Aesthetically Absent · 2:25am Mar 15th, 2012
I wanted to write a series of blogs over my little hiatus about my experiences writing Ponies Make War. I also wanted to do a blog when Rarity’s Theorem is released, because I certainly have plenty of things to say about that too. On top of those, I have a blog already written that I decided was too terrible to post.
This is not any one of those blogs. In fact, this blog has very little to do with Ponies Make War, or Rarity’s Theorem, or Everlasting, or Nevermore, or — actually, forget I mentioned those last two.
By now you’re probably wondering why this little break has taken so long. The first reason is that I eschewed the writing schedule and word quotas that I typically operate under. Before, they were like my collar and leash, a means by which I could yank myself along until I reached my goal. The second is that I’ve spread myself too thin figuring out just what I’ll be doing after PMW. I’ve been engaging in way too much horizontal integration.
But these hardly explain why so little has come out of your friendly neighborhood aesthecian fiction dispensary. The truth is that there is a third reason my writing has come so slowly, a reason that I only can express to you using the most emphatic literary device I know of: the one sentence paragraph. Ready for the third reason? Here goes:
Mass Effect 3’s ending was fucking terrible.
Months of writing as a hobby, of building my understanding of the English language, and now words fail me. I cannot adequately describe how awful Bioware ended their trilogy of games. It’s so bad that it actively erased my memories of what had, up to that point, been one of the best video games of our generation. They fed me a five-star meal, then held me down and forced me to eat melted shit.
It’s so bad that when I close my eyes, the different ending plays in my mind. All of their many iterations: blue, green, and orange! I remember staring at my screen after I was given control of Commander Shepard for the last time, wondering if I was being trolled.
So that’s why I’ve been so inactive. Mass Effect 3’s ending caused me to lose all faith in storytelling for awhile. I’ll be back soon.
You have no idea how wholeheartedly I agree with you. When I saw the ending and the fucking credits rolled, I slammed my fist on my desk so hard that I knocked my monitor over. It's like they just decided that all the decisions you make throughout the series mean fuck all. Hell it gets my Jimmies all rustled just thinking about it. Not only that, but the ending variance boils down to what colors the laser that destroys your hope for a satisfying conclusion is.
img.ur/mFhxT
EAware at it's finest.
I am behind you 100%, but rather than depress me, it made me say, "Well fuck, time to get out there and balance out the terribad with some DECENT writing."
Also, inb4 fixed ending DLC, a la Fallout 3.
Don't loose hope it's just a company milking the cash cow. It happens
32649
I can handle a shitty ending, what bothers me so much is that up to the last ten minutes the game is phenomenal. I had one major complaint, and that was the absence of Harbinger in favor of the Illusive Man as the main antagonist. Then they kill all your childhood dreams. Then, after the credits have rolled and you think it's done, they throw in the pointless framing device. Ugh.
32651
I want it, more than I can say. I'd pay money.
Even something simple and predictable, like, "Shepard pushes the button, all the Reapers die, and then Shepard lives or dies based on your readiness rating" would be vastly superior. There's nothing wrong with a happy ending. What gets me is that that's the obvious choice. They had to go out of their way to come up with something so much worse.
32660
I would disagree with you there, I don't think the game was that good even discounting the ending. Maybe I'm just raging cause I lost my Sheperd cause of stupid error or some shit, but it still bugs me that the entire ending boils down to grinding out side missions and mediocre tacked on multiplayer. The shooter elements of the game were good, but not worth the ulcer that was that ending.
Also this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHS7xexH8kA&feature=g-all-lik&context=G246bddfFAAAAAAAAAAA
32660
GOD DAMN IT THAT'S WHAT THE MAN WANTS YOU TO DO
I'm sick of companies leaning on DLC like this. I'm not paying for a better ending. Fuck them. They should've gotten it right the first time.
Understandable. I'm still coming to terms with what happened myself. I'd gone into ME3 extremely hesitantly after Dragon Age II happened, but up until the ending I was definitely enjoying the game much more than I'd expected.
I really didn't expect it to fall over and die at the finish line.
Just get back to writing ASAP AB.
Although I have not played ME3, I can attest to how distacting bad endings are. Find something with a good ending and we can has Ponies?
I has pic for PMW when you finish!
Massive Spoilers Included:
Mass Effect is still one of the greatest game series to come out this generation. The ending didn't undo that. Remember Mordin's sacrifice, remember Legion's gift. These moments more than make up for the inadequate ending. If you think about it Mass Effect 2 didn't have a brilliant ending; green wave for keeping the collector base and orange wave for blowing it up. The endgame was undoubtedly better but still, I think the better idea is to ignore everything after Admiral Anderson's death. That would be the perfect ending point, a mortally wounded Shepard staring out to see his dreams coming to fruition; the Crucible docking. Everything after that was just bad and shouldn't have existed. From what I've heard fans reckon that it was released slightly early due to IGN leaking the ending. I don't know the truth behind that, but I still think we shouldn't let that one sour note spoil the entire symphony. Mass Effect was a roller coaster and the third game (until that point) certainly packed with emotion. Every character (who you didn't kill) showing up in even minor roles was refreshing and it was good to see how they'd coped. But, yes, it could have been infinitely better than that vague, pointless ending that barely told us anything. They could have at least done a Fire Emblem style sign-off with what happened to the characters, they could have made a statement about life in general, they could have done a Deus Ex style ending video, but they didn't. All I'm saying is don't let it ruin Mass Effect for you. Because without that, what do we have? "Realistic Military Simulators"? That's not the future of gaming, its already stagnated even if most people can't see it.
Also talking the illusive man into killing himself is practically a carbon copy of the Saren situation in ME1. Although the Illusive Man was a better antagonist than Harbinger. The Illusive Man had motives beyond destroy everything.
32663
I have no problem with DLC if it's decent, and I will judge it in a vacuum. I won't refrain from buying something that I want because I'm mad at Bioware. I will, however, make sure it's something I want first by waiting for fan/critical reception.
32662
I only encountered one bug while playing, and that was this really weird texture curtain popping in on Thessia for a couple seconds. Not enough to ruin my experience, but then I have an ability to look past total heaps of shit to find things that are awesome. I think it comes from reading fanfiction.
33401
I agree that the game was awesome. I wouldn't be so invested in hating the ending if it was ruining something mediocre, but it isn't it's ruining my favorite game series of Generation 7, and it feels like a betrayal.
Mordin's death was phenomenal. Legion asking "Does this unit have a soul?" as you're given the option of saving the Geth was something the series had been building to since #1. I loved going, "Shit son, you're in for it now" when Thane pulled a gun on Kai Leng and then proceeded to kick his ass.
And then you have the scope. A giant thresher maw fighting a reaper to the death. The collected fleets of the galaxy coming through the relay and engaging the reapers. Fighting abominations under the shadow of the burning turian homeworld, or watching two-kilometer long dreadnoughts descend on Thessia. Moments like those were fucking awesome, and the game was full of them.
I still love Harbinger, and I think they underutilised him. They introduce him as the oldest, largest, strongest reaper, leading the attack on earth, and then you don't see him until the very end of the game when he lasers everything. If they didn't want to give him any speaking lines, they could have at least showed him blasting through some dreadnoughts with his super speedy lasers. The moment where he comes down and crushes your dreams would have been better if he'd spoken to Shepard about his insignificance, etc. before then. As is, he's just another Reaper.
33448
Again, maybe it's just me, and maybe it's just with the Xbox 360 version, but I lost my Sheperd's face. That may seem trivial, after all, cause it's just the dude's face but that was my face for the past five years. I'm looking at the default Sheperd doing all these things and I'm thinking; Who the fuck is this? This guy didn't save the citadel. This guy didn't stop the collectors. Who the fuck is this?
That along with trivializing the idea of "Galactic Readiness" by tying it to tacked on multiplayer mars what should be a pretty damn good game. The best way I explain it to people is that when I finished Mass Effect 1 and 2, the first thought in my head was; I need to play that again. I haven't even thought about playing Mass Effect 3 again.
33629
I played on 360 and my fine-ass Femshep's import face was just fine.
34250
The only cases of it happening that I have heard of have been me and a friend of mine, both of which had male Sheperds, I've been told that it may have something to do with the facial options regarding scars or hair. Still seems like a dumb bug to start the game with.