with part 2. (And 99,9% of Part 3)
Bioware just understands perfectly how to create characters, all being so individual and self-contained, all bringing their personal stories with 'em and the slowly but certainly growth of emphasis towards these people. They kinda became my family (also had the Earthborn/Only Surviving "role") and I learnt to love and respect each and every one of them.

I did cry and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I cried several times all over the series. E.g. in Part 2 when in the end, one of my mates died. I was so angry, frustrated, felt bad, goddamn I even had a bad conscience! Nothing ever before evoked those feelings I had. Or the "fake death" of Grunt. God, I was so unbelievable sad and just when the tears ran down my face, he steps up asking "Any one got something to eat?" I must have looked so dull with my tears and my happy grin on my face.

I also cried at the end of Mass Effect 3. But not for the reason Bioware intended (if they did intend ANYTHING with this absolute nonsenseretardbullsh*t. Sorry, it just makes me so angry. I'll explain later why, though I do believe you all know, why it sucked so hard ). I was in a weird mixture of anger-disappointment-crying and repeatedly saying "No, this can't be true, you're kidding me, no way, this can't be...". I had a really strange emotional relase like I've never experienced it before. If that's what Bioware's intention was, damn, they made a fine job. Making a grown-up man cry like a little baby. Not long, but pretty...powerful.
It was like a roundhouse-kick being performed for over 10 minutes right into your testicles. It did not only ruin the ending and my expectations of it, no. It ruined the whole experience I had for 3 games and at least over 85 hours of gameplay. I can't play ME1 or 2, cause every time I see it, I just need to think of this horrible, absolutely unworthy, confusing ending that literally f*cks up a whole universe.

Back to my comrades. I think Wrex was hit by that Reaper laser beam, right? Idk, it just all blows up in a nice huge beam. That's it.
Rest of my mates? I DON'T KNOW! Well, except for Garrus and James, those two poor guys I chose to come with me. They suddenly are on the Normandy. Along with Joker. Fleeing from something that's supposedly the explosion created by the stupidest self-destruction-mechanism of the Mass Portals (ya know, those who if they detonate let the whole star-system collapse).
Nice loyalty fellas, leaving me, the other crewmates and EVERY ONE who's fighting and dying! What happened to the rest of my crew, being on earth? I don't know! Do the "Normandy survivors" give a sh*t about anything? NO! Joker doesn't seem to be upset or emotionally touched at all even though his robotic girlfriend just got fried by his Commander. Garrus and James also don't seem to have experienced anything that could make them kinda...upset? "Oh yeah crashland. Fine. Joker made a good job landing us, we're fine. Shepard? Reapers? What are you talking about?"

And luckylotto, I had like the same feeling when my mates came out of the Normandy. I was just like: "Wow, makes perfect sense, they don't give a turd about me, what I did, what I was for them." My journey, my decisions, everything I did and what my character was standing for. Vaporised. Flushed down the toilet of irrelevance. This was like the final stab into my face. I was done. Some one told me not to watch the ending, 'cause when he did, some part of himself died. And well, it may sound weird...but he was right.


Bioware! How DARE you creating such an immersive, complex, living, awesome university with all these people that I love and want to take care of and then fuck it all up the last 15 minutes?

You did a great job, no you did an outstanding job of storytelling and creating virtual friendship like I've never had it before. You gave Mass Effect 1 and ending, that I liked, that I accepted, that made SENSE! You made an even better one with Mass Effect 2, because YOUR DECISIONS (one of the things I LOVED about ME) had an impact. And I don't mean Renegade +5 or some one you'll never see again being sad or dead. NO, I mean impact that you see right away, that chases you, that gives you either a good or a bad feeling. YOUR DECISIONS saves lifes. Or destroy them. And you can see it at first hand!

The ending of Mass Effect 2, the final cutscene with all my mates being well looking at me and telling me via eye contact that they're fine and ready for whatever-may-come, back on the Normandy and Joker giving me the data pad showing the Reaper Invasion had begun. That was true magic. I had goosebumps for like several minutes. That was story-telling at it's finest.


So TELL ME, why the hell do you throw everything that the Mass-Effect-series stands for (Friendship, Choice, the fact that uniting all the ppl makes this galaxy stronger [reuniting Geth and Quarians in Part 3 was awesome!], etc) just into space? Why do you introduce this totally unnecessary new character giving me the "choice" whether I like blue, green or red explosions the most?
Why don't I see in ANY possible ending, what consequences my choice had?
Why don't I see what happened to all the people I loved and I spent HOURS with?
Why don't I see really different endings, maybe a sad one, a neutral one and a good one? Or maybe more varieties of them.?
Why do you have to ruin a total universe you spent so much time and effort and details into within 15 minutes? WHY?
Why do you have to create an ending that's totally senseless, unfulfilling and depressing?
Why don't you listen to us, the community, being so passion we literally rob on our kness towards you and BEG for a (or several) nice endings that make us feel like "Yes, I did the right! I rule!" or "Yes, I destroyed the galaxy" (but INTENTIONALLY, not like now!) or "I control the reapers now!"?

If the indoctrination theory is "right" and intention of Bioware (which I think is not the fact), then these "endings" simply are more complex and philosophical. But they're not fulfilling at all. (Because no matter what I decide, I die and simply the color's changing.-->like I wrote earlier before, ME2's ending was the total contrast programm to that) And they are not understood by the vast majority of the players. Not to mention all the plot holes and all the small and big inconsistencies that make absolutely NO SENSE.
Look at ME1 and ME2. You did damn well there. I know it's hard to make endings EVERYBODY is fine with. We don't want that. Because it's impossible. But you created an ending that merely nobody is happy with.
And if it's easier for you, then cut out the "all of your decisions in the previous games will affect the ending of ME3" stuff. I'd still be fine with that.

But make an ending that doesn't slap the player in the face for 15 minutes with a giant Reaper claw. Make one that releases the player with a good feeling, with a warmed heart. With goosebumps all over their body. Just like in ME1 and ME2.
It's hard, but not impossible. And if some one can do it, it's you Bioware.


P.S.: Sorry for the "novel", but it's always kinda reliefing just to write down all I hate about ME3's ending. I could fill a book with it. =3
P.P.S.: So this is MY reason to be here, support this "mission" and hope, Bioware will do the right.

Wow. I'm with you and I never even wanted to play the damn game because I could tell it was so involving emotionally. Just give me a Halo- Reach gun sight and an evil alien to kill, I'm happy.

They shouldn't have made to my kid cry, otherwise I wouldn't be here either.