Unwinnable Main Questline?

[Durinax]

I just hope that you can have an ending that even if you die against the final boss that you will get a unique ending

[Kimuji]

Seems like someone misses the terrible ME3 endings... Seriously I don't want Obsidian to fu** up PE's ending as Bioware did with ME3. And a cliffhanger with the real ending sold in a DLC? Are you an EA agent? That's the kind of idea their marketing departement could come up with...

 

The only kind of cliffhanger I could accept is one postponing the "final ending" to a FULL ADDON, something big and solid, not a 3 or 5 hrs DLC. Maybe in the one they promised, that's the only cliffhanger I would not look at as some sort of treason for all the backers of this project.

 

"Rip out the final page of the script and sell it as DLC"... Damn, some people really like to be robbed from their money to the point of begging for it. If you want so much your delayed finals words, why not simply asking for an ending released a bit later, like a patch or "extended cut" (ahah!). Sellling a DLC containing the real end is not "revolutionary" and won't "forever make Obsidian the Gods of Game Developers for all gamers", it is just bad and mean business. Do you really think nobody never thought of it? Making more money by selling the end separatly from the game? The idea already poped in every cynical and greedy minds you can find in the video game industry (and that means quite a bunch of them xD ) and that's exactly what well aware gamers don't want to see happening any soon.

Edited November 28, 2012 by Kimuji

[melkathi]

 

You mean, aside from Kotor2, Nwn2, Dragon Age 2, Planescape: Torment, Arcanum, Oblivion (they killed Sean Bean!) . . .

 

To be fair though: Sean Bean getting killed has become kind of a staple.

 

I want a completly unpredictable ending where everyone dies except for Sean Bean!

[Augusta Corvina]

You mean, aside from Kotor2, Nwn2, Dragon Age 2, Planescape: Torment, Arcanum, Oblivion (they killed Sean Bean!) . . .

 

To be fair though: Sean Bean getting killed has become kind of a staple.

 

I want a completly unpredictable ending where everyone dies except for Sean Bean!

So much so that the moment I saw who he was playing in the AGoT tv series, I knew that character was gonna die at some point. The guy is a walking spoiler for pretty much every character he plays. I'm starting to wonder if the guy has a fetish for his characters being killed off in various ways.

 

So yeah an ending where he doesn't die would be one I never would've seen coming.

[Juneau]

Seems like someone misses the terrible ME3 endings... Seriously I don't want Obsidian to fu** up PE's ending as Bioware did with ME3.

 

This.

[AGX-17]

You mean, aside from Kotor2, Nwn2, Dragon Age 2, Planescape: Torment, Arcanum, Oblivion (they killed Sean Bean!) . . .

 

To be fair though: Sean Bean getting killed has become kind of a staple.

 

I want a completly unpredictable ending where everyone dies except for Sean Bean!

So much so that the moment I saw who he was playing in the AGoT tv series, I knew that character was gonna die at some point. The guy is a walking spoiler for pretty much every character he plays. I'm starting to wonder if the guy has a fetish for his characters being killed off in various ways.

 

So yeah an ending where he doesn't die would be one I never would've seen coming.

 

Well, to be fair, you would also know he dies if you'd read the book.

Edited November 29, 2012 by AGX-17

[Augusta Corvina]

You mean, aside from Kotor2, Nwn2, Dragon Age 2, Planescape: Torment, Arcanum, Oblivion (they killed Sean Bean!) . . .

 

To be fair though: Sean Bean getting killed has become kind of a staple.

 

I want a completly unpredictable ending where everyone dies except for Sean Bean!

So much so that the moment I saw who he was playing in the AGoT tv series, I knew that character was gonna die at some point. The guy is a walking spoiler for pretty much every character he plays. I'm starting to wonder if the guy has a fetish for his characters being killed off in various ways.

 

So yeah an ending where he doesn't die would be one I never would've seen coming.

 

Well, to be fair, you would also know he dies if you'd read the book.

I haven't, but I did know that George loves killing off characters so I kinda entered the series with the mindset of "So who is he gonna kill off?". Then I saw Sean Bean on the cover of the DvD set of season 1 and thought "Yeah I think I know now....". I'm just surprised it took so long. It was an enjoyable ride all the way to the end though. Just waiting for the second season to come on DvD now. Might go and play the AGOT mod for CK2 while I wait. Edited November 30, 2012 by Augusta Corvina

[soulchilde]

Umm, no. I typically lurk, but felt compelled to post. If Obsidian is smart they will stay away from this idea. ME3 which had these sad ending caused a great deal of backlash.

[Hormalakh]

Stop trolling...

 

Falout did have a bad ending, though. Bad for the Vault Dweller.

 

Besides the endings for PE are going to be more Fallout, FONV, Arcanum like, I believe.

 

I, on the other hand liked, ME3's original ending, whichever one you picked.

Edited November 30, 2012 by Hormalakh

[TheOptimist]

No, no, 1000 times no. This is exactly what I do NOT want. I am sick to death of playing games in which the story mode concludes in a long, twisting trudge toward depression and melodrama. There was a topic a while ago that talked about this, but essentially I'm pretty sure the 'edgy, unexpected' thing at this point would be a happy ending. I can only think of a handful of games where such an ending was even possible. In most games you have at best a quick cliffhanger or downturn with an eye toward the inevitable sequel, even if no sequel is ever likely. At worst you get a long session of violin music while characters talk about how much life sucks. Now I'm not greedy, if people want a crap ending it should easily be a possibility to get that ending. But please, Oblivion, give us a victory condition, where if we get everything right, we can walk off into the sunset with the world having been made a better place. That's really all I'm looking for here.

[Darth Trethon]

Stop trolling...

 

Falout did have a bad ending, though. Bad for the Vault Dweller.

 

Besides the endings for PE are going to be more Fallout, FONV, Arcanum like, I believe.

 

I, on the other hand liked, ME3's original ending, whichever one you picked.

 

Ugh.....where do I even begin to reply to this....

 

I simply see no way shape or form to defend ME3's original endings because they had no effort put into them. BioWare likely ran out of time or simply said screw it(which seems unlikely) and just hoped people would fill in gaps huge as planets with assumptions that defied even the tiniest capability for rational thought. Let's make this as clear as possible: I would hate nothing more than for PE to have an ending as poorly made as that of ME3. That wasn't a "bad" ending due to content within the context of the story but due to lack of production effort. Ultimately despite BioWare's insisted repetitions that multiplayer development had no impact on single player development I think there's a lot to be said when so much effort was sunk in polishing shooting mechanics and the first game in the series to bring multiplayer was a complete disaster among most players that actually bothered to provide feedback and the game's price was slashed by many retailers within a month of its release.

 

You can disagree with me all you like but I do hope you realize the last thing Obsidian wants for PE is a reception as poor as that of ME3, especially since Obsidian's fans have come to expect well developed stories that make a certain amount of sense. Hell this is THE single reason I spent $198 on PE.....more than I have ever paid for any CE of any game before.

 

Now as far as "bad" ends are concerned I do believe in a couple of important guidelines of sort....unspoken/unwritten rules that I suspect are the underline of success:

 

1) Even if the ending is bad the player has to win....the KotOR Dark Side ending as an example or FONV Caesar's Legion ending. A lot of really bad/ugly things happen to the world in question but the player is the avatar of evil change and he/she is the one that is victorious when these things come about. Alternatively there has to be a meaningful reward for the sacrifice......dying for the greater good and other such things. But erasing the player's contribution/achievements without any reasonable AND acceptable(for the player not the developer) cause is bound to blow up in their faces in a major way(see #2 for why).

 

Very few have any sort of appreciation for seeing their efforts erased and fewer still have any sort of appreciation for a plot with too many or too big loose ends which just make the game's story element appear to not have been taken seriously.

 

2) It's of extreme importance for the developer to stay true to its values, especially in a kickstarter funded game where mostly just the true fans of past works of a certain developer are involved.

 

This simply means that they need to meet the expectations they created among existing fans......which in Obsidian's case means very well developed stories with plenty of choices for the player and meaningful branching which essentially make the player be the avatar of change. The reason the ending of ME3 was received so poorly is because BioWare created an expectation for an epic story and single player experience(though with little choice, a lot less than Obsidian's games have provided anyway) so while they tried extremely hard to reel in the shooter/multiplayer fans they completely alienated the existing fans who bought their games for very specific qualities that appeared to have been just about thrown out the window(auto dialogue, even less player player involvement in the story where at least the illusion of choice had been usually maintained before, essentially making the player little more than a spectator and the ending just about blew hundreds of hours of gameplay and made the more dedicated fans feel completely neglected). Simply put this was completely the wrong answers....I'm all for good games to become more popular but NOT at the expense of what makes them good and valuable and different from most other games out there. I WANT PE to be insanely popular but I want it to be appreciated for the kind of game experience and qualities Obsidian is known for delivering without any pretense at being anything else.

 

Hopefully that makes a certain amount of sense.

Edited December 1, 2012 by Darth Trethon

[Sacred_Path]

In a game, due to its interactivity, the journey is very much the goal; different from novels and movies. In a game with stellar gameplay, most ends become acceptable.

 

I expect three things from a well-done ending:

 

- logical consistency: does not contradict most of the information you got both ingame and metagame

 

- coherency: ties up a number of loose ends (not necessarily all, particularly not those your characters wouldn't be informed about ingame)

 

- surprise: if you started the game with the premise of destroying the big meanie and thereby save your world and yourself from destruction, and this is what happens first and foremost, the devs were doin it wrong. This is not to say that it must be impossible for you to expect what will happen, but it should at least be guesswork at best.

 

Other than that, I don't have any expectations as to how my characters will be treated in that final cutscene. And i definitely wouldn't want the devs to feel obliged to deliver a certain ending because i paid for it.

[Hormalakh]

Ugh.....where do I even begin to reply to this....

 

I simply see no way shape or form to defend ME3's original endings because they had no effort put into them. BioWare likely ran out of time or simply said screw it(which seems unlikely) and just hoped people would fill in gaps huge as planets with assumptions that defied even the tiniest capability for rational thought....etc

 

 

i didn't say i LOVED the ending. Merely that I thought it was fine and liked what they might have been trying to do with it. If they were trying to do with it what I think they were, I thought that it was well-done. To me, it seemed that there are things in life that are inevitable and Bioware was trying to show that through the ending. Sooner or later Shepard's gonna die. What happens next is probably more important than him. Yes, I agree that they were sloppy by reusing exactly the same cinematics for all three endings, but ultimately, perhaps the point was that somethings are worth the sacrifice. I like games that make you feel an emotion, no matter how crappy that emotion can be (in ME3's case, the emotion is loss) as it makes for a better interactive medium. And I think that ME3 was trying to do this because they had intended other parts of the game to be thought-provoking as well. But yeah, I didn't LOVE the ending. I just appreciated it for what it was.

 

Now PE on the other-hand, I know they're going to do a btter job than Bioware. Right?

[Dream]

Ugh.....where do I even begin to reply to this....

 

I simply see no way shape or form to defend ME3's original endings because they had no effort put into them. BioWare likely ran out of time or simply said screw it(which seems unlikely) and just hoped people would fill in gaps huge as planets with assumptions that defied even the tiniest capability for rational thought....etc

 

 

i didn't say i LOVED the ending. Merely that I thought it was fine and liked what they might have been trying to do with it. If they were trying to do with it what I think they were, I thought that it was well-done. To me, it seemed that there are things in life that are inevitable and Bioware was trying to show that through the ending. Sooner or later Shepard's gonna die. What happens next is probably more important than him. Yes, I agree that they were sloppy by reusing exactly the same cinematics for all three endings, but ultimately, perhaps the point was that somethings are worth the sacrifice. I like games that make you feel an emotion, no matter how crappy that emotion can be (in ME3's case, the emotion is loss) as it makes for a better interactive medium. And I think that ME3 was trying to do this because they had intended other parts of the game to be thought-provoking as well. But yeah, I didn't LOVE the ending. I just appreciated it for what it was.

 

Now PE on the other-hand, I know they're going to do a btter job than Bioware. Right?

 

Bioware is a huge developer backed by a mega-publisher, not some indie startup. You don't get credit for "trying" when you're supposed to be the best. It's the same reason I never accepted any of the "well swtor is competed with an MMO that's been out for 7 years!" bull****; if you want to be big time, don't complain when people call you out for half assing ****.

 

Personally, though, I hated the endings not because of the sacrifice (although that certainly didn't help), but because they made zero ****ing sense (it was almost as if whoever wrote them didn't even play the first game of the trilogy) and because of how blatantly Bioware lied about them in the leadup to ME3 being released (below image always said it best I feel).

 

[Hormalakh]

yeah i mean Casey Hudson was right. It wasn't A B or C. It was A A or A. I don't think that it's bad that A was the only ending. But it wasn't executed at all effectively.

Edited December 1, 2012 by Hormalakh

[jezz555]

I didn't have a huge problem with them, I mean they didn't cause me to re-evaluate my life or anything, but they were fine imo.

[Dream]

They caused me to re-evaluate my pre-ordering of BW games.

[SqueakyCat]

They caused me to re-evaluate my pre-ordering of BW games.

 

I not only re-evaluated but definitely decided I would never pre-order from them again.

[Agelastos]

I waited until Extended Cut and Leviathan were released before I played it, so I never even experienced the original ending/s and don't know why people were so upset about it/them.

All I know is, I didn't find the Synthesis ending depressing at all.

Edited December 1, 2012 by Agelastos

[Kronos]

I quite like a happy ending, just depends on your definition of happy ending though. I thought the ending of planescape: torment was satisfying, so I was happy:) I suppose the point being that I want to feel happy with the ending they give me. Unlike ME3 (weeps at the injustice)

[Dream]

I waited until Extended Cut and Leviathan were released before I played it, so I never even experienced the original ending/s and don't know why people were so upset about it/them.

All I know is, I didn't find the Synthesis ending depressing at all.

Even with the EC/dlc the ending still makes **** all sense. Why did the ENTIRE first game even happen if the Citadel was King Reaper? Why did Sovereign even need to exist?

Edited December 2, 2012 by Dream

[Dragoonlordz]

I will not pick either option because I find the wording relating to "or else" themed threats to be childish.

 

Ideally having both based on consequence of your choices through the game would be best. But done so that there is no final choice, while I do not mind some games having such final choices I would prefer this one does not hinge all on such a choice. Choices leading up to alternative ending in this title please rather than choice made at end entirely deciding what ending you recieve.

[Juneau]

Lets not get into ME3 here - It has hundred of threads and thousands of comments over at the Bioware forums (which is why it got extended)

 

This is PE and I want to win or lose. I want the story wrapped up, I want an epilogue and everything else that ties up the story as it is.

 

This wont ruin the chance for a sequel but it will make me love the game even more especially if my actions change the endings (several possible vastly different endings would be a win)

[Kimuji]

I didn't find the Synthesis ending depressing at all.

The synthesis ending is depressing because it means that differences between species make coexistence impossible. It means that in order to stop conflicts you have to erase all differences and make all people alike. And besides it contradicts many story arcs in the game if you played true paragon, because on many occasion you used diplomatic ways to solve conflicts. So ultimately the "geen" ending means that there's no possible understanding between organics and synthetics, you're acknowledging the Reapers's pessimistic point of view.

 

Offtopic: And in general, besides the obvious plotholes ME3 endings were highly unsatisfying for a lot of people who played Paragon during the whole three games. The "Blue" ending allows you to become the master of machines that exterminated countless civilizations, killed more than billions of people and transformed them into mindless husks, I'm not sure a sane person would like to share his mind with them... (and we are not even sure Shepard's personnality remains unchanged if he/she merges with them). The "Red" ending means backstabing all the synthetics who helped you to fight the Reapers (EDI and the Geths), you choose to sacrifice an entire species in order to achieve your own goals, once agin this is not what a Paragon would do. And I've explained why the "Green" ending is also against the Paragon's spirit. If you make a game in which you asks the player to make moral choices, you can't at the last minute deny him the right to follow his code of conduct and force him to to do what he'd never do (and that's also why, among other things, "Arrival" was a terrible DLC for ME2).

 

And I forgot to mention the "new" ending provided with the extended cut that really looked like a finger aimed at all those who were disapointed, "So you didn't like our endings? Alright here's a new one for you: everyone dies".

Edited December 3, 2012 by Kimuji

[Dragoonlordz]

Lets not get into ME3 here - It has hundred of threads and thousands of comments over at the Bioware forums (which is why it got extended)

 

This is PE and I want to win or lose. I want the story wrapped up, I want an epilogue and everything else that ties up the story as it is.

 

This wont ruin the chance for a sequel but it will make me love the game even more especially if my actions change the endings (several possible vastly different endings would be a win)

 

I agree, ME3 ending talk should remain on BSN else what will happen here is arguments and bickering just like there between those who like the endings, those who don't, those who like control vs those who like synthesis vs those who like refuse or destroy.

Edited December 3, 2012 by Dragoonlordz