[Spoilers!] Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut: We Asked For This

[Starblade]

Months after the release of ME3, the free DLC to wrap up its story in a neat little bow has been released. The Extended Cut has been out for a day, let's hear the reactions to it. Indoctrination Theory is as unproven (and thus true) as ever because the EC didn't make so much as a nod to it, to my surprise, the endings have been, well, extended (in some cases for the better, and others for the worse) and we have a brand new ending which may or may not seem like a colossal middle finger to you. So, let's get into it.

Note that all changes made by the EC occur during the run to the Citadel on Earth and afterwards. Bioware suggests loading the save made right before the attack on Kronos Station.

[Thorno]

I rejected at first. Just for funzies, the best bit about it was Harbingers response... "SO BE IT!!!". The rest is too shite and depressing, so I redid the whole Return to the Citadel bit, but my curiosity got the better of me and I shot at the kid and once again initiated the rejection ending. I went for the alt-f4 so fast I ripped a hole through time and space. This ending is effectively telling me that the next cycle wins by doing what you should of done when you had the chance, you are stupid.

I then went for destroy, a shame they still decided to go all mystical with the Shepard-breath thing.

The whole ending is better. But it's still polishing the turd.

[Akranadas]

I didn't ask for that.

Endings are still rubbish and they add even more plot holes.

Normandy comes to save your squad while during the beam run scene, this is while Harbinger is shooting at everyone. Why doesn't it attack him, or drop off troops close to the beam? Why doesn't Harbinger simply shoot the Normandy as its a big fucking target sitting in his line of sight? Instead it picks up 2 guys and leaves.

Good Job Bioware.

[Mantaray]

i liked the new endings. the rejection ending was nice. screw you starchild! controlling the r00pers was nice too. but destroying the r00pers was even more fun. synthesis got better but meh. no breath
i would wrap this in spoiler tags but tbqh. if you're in this thread you should DAMN WELL EXPECT THEM!

the ending as a whole is still soppy wank. but at least its now a completed and polished soppy wank.
mass effect 4 now please.
i can see it now:
'Welcome to mass effect 4, seeing as you have no ME3 save please select if you destroyed the r00pers or not'
if yes. you get to be Shepard. if no. you get to be Garrus.

[Coey]

How much do I have to sit through to get the new ending?

[Langy]

I'm going to guess the reason Harby didn't attack the Normandy is due to magic stealth systems. Apparently, the Normandy's stealth systems make it harder to detect than a human being. And Harbinger has no visual-range optics.

Synthesis is still a terrible, terrible bit of writing, and they made it even stupider in the EC by explaining it more. Not that it could have been any different; they should have just given up and said 'fuck it'.

As for the Catalyst - even more retarded. It's entire idea that created must kill creator appears to be born of its own murder of its creators. This could have been made better by making it clear that the catalyst was fucking insane, but it appears Bioware didn't even consider that, or at least they didn't bother to voice Shepard responding to its revelation-of-insanity, which would have actually made the ending significantly better. Oh well.

EDIT: Maybe two hours of gameplay, Corey. Maybe more, depending on how fast you kill Cerberus Ninja and co.

[Thorno]

Still don't understand why the Reapers we have encountered before are so obviously evil and talk shit like destruction, death, extinction and pinnacle of evolution when the avatar of their collective minds completely contradicts what individual Reapers have told us about their purpose.

[Fixer]

My lets play/reaction vid is still uploading. It 52 minutes long but then, the ending is long.

Just looking at the fish in the fish tank. Hoping that there are no robotic fish that may wipe out the fish because they may make robotic fish that will wipe them out.

[Starblade]

I didn't ask for that.

What a shame. (:v)

How much do I have to sit through to get the new ending?

The entirety of the game up to the Citadel beam run. The rest of the changes occur when you're approaching and talking to the Star Child. There are a couple new dialogue options, the ability to shoot that stupid space kid right in his stupid space face, and the endings are modified after that.

[LoneWolf666]

Get out of my head, Jensen.

It's been polished really good, but it's still starkid, lame TIM confrontation etc. And apparently Normandy is beneath Harbinger's notice.

It's better, but I feel that even if this was the ending from the beginning, I'd still be disappointed. Less of a "WTF? that's it?!", but still a "WTF?".

[Aesaar]

It's a bit better. Would have been nice if choosing refuse with very high EMS lead to the fleet winning.

Still a horrible ending for what was, up to that point, one of the best game series in a very long time. Honestly, I've lost the will to care. If I play the series again, I'll play up to the beam and then I'll imagine a decent ending.

[Starblade]

Here we go again. Again.

next DLC, maybe

Leviathan of Dis DLC stuff found in the EC files:
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/t...ndex/12777408/1
http://pastebin.com/rHzNDedX

"That mining facility... everyone there under Leviathan's control. It reminded me of Feros."
"That mining facility... all those people, indoctrinated, losing ten years. I can't even imagine what that's like."
"So we have Leviathan. I hope it stays on our side."
"If Leviathan is a defector--a Reaper that broke away from the others--then it is also a traitor."

Sounds like we're getting a new Reaper friend!



"So the Reapers did not fully exterminate their creators. That suggests they are fallible, even on large or long-term scales."

Also, interestingly, if you have enough War Points then instead of everything going to shit, stuff is just "severely damaged", so some Geth may or may not be alive. EDI however is definitely dead because you see her name on the memorial wall. It's just vague enough for there to be lots of speculation!

[Akranadas]

@Starblade - Wait... what?

[Ewokz]

Reposting this here:

Well I liked them, the premise is more clearly explained and the closure I was looking for is there. Well done Bioware. They sure did change a lot for "sticking with their artistic vision"

As for synthesis, it was always going to be retarded unless they removed it so meh I'm over how annoying that particular ending was. As Friendly has said, its space magic.


On the topic of DLC that sounds interesting, how creative it is with the explanations will determine whether I'll like it or not. Surely the creators harvested themselves to create the first reapers?

[Fixer]

Still processing. For now, Fix go sleep.

[Starblade]

Wait... what?

I hope everyone is looking forward to beating the game a Nth time to see the endings you get with that and Take Back Omega if we ever get it.

Surely the creators harvested themselves to create the first reapers?

I guess they missed a planet.

[Ewokz]

Javik was cool but yet another race coming back from the grave? Ugh and this ones even bloody older, by like a billion years. I was hoping the control stuff meant that it was a ship not a single character.

[Langy]

On the topic of DLC that sounds interesting, how creative it is with the explanations will determine whether I'll like it or not. Surely the creators harvested themselves to create the first reapers?

No, the Catalyst says that he harvested the creators in order to make the first reapers.

[Starblade]

The Leviathan of Dis is the Reaper that the Batarians dragged back to their home system, Ewokz.

I'm not sure why I put that in spoilers actually.

No, the Catalyst says that he harvested the creators in order to make the first reapers.

He's commenting on the pastebin that has a line that they missed a few.

[Akranadas]

Maybe the catalyst never actually harvested anything... his creators 'ascend' themselves into the forms of Reapers, and the AI that is the Catalyst went rogue and took control of them.

[Ewokz]

I'm guessing that the creators wanted to be made into reapers, the catalyst was just likely the only one that could oversee the whole operation. Given that the catalyst was created due to the creators foreseeing or having survived through synthetic domination. Seems unlikely that the creators would have been unwilling subjects in the matter as the catalyst is a shackled ai.

[Langy]

The catalyst specifically says that the creator's were unwillingly turned into reapers by him.

[Lautaro]

Just a quick post before going to sleep (its 2 AM and I have to work tomorrow dammit)

- Normandy parades in front of Harbinger during the " reversed tower defense" sequence? WTF... doesn't matter... I have low expectations.
- I hear all the bulshit of the Godchild, still not convinced.
- First thing I do, shoot the kid....
- Kid: SO BE IT *craps pants
- End up laughing but angry because I have to play the sequence again...
- Choose CONTROL...
- LIKE THE ENDING, LIKE IT MUCH MORE THAN EXPECTED... especially fitting now that I'm reading "The Singularity is Near" of Ray Kurzweil.
- Will try the other endings tomorrow but I'm happy because I'm not mad at Bioware anymore... I'll probably won't preorder none of their future games but I will be open to buy their products if independent reviews are good and there are offers.

Good night.

[Nalkor]

You know, I doubt all the movies/CG/whatever, voice acting and whatnot could be done in a few months. Something in the back of my head is telling me that the EC was already done and just never installed until EAWare put it to be released on Origin.

[Misiok]

Yay, Destroy ending makes much more sense now, and isn't so bloody grim.

Also, we now have 'We are created to be the medium between AI and organics to stop conflicts. Because of our single experience in wiping out creators it is now a stated fact that all other AI's out there ever created and to be created will at one point show the same retardation as we did and kill their own creators. So to stop this senseless killing WE will kill all the organics to stop them from getting killed. Wut? Oh sorry, we use the words 'preserve' and 'contain' for our PR, we don't want to scare their feeble minds, after all we and our goals are impossible to understand with their small little fleshy minds'.


Also @Fixer - shame you didn't show other endings, your video was rather amusing and entertaining, though I feel you just repeated yourself/everyone ever on the Internets about the problems the game has, but in video form now.


Also, these endings should be the ones we get first, and the DLC expanded endings should give more now. Oh well.


EDIT: And yeah, the control ending is the best out there. To be fracking honest.

[Fixer]

Misiok: True, I did repeat myself. Then again, they didn't change anything about the Catalyst and his options. The reasons for not trusting him/rejective alternative choices are still exactly the same.

Not knowing anything about what comes after that choice and basing it entirely upon the knowledge you have at that time, destroy is the only logical/sensible/moral choice.

Would have looked at other endings but that thing finished rendering at 2am in the morning. I needed sleep

So, thoughts:
The ending fixes many of the flaws with the original. Mostly it resolves problems with closure.
The assumption at the end of ME3 was that you just stranded everyone, the crashed Normandy was lost on some Jungle planet, they were the only survivors and they rebuild civilisation. This ending shows that you manage to actually save the races and civilisations you were fighting for all game.
This ending means that you actually accomplished something with all your hard work building up war assets and Alliances all results in something. Rather than Shep's actions resulting in the effectively the same ending regardless.
I'm making the assumption low/medium War Assets leave the Galaxy screwed here. Perhaps the Normandy is still stranded if the Crucible is badly damaged.

This ending actually has enough information that you can leave the game feeling something was accomplished by your deeds.

The bad?
Catalyst still there. Still makes no sense. Still gives the Reapers a bass ackwards motivation in contrast to their previous statements and actions and ultimately the problem you're asked to solve with your RGB choice is neither touched on by the story, contradicts everything you've seen up to that point and in all probability does not exist in the first place.

In fact from the Catalyst's words he says that he was made to figure out peace between Organics and Synthetics. Couldn't get anything to work so said 'Fuck it' and just killed everyone to save thinking about it any longer.

Then Shep comes along, makes friends with Edi, the Geth, makes peace between the Quarians and the Geth as well. Catalyst goes WOW! There's my solution, I'll throw this guy into the blender and send him across the Galaxy, Problem solved!

The ending tries to fix plot holes such as the mystical teleporting Normandy and crew by making another massive plothole which stands out from the very start where the Normandy with it's Thanix cannon hangs around not doing anything while Harbinger stops firing so you can have a heart rending goodbye with your love interest.

It's nice to know that everyone got back home but how exactly did they manage that with the Relays destroyed? Rannoch is on the opposite side of the Galaxy. Unless they manage to recover some insane reaper tech or repair them it would take decades for ships to travel there.

In the end it all feels like Bioware decided that their square peg of an ending could fit in a round hole just as long as they hit it hard enough. It still doesn't work, it's still nonsensical and they've shown that they value the pride of dumbass that came up with the stupid star child robot war RGB ending over the opinions and well structured critique of their fans. The whole 'reject the catalyst' ending is a middle finger to all those people that went through such in depth analysis of those fateful last 15 minutes.

That's just not cool.

I expect a lot of people will be happier with this ending because it gives the specific closure they wanted, especially in regards to characters. For me it just means that ME3 ended on a whimper rather than a complete travesty. Time to move on.

[fuggles]

Better, but not good. It's still structurally completely disconnected from the rest of Mass Effect, as best as I can tell and I don't know what the EMS actually does. Whilst the extra exposition is always good, it still sucks that Shep has to die at the end, not sure I deserve that, although I struggled with it first time as I was unwilling to kill my Shep, which was effective.

Really wouldn't bother playing the cerb base again for what you get beyond starting at the beam. Although I did catch some dialogue in there explaining why Cerb has so many soldiers, which came up in the last thread. Also, I'm a little bit pleased that indoctrination theory didn't come into it.

[Misiok]

Well, if you mean Rannoch - the ships still could travel over the galaxy, but it took a lot of time. Seeings as Quarians lived on their ships anyway, I don't think it was that big of a change to them, only with the prospect of them/their children living on a planet for a change. The warp out before it fires also makes alot more sense now, seeing that they galaxy's fleets didn't EMP'd/vaporized by the wave of fix.all.the.things(tm) and had the change to run away. That was good.


At any rate, I am rather satisfied with the endings, but it does show the new Bioware's storytelling, or rather its bad, dark side.

[Mr Carrot]

fuggles can you expand on that dialogue?

[LoneWolf666]

I hope everyone is looking forward to beating the game a Nth time to see the endings you get with that and Take Back Omega if we ever get it.

Honestly? That's the only way I'd buy any of the DLCs - if they further affected the ending in a good way.

[fuggles]

They are colonists who get implanted with reaper tech and then controlled by cerberus - mini indoctrination if you will. Liara comments "I thought they were volunteers, this is horrible".

From the wiki:
Cerberus ground forces are formed from personnel - be they unsuspecting volunteers, refugees or abductees - who are deemed physically suitable. These personnel are put through an "integration" process - a combination of Reaper-inspired indoctrination, implantation or other conditioning - and become the various troop variants. While indoctrination is involved, and they are physically altered into a husk-like state, the integration does not reduce them to the feral behavior that Reaper husks exhibit. Instead, Cerberus troops retain enough skills to perform their roles and maintain complete loyalty to Cerberus' cause. Though there is a risk of Cerberus soldiers falling under Reaper control, the Illusive Man was confident that he could maintain control.

[Langy]

Told ya the game called them husks

[Starblade]

Told ya the game called them husks

Close, but not quite. Closer than I thought though.

You know, I doubt all the movies/CG/whatever, voice acting and whatnot could be done in a few months. Something in the back of my head is telling me that the EC was already done and just never installed until EAWare put it to be released on Origin.

Between rehiring the VAs, getting the script done, artists and animators working, and then bugtesting I could see it taking that long.

[Fish Of Doom]

@starblade: i think he was saying he doubted it could be done in such a short time.

as for the EC, my opinion remains the same: it's not optimal, but it's more than was expected, and i'm satisfied, as i feel bioware struck a good balance between their stupid pride, not wanting to admit their mistakes, and actually getting their asses out of the fire and fixing those mistakes.

the rejection ending was cool, and control and destroy were pretty nice (i prefer control's outcome, personally). synthesis was nice but is still stupid in concept, and is still an H+ wankfest from the writers (although H+ is cool).

[Ewokz]

The catalyst specifically says that the creator's were unwillingly turned into reapers by him.

That discounts the idea of a race unified to created the reapers then.

My main point was that someone must have created the Catalyst and given it the ability to harvest the creator race, via legions of synthetics or something, so someone must of supported the goal of reaper creation in order for the Cataylst to either exist or to have allowed it exert external influence. How it came to the conclusion about singularity level synthetic life dominating is up for debate though, you would assume it came from experience though.

+1 to Fish of Dooms post, summed up my thoughts nicely.

[Langy]

Er, what's 'H+'?

That discounts the idea of a race unified to created the reapers then.

My main point was that someone must have created the Catalyst and given it the ability to harvest the creator race, via legions of synthetics or something, so someone must of supported the goal of reaper creation in order for the Cataylst to either exist or to have allowed it exert external influence. How it came to the conclusion about singularity level synthetic life dominating is up for debate though, you would assume it came from experience though.

+1 to Fish of Dooms post, summed up my thoughts nicely.

Its creators made the catalyst as an interface between themselves and the synthetics that they controlled, with the catalyst's primary job being to prevent the synthetics from rising up and destroying the creators.

The catalyst failed miserably at that job, by using the synthetics that it was supposed to supervise to murder its creators and put them in a blender, 'preserving' them in reaper form. The catalyst specifically says that the creators became the first 'true reaper'.

[Ewokz]

Ah what a bastard then, what was its reasoning? Was the whole cycle system just an answer to a predicted future?

[Langy]

Its reasoning seemed to be 'it is inevitable that the synthetics will eventually murder the creators, so I should do it in a fashion that preserves them'. So yes, the cycle system was just an answer to a predicted future.

Unfortunately, his method of preservation basically boiled down to 'I am going to preserve this cow by cooking and eating it, so it may live on inside of me.' Pretty insane, and you never get to call it out on that, which saddens me because that would have made for a rather interesting show-down.

[Jonny]

Er, what's 'H+'?

Transhumanism, Deus Ex, cyberpunk and all that.

As I said in the other thread, I still think the endings are shit and bear the obvious marks of a writer reaching beyond his ability. However this has at least made the control ending tolerable, even if it's added a whole lot of stupid (Hi Harby, shoot me baby I'm right here!-Normandy) along with it.

[Lautaro]

So basically the Catalyst is like the "Paperclip planet theory" (I'm using the term theory loosely, bear with me) that says that a dangerous AI could be one that's not really rogue but one that doesn't have constraints in its objective. For example, if you give an AI the objetive of creating paper clips, it wouldn't have the explicit desire of exterminating humankind but it could think that the atoms of the bodies of people could be repurposed to create more paper clips.

I think something like that is what happened with the Catalyst, it backfired and created the Reapers to "solve" the problem... it's kind of dumb but understandable.

[Starblade]

Unfortunately, his method of preservation basically boiled down to 'I am going to preserve this cow by cooking and eating it, so it may live on inside of me.' Pretty insane, and you never get to call it out on that, which saddens me because that would have made for a rather interesting show-down.

There are lines from Sovereign and Legion that imply that the people who've been turned to goo may still be "alive". Sovereign refers to itself as a nation, and Legion states that the Geth can discern multiple different minds inside Nazara (Sovereign), similar to their own network.

[Fixer]

Of course, if Chakwas and Kelly are anything to go by. The people converted into Reapers were permanently mentally scarred before they were rendered down into mulch and injected into a giant robot squid.

[Langy]

There are lines from Sovereign and Legion that imply that the people who've been turned to goo may still be "alive". Sovereign refers to itself as a nation, and Legion states that the Geth can discern multiple different minds inside Nazara (Sovereign), similar to their own network.

True enough, but it's ridiculous space-magic stupid, so I ignore that. I mean, maybe they integrate indoctrinated minds into their 'consciousness' by digital uploading, but the meat bodies sure as shit don't provide any sort of mind to the Reaper after being turned into goo. Suspension of disbelief can only go so far, and I refuse to believe that mashing someone up and then drinking them through a straw can give me that person's memories or mind.

Lautaro: Exactly. Unfortunately, this relies entirely on extrapolations from the game and you never get the option of telling that idiot computer how terrible of a job it performed.

Transhumanism, Deus Ex, cyberpunk and all that.

As I said in the other thread, I still think the endings are shit and bear the obvious marks of a writer reaching beyond his ability. However this has at least made the control ending tolerable, even if it's added a whole lot of stupid (Hi Harby, shoot me baby I'm right here!-Normandy) along with it.

Ah. Then use 'transhumanism'. 'H+' just means 'hydrogen ion' or 'proton' to me.

[Starblade]

True enough, but it's ridiculous space-magic stupid, so I ignore that. I mean, maybe they integrate indoctrinated minds into their 'consciousness' by digital uploading, but the meat bodies sure as shit don't provide any sort of mind to the Reaper after being turned into goo.

I put it in quotes because life as one of the few hundred different minds controlling Harbinger's second tentacle from the left sounds like it would suck. I bet being the one who shoots the laser or honks would be a little more interesting though.

[Nalkor]

Fish of doom got my point clearly, no offense to Starblade. I don't know, but overall, it seems a little iffy that they pushed it all out in a few months. Like one big nasty PR stunt from the beginning that's finally wrapping up.

[Mac_Bug]

First people complain that it was too little, too late, and now they say it's too much too fast and it's all a conspiracy.

[Starblade]

Fish of doom got my point clearly, no offense to Starblade. I don't know, but overall, it seems a little iffy that they pushed it all out in a few months.

I got your point. For what we got the time it took seems reasonable enough. You don't really think they had this all along and didn't include it because ________, do you?

[Lautaro]

Based on what you are saying that the development time was too short for this? because the EC didn't add new models or environments (as far as I know), they just reused assets, paint some images (and they have a lot of artists) and record some new lines... so I don't see how this could needed more time.

[Nalkor]

@Starblade - I know, I'd like to avoid being a conspiracy theorist, but part of me is going to be skeptical of the whole damn thing anyway. It's part of who I am I guess.

[Fixer]

Data mining on content before the DLC showed there was a lot that was cut.

Joker talking about making an attack run in the final mission, characters such as Zaeed screaming battle cries in the final charge.

There was probably a much more epic suicide mission styled endgame battle lined up but in the end we got effectively a standard Mass Effect mission with the same enemies we had faced all game. We can probably blame that on a deadline and thus on EA.