Loved the game. Was shocked by the ending that I chose.
Everybody is mad just cause it's not a nice happy humanity rules the universe ending. boo hoo hoo.
Loved the game. Was shocked by the ending that I chose.
Everybody is mad just cause it's not a nice happy humanity rules the universe ending. boo hoo hoo.
Actually, bioware even talked about an ending where the reapers win, which would be an even more unhappy ending, which is part of the choices that fans wanted, not a per definition happy ending.
The ending isn't just the last 10 minutes, it's about half of the frickin' game. Even if you don't launch any sidequests at the start, on Tuchanka you'll still start to get the first in a long line of conlcusions. Some stories end in big dramatic cinematics like this one, others are handled with a short conversation or even just a simple email. But the game closes off almost every story thread and conflict and your choices in previous games do matter.
To keep the Tuchanka example:
- If you went full paragon and saved Maelon's genophage research, persuaded Wrex to join you and Mordin didn't die in the suicide mission, you'll get to cure the genophage, save the female krogan; but lose the support of the salarians and the price is Mordin's life.
- If you want to trick the krogans and not cure the genophage, you'll have to shoot Mordin yourself to stop him from making the cure. I have to repeat it, you have to kill the best frickin character in Mass Effect with your own hand, which is like the most cruel thing a game can ever ask you to do. Oh and Wrex may eventually find out about this and then you'll have to kill him too.
- Unless you've killed Wrex and lost the female krogan because of the lack of Maelon's research, in which case you can persuade or scare Mordin to agree to trick the remaining krogan.
- I still haven't found out why Urdnot Wreav is killed by the mega Tresher Maw though and if he can be saved from that fate.
Yeah it's only one of the storylines and you also don't get to learn what happens
after the Reapers are destroyed and the Mass Relays are lost. What will the krogan do confined to their close surroundings and if there's ever going to be a discussion as epic as "Shepard" "Wrex".
However I believe that's better left to the imagination... you also didn't get to know what happened to Luke, Han, Leia and the others after the end of ROTJ (at least not for a long time
But there are endings, the above is actually one of the best in a video game ever, and previous choices do play a hell of a role in what happens.
But you praise the game for the choices and conclusions you got in it, then you must probably understand why people are a bit pissed for not getting that same treatment in the very ending of it all?
It's not that I didn't get the "ending I wanted" or whatever, it's just that the ending was, in the most sincere way possible - stupid as all fuck.
If you've got the time (and if it hasn't already been posted a thousand times), read that article. You might even be surprised at some of the things you didn't even notice, and how ridiculous the ending is.
It's not that I didn't get the "ending I wanted" or whatever, it's just that the ending was, in the most sincere way possible - stupid as all fuck.
If you've got the time (and if it hasn't already been posted a thousand times), read that article. You might even be surprised at some of the things you didn't even notice, and how ridiculous the ending is.
This goes to anyone saying people are mad because they didn't get a happy ending, and this is coming straight from the article I linked.
THIS IS THE BIGGEST REVEAL OF THE GAME:
"The Reapers whole purpose is to save Organics by killing them, and turning them into synthetics. So that Organics wont make synthetics who will then kill organics."
That's just the tip of the iceberg, there are so many things out of line with the ending the writers decided to do that makes absolutely no sense to the universe itself. At best, it's lazy and cheap.
This goes to anyone saying people are mad because they didn't get a happy ending, and this is coming straight from the article I linked.
THIS IS THE BIGGEST REVEAL OF THE GAME:
"The Reapers whole purpose is to save Organics by killing them, and turning them into synthetics. So that Organics wont make synthetics who will then kill organics."
That's just the tip of the iceberg, there are so many things out of line with the ending the writers decided to do that makes absolutely no sense to the universe itself. At best, it's lazy and cheap.
That explanation just sounded like a poor excuse made by the catalyst. Like saying that you save cows by eating hamburgers since it becomes a part of you.
I think the ending left a lot of open doors. I consider those hallucination explanations to be pretty far-fetched but they are pretty interesting. I guess we could wait for a dlc which would give us more clues to what happened.
At this point Bioware is in the painful "damned if you do, damned if you don't" position in regards to making ending DLC.
While I would be lying if I said that the ending hasn't made me second-guess purchasing any future BioWare titles, I just want this tidily fixed (doesn't have to be a Hollywood 'everyone-wins' ordeal, just, y'know, sane) so I can get back to reminiscing of how good the actual game was with my friends, as opposed to just getting dismayed by the last five minutes.
Apparently this is what the ending that was leaked looked like - and that's pretty much how it should have gone, imho (except maybe the Geth versus Quarian thing).
i cant help, but i get the feeling that somehow something during the developement went realy wrong.
this simply does not seem rational.
maby EA decidet that if they, despite everything they did for the players, still got the image of beeing that big, evil, gamecompany, they might aswell do something to deserve that reputation.
i realy cant explain why they threw it out there like this.
Gamefront posted an awesome article about this. It seems like most game review sites are siding with the developers, but gamefront breaks it all down, and makes the complaints seem more than just, "I want a happy ending because I said so."
MASSIVE SPOILERS, basically breaks down every second of the ending.
"The Reapers whole purpose is to save Organics by killing them, and turning them into synthetics. So that Organics wont make synthetics who will then kill organics."
You oversimplfy it...
Whoever created the Reapers has at some point realized that their evolution is facing an eventual dead end.
Organic life will eventually develop synthetic life which will inevitably rebel against its creator - and win. This AI will then continue to evolve exponentially, keeping any kind of organic life from appearing.
Basically, the entire galaxy will fall prey to this new kind of AI and its biodiversity - basically the greatest thing in the entire universe, at least to some* - will be lost forever.
This realization also created a moral dilemma for them, in that they could not allow the galaxy to fall prey to another civilization that would fail to recognize this dead end in time. They felt responsible to protect any emerging species from this fate.
The Reapers serve two purposes; they're saving organic life in general by culling any sufficiently advanced civilizations before they can unleash this unstoppable force on the galaxy. Each new civilization is allowed to evolve and flourish for several millenia before they're harvested, and their achievements and spirit are captured and preserved in a Reaper body.
The other purpose is to win time for organic life to eventually find another solution to this moral dilemma that does not require the Reapers and their cycle of extinction.
At the end of Mass Effect 3, Shepard basically faces the same choice that the creators of the Reapers did, and he has to make the decision on his own instead of relying on the collective wisdom and knowledge of an entire civilization.
- avoid the singularity event by merging organic and synthetic life into a new whole; however this can also end in the death of biodiversity
- postpone the decision for another cycle by taking control of the Reapers and continuing their task; however this will cost the life of every advanced civilization and all of his friends
- take the risk of the singularity event and let life find its own way by destroying the reapers and all of their technology; however this will also cost the life of the Geth and EDI as well
The Mass Relays also need to go, because they represent a technological dead end, predestining every civilization to follow the same path that lead the creators of the Reapers to the singularity event.
The mass effect itself still allows some level of FTL travel, and there must be other ways and directions. Removing the convenient mass transportation will force organic life to find a new and hopefully better way.
Bioware could have done a better job explaining the above, I agree with that. It's also true that the actual ending has little to do with your previous choices, beyond the fact that you need to do very well to gather enough War Assets to get all the choices.
But all in all the ending is a fascinating hard sci-fi one with complex moral questions and maybe that's why it isn't as fitting to a game that involved so much shooting and setting enemies on fire.
The AI thing is BS, its attributing human impulses, and human living constraints to a machine capable surviving easily in nearly any situation and thinking with flawless logic, AI has no natural life cycle, no need to breed, no need for garden worlds.
Other than direct aggression from their creators what reason would they have to want to wipe out organic life? the galaxy is huge and its been demonstrated that sufficiently advanced synthetics can simply leave it behind.
Also given that the conduit had a workable solution to the situation the entire time why did it hold out?
I still think that the Conduit God child was a cheap bit of Deus Ex Machina.
(I guess were getting down to opinions now though)
But all in all the ending is a fascinating hard sci-fi one with complex moral questions and maybe that's why it isn't as fitting to a game that involved so much shooting and setting enemies on fire.
What? The entire Mass Effect series is filled with complex moral questions and depth. It's what made it such a great series and why people are mad to begin with.
One thing I keep thinking people miss is in relation to the whole "happy ending" thing. I'm actually going to consider wanting a "happy" ending a very valid argument, given the two fucking games before it - Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2. If played even as a sort of a neutral character, you get a pretty cliche heroic awesomeguysavingthegalaxy ending. So this one in 3 just doesn't fit, no matter how you look at it. Everything about it just feels wrong.
The series has never been overly dark (even if you go full renegade) or very smart even, all of the crazy theories and shit is just people making it up themselves to over complicate a pretty straightforward narrative. Destroying the mass relays seems extra dumb fucked, simply due to the fact that all of the colonies (who rely on imports/trade to sustain themselves) and stranded societies are pretty much going to burn.
I haven't played the ME3, but I have been following the whole discussion and the endings, and from what I can tell its nothing about good vs evil ending, but about being told that all your choices has an unique effect on the ending you get. As far I could tell from what I read, nothing you did had any real effect in the end, you might as well skip the whole game and then just take one of the three choices.
I must've missed the info about how different the endings were originally supposed to be, so I wasn't at all let down by what I got. The journey was unique to me, and I felt like the option I chose fit with my character.
I certainly won't mind more story being told, but I hope they don't release something that totally changes the ending at this point. It is what it is.
Other than direct aggression from their creators what reason would they have to want to wipe out organic life? the galaxy is huge and its been demonstrated that sufficiently advanced synthetics can simply leave it behind.
AI, or rather, synthetic life, can be even more resource dependent than us. The Geth wanted to build a Dyson's sphere, basically surrounding a sun completely with solar panels to capture all of its energy - imagine how many planets have to be strip mined for that amount of minerals. Using self-replicating tools (Von Neumann machines) means that it can be done in a very short timespan, and as the AI multiplies, it can consume more and more planets at an exponential rate. Even garden worlds have mineral deposits, and who knows how much gold or platinum would be needed for such gigantic constructs.
And this is just simple theories from our limited thinking - but the idea behind a technological singularity is that AI advances at an exponential rate and thus the results are completely unpredictable.
We can not assume that it will have any moral inhibitions, it could easily decide that only the strongest is allowed to survive and biodiversity is unnecessary. Yes, it is also possible that it would be benevolent, but the risk is huge, and the entire idea behind ME and the cycle of extinction is that the Reapers' creators were not willing to take that risk.
However, they left a chance for another civilization to re-evaluate the situation and go ahead anyway, if they were willing to take the responsibility. That is the decision Shepard has to make at the end.
Also given that the conduit had a workable solution to the situation the entire time why did it hold out?
If either the Reapers or the Guardian (that's what the "child" is called although it's just a projection) is intelligent enough to come up with such ideas or execute them, then it's already capable of becoming the singularity on its own. So whoever designed them had to impose limits on them that restrained their evolution.
So, the Reapers thought themselves to be the pinnacle of evolution and yet they haven't advanced at all for millions of years; and the Guardian must have had some kind of built-in mechanisms that stopped it from making these decisions. That is why Shepard had to get there to break the cycle.
(I guess were getting down to opinions now though)
Yes we are, but that was Bioware's intention with the ending from the start. They were wrong with their prediction of how the community would react, though.
What? The entire Mass Effect series is filled with complex moral questions and depth. It's what made it such a great series and why people are mad to begin with.
And yet when Bioware ends the trilogy in that spirit, they get flamed on the internet.
Destroying the mass relays seems extra dumb fucked, simply due to the fact that all of the colonies (who rely on imports/trade to sustain themselves) and stranded societies are pretty much going to burn.
The mass relays were both a trap and a constraint on technological and social advancement. They offered an easy method of long distance space travel so noone bothered to research better ways, some cultures were already at a level of stagnation (like the asari).
Destroying them through the Crucible isn't as violent as blasting them with an asteroid, so no planets would be burned, everyone in the galaxy survives the event.
Short distance travel is also possible, just as it was before the relays were destroyed. Any starship can travel a few hundred light years in a reasonable amount of time, so trade will not die. If there are enough quantum entanglement devices in the galaxy then instant communication will also remain possible.
The main consequence is that long distance space travel is no longer as easy and it takes decades and huge amounts of energy. So, all the various civilizations now have a very big reason to focus their efforts on technological research, because they know that there's a huge world out there waiting for them. The entire society of every race will be changed for ever, and after millions of years the galaxy will once again see real progress. If it's not just a matter of a few minutes to move entire fleets around the galaxy, then war will become very different and far less affordable, too, which is actually another good thing.
So in my opinion, destroying the relays was a very, very good thing actually.
As far I could tell from what I read, nothing you did had any real effect in the end, you might as well skip the whole game and then just take one of the three choices.
Your decisions have two very important consequences:
- The individual stories of races, conflicts and characters heavily depend on practically nothing else but your choices, sometimes even going back to the first game. The survival of Wrex for example can make or break the curing of the genophage.
(Basically, an aggressive race has been uplifted by the galactic society to help win a war against a fierce enemy, about a thousand years ago. They were however completely unfit for peace and rebelled against the rest of the galaxy to claim more territory - so an artificial plague was unleashed on them that cut their originally high reproduction rate to 0.1%, dooming the entire race to a slow death.
But the player has the chance in ME1 to encourage one member of the race, who will later become a charismatic leader that starts to unite the various fractions in ME2, and can give him a cure to this genophage in ME3, thereby gaining their loyalty - if he's willing to take the risk of restarting their rebellion and war...)
- The number of choices available in the endgame, and Earth's actual fate, are depending on how many war assets the player can rally, and that is also a consequence of all the choices made throughout the three games. What's more, the game does not necessarily reward Paragon choices or punish Renegade choices, so it isn't even as simple as a black and white morality.
I must've missed the info about how different the endings were originally supposed to be, so I wasn't at all let down by what I got.
This. I'm sure there's a huge snowball effect in progress here because of the internet. Back in the '90s there was no way to be influenced by others so things weren't blown out of proportion.
As someone pointed out, the ending of Monkey Island 2 could have been a great example of a worldwide flame war on Tim Schafer if there had been an internet back then.
AI, or rather, synthetic life, can be even more resource dependent than us. The Geth wanted to build a Dyson's sphere, basically surrounding a sun completely with solar panels to capture all of its energy - imagine how many planets have to be strip mined for that amount of minerals. Using self-replicating tools (Von Neumann machines) means that it can be done in a very short timespan, and as the AI multiplies, it can consume more and more planets at an exponential rate. Even garden worlds have mineral deposits, and who knows how much gold or platinum would be needed for such gigantic constructs.
And this is just simple theories from our limited thinking - but the idea behind a technological singularity is that AI advances at an exponential rate and thus the results are completely unpredictable.
We can not assume that it will have any moral inhibitions, it could easily decide that only the strongest is allowed to survive and biodiversity is unnecessary. Yes, it is also possible that it would be benevolent, but the risk is huge, and the entire idea behind ME and the cycle of extinction is that the Reapers' creators were not willing to take that risk.
Even that seems limited. The AI would want to build a Dyson's Sphere... for what purpose? It's assumed they would multiply, but that's a very human/organic thing. They could be well satisfied just being individuals, like Data or something.
And as we know, moral inhibitions is not something all humans have anyway. And yet we don't freak out about the chance that a new generation of humans will destroy us all. Like say the Krogan, they're basically following the same premise the Reapers put forth, only in an organic way. Which is why the disease "had" to be made. It's like the same basic story, only in a smaller scale.
Having read/heard a lot of the ending complains (thought not spoiling it for myself) I was very reluctant to actually finish the game. But I finished it today, and the ending was very... profound - for lack of a better word.
*SPOILERS*
I don't know if it is just me grasping, but at least with the "destroy" ending I tend to think that the final bit was a dream (though I do not put stock into the indoctrination thing) from the minute he was hit by the beam - the little "teaser" at the end, of the body breathing in rubble etc would make sense that he is indeed still on earth after the beam hit him, and wakes up after the "dream".
(It would be a little impossible to survive and awake in rubble after being on an exploding spacestation - as well as all the other various wounds)
I think too much of the last bit of the game was a little ambiguous/abstract or non-sensical, just like a dream would be.
And Casey Hudson's "This isn't the last you've seen of Shepard" quote gives me some hope that there will be something more to possibly fully conclude the series - be it DLC (though i hope not) or an expansion, or even possibly an entirely new game (though at this point I cannot see how they could squeeze out an entire game with the current point in the story)
But either way, Mass Effect 3 was an incredibly emotional journey, moreso than any game I've ever played - and I thoroughly enjoyed It, albeit with a bittersweet ending. Though I would be lying if I said I wasn't hoping there will be a proper conclusion.
vargatom, it's completely fine if you see the ending as worthy in its current state - it still remains that you are part of a small minority. While your explanations for the gaping plot holes are perfectly suitable, it doesn't change that they are just as likely to be wrong and yet a different theory is right. The fact that the fans are even forced to use the human brain's propensity to rationalize everything into a comfortably-understandable level (something conspiracy theorists exemplify) I think is evidence that the writer's simply pulled something out of their ass at the last minute.
In the context of BioWare's many previous games, this is one of their most constricting narrative blunders. BioWare has always been about putting a twist in their stories, sure - but the twist was always then followed by a rewarding explanation of just what the fuck was happening, even further blowing one's mind, rather than "I said so. Do it. M'kay?" Shephard was always about finding another way when presented with only two seemingly possible solutions to a problem (Hell, the Geth/Quarrian war happens in the same game) and to have him blithely accept, not even attempt to question the dilemma presented is completely uncharacteristic.
Your decisions have two very important consequences:
- The individual stories of races, conflicts and characters heavily depend on practically nothing else but your choices, sometimes even going back to the first game. The survival of Wrex for example can make or break the curing of the genophage.
(Basically, an aggressive race has been uplifted by the galactic society to help win a war against a fierce enemy, about a thousand years ago. They were however completely unfit for peace and rebelled against the rest of the galaxy to claim more territory - so an artificial plague was unleashed on them that cut their originally high reproduction rate to 0.1%, dooming the entire race to a slow death.
But the player has the chance in ME1 to encourage one member of the race, who will later become a charismatic leader that starts to unite the various fractions in ME2, and can give him a cure to this genophage in ME3, thereby gaining their loyalty - if he's willing to take the risk of restarting their rebellion and war...)
- The number of choices available in the endgame, and Earth's actual fate, are depending on how many war assets the player can rally, and that is also a consequence of all the choices made throughout the three games. What's more, the game does not necessarily reward Paragon choices or punish Renegade choices, so it isn't even as simple as a black and white morality.
aside from the 3rd ending and survival I wasnt aware of any impact from the war assets. (aside from a cosmetic one of the fleet)
Even that seems limited. The AI would want to build a Dyson's Sphere... for what purpose?
That was just an example of what our limited minds can come up with - stuff that would already be enough to end all organic civilizations in the galaxy.
But, again, the very theory behind a technological singularity is that it evolves at an exponential rate and consequences become unpredictable in a very short time. Which means unpredictable risks.
AI designing more clever AI designing more clever AI... and artificial systems are always more efficient compared to organic life. Our babies need like 14-20 years to become fully matured, and they require a lot of resources and a lot of attention to reach their full potential. Whereas a machine only needs a short time to mass produce and it's 100% efficient from the start. It's also trivial to maintain and repair and it never dies of age or exhaustion.
And as we know, moral inhibitions is not something all humans have anyway. And yet we don't freak out about the chance that a new generation of humans will destroy us all.
Humans can't evolve or expand at an exponential rate. We still have our biological limitations and it's unlikely that we'll ever overcome them.
Like say the Krogan, they're basically following the same premise the Reapers put forth, only in an organic way. Which is why the disease "had" to be made. It's like the same basic story, only in a smaller scale.
You may actually have a point there
But again, Krogan are also limited. Sure, they can multiply very fast, but it's still relatively limited, as any organic being is.
vargatom, it's completely fine if you see the ending as worthy in its current state - it still remains that you are part of a small minority.
I think there are two issues here... First and more importantly, Bioware has not managed to execute their intentions as well as they should have. There's no need to explain this, I think
Second, and I don't mean to offend with this, they also overestimated their players a bit, most people weren't ready for this kind of ending that intentionally left a lot to interpretation.
Also keep in mind that it's still an extremely loud minority. Say, 50 thousand people signed a petition or voted against the ending - but that's against at least two million people who bought the game, so it's about a quarter percent of their customers. Yeah, I'm sure that a lot of the silent majority also has problems with the ending - but it's still blown out of proportion, IMHO.
In the context of BioWare's many previous games, this is one of their most constricting narrative blunders.
Well, I think it's one of the more daring moves in video game history, and the backlash is a sign that the audience is still not ready for this, even after like 20-30 years.
It will take a few more decades for the gamers to mature if someone wants to deliver a more complex and philosophical ending. I also think that Bioware has learned its lesson and they'll go back to the more mainstream solutions in their upcoming games.
It is a bit sad, but I understand it too - we go to these games for escapism and we don't want to face the harsh realities of life in our safety zone. Video games have not tried to explore the more serious themes that literature, movies, and other art forms have conquered by now, but it is the youngest art form so that's no problem.
to have him blithely accept, not even attempt to question the dilemma presented is completely uncharacteristic.
Yes, I think that what most people miss is a fourth, more comforting choice, an out of the box solution to the problem that's not the merging of organic and synthetic life. We'll see if I'm right if Bioware decides to release an update to the ending, eventually.
So what is the difference between leaving the players hanging in this game with what Bioware did and leaving people hanging at the end of a movie without any real explanation say in like Inception or even better the tv show Lost?
So many unanswered questions, plot holes, etc. Leaving it up to the viewer to decide what happened, take to the internet, fellow workers, friends, etc and talk about it and try to come up with their own theories, etc?
Well, I think it's one of the more daring moves in video game history, and the backlash is a sign that the audience is still not ready for this, even after like 20-30 years.
It will take a few more decades for the gamers to mature if someone wants to deliver a more complex and philosophical ending. I also think
Oh please, it's not about maturity, it's about a crap ending. You play a game full of philosophical questions, and then in the end every decision you made is swept aside as you're railroaded into a a three choice scenario that you meekly resolve. Why weren't Illusive Man and Anderson there to at least give you some deeper dialogue options and tie the scenario down a bit. Or what about the rest of your team? Everything was rushed and felt disjointed from the main narrative, and there were no happy or sad endings. Why can't the Reapers win? Why can't the Catalyst be overcome? There were just too many things missing that would have made the ending (even in its current form) fit much better into the Mass Effect universe as a whole, but they screwed up, probably to ship on time.
Yes, this ending is brave, and it poses interesting questions, but brave doesn't equate to good. Plus it's still pretty pathetic in comparison to the rest of the game. Hell, some side missions were more interesting.
So what is the difference between leaving the players hanging in this game with what Bioware did and leaving people hanging at the end of a movie without any real explanation say in like Inception or even better the tv show Lost?
No difference that I can see, but considering one of the writers (Casey Hudson I think) was quoted as specifically saying it wasn't going to end like Lost, just makes it that much more maddening.
Second, and I don't mean to offend with this, they also overestimated their players a bit, most people weren't ready for this kind of ending that intentionally left a lot to interpretation.
I think this is mildly offensive actually, because you just sweep all arguments away with saying that players are immature and not smart enough. Which you've stated with different words in several posts.
Hey guess what guys... It's just a game not world history...
Perhaps not the best ending or the ending you "wanted" but in the end it's not our game. It's not our baby or story or idea. It was our choose your own adventure book and anyone that has read those knows that no matter what option you pick you are going to get 1 of several scripted endings no matter what. Not like they procedurally created story and had the game systems create randomness for you.
Dead Rising had like 7 endings and people got a different ending based off their decisions. They weren't spectacular.
We all should know how it is in crunch and when features get cut, story gets edited / chopped for time sakes and to ship on time on a first hand basis. So this stuff doesn't surprise me. I'm sure in a meeting it was like ok well we can add this color and change a few things and boom that is one ending and so on...
You can't have infinite combos of endings. No one has time to do that.
So what is the difference between leaving the players hanging in this game with what Bioware did and leaving people hanging at the end of a movie without any real explanation say in like Inception or even better the tv show Lost?
So many unanswered questions, plot holes, etc. Leaving it up to the viewer to decide what happened, take to the internet, fellow workers, friends, etc and talk about it and try to come up with their own theories, etc?
Inception and lost didn't foster the expectation that your choices had an impact on the plot. I think its like you said, lack of money. There are a few pointers to the ending being cut back to save on money.. which is madness considering this is the finale of an trilogy.
I think this is mildly offensive actually, because you just sweep all arguments away with saying that players are immature and not smart enough. Which you've stated with different words in several posts.
Sorry if it came out that way.
What I've meant is more in the way of going way too far even for intelligent people. Like if the new Prometheus movie - which I think we all expect to be a far smarter movie than Transformers - had an ending lifted straight from a swedish Dogma movie. The two just wouldn't fit together well for most people, even though some of the viewers would surely still like it.
So what is the difference between leaving the players hanging in this game with what Bioware did and leaving people hanging at the end of a movie without any real explanation say in like Inception or even better the tv show Lost?
So many unanswered questions, plot holes, etc.
The two big things they've left open is what will happen after Mass Effect 3 and what is Shepard's fate if he indeed survives in one of the endings.
But nearly every ongoing plot thread has been resolved one way or another. The genophage, the geth-quarian war, relationships with squad mates etc.
What's left for speculation is how the existing civilizations are going to deal with the new world order where the mass relays have been destroyed. This really is a big thing, but it's probably enough material for a completely new trilogy of games, rediscovering everyone after decades and so on. I certainly don't think that it could be condensed into some endgame cinematic or a few lines of epilogue like "they all had to develop a new way for fast space travel and they did it in 72 years"
Some of the questions about the Reapers are not answered either, that is correct, but maybe they did not want to completely eliminate the mystery around them.
Or maybe there'll be a DLC mission where the player can discover their original homeworld and find out how they were created...
I certainly don't think that it could be condensed into some endgame cinematic or a few lines of epilogue like "they all had to develop a new way for fast space travel and they did it in 72 years"
MGS4's ending comes to mind....
I think the ending was good, it's a bit sad to see that all of the different endings were so similar but I liked them anyway. I don't understand them very well but I guess a DLC would be able to clear things up. And I agree with the fact that everything shouldn't be explained, it would ruin the mystery around some things.
I didn't get the whole normandy escaping the destruction part of the ending... I'm not sure how I should be able to either. I don't recall them saying anything about leaving the battle thus appearing in the situation we see in the ending. The whole star gazer part is very cool though, we see that Shepard survives but he appears to be on a different planet. Perhaps he's on the Citadel. My love choice was Ashley but she flew away with Joker to some other place. Was Shepard with them? The whole thing is just confusing and I don't understand how I am to figure out these things on my own, that's why I don't bother until a DLC is out or something.
Here you go guys, http://blog.bioware.com/2012/03/21/4108/ Muzyka responds. From reading it, free DLC sounds like it might be in the works, at least as far as the ending goes. It sucks from both perspectives, you can tell in this article that he is honestly hurt by the backlash, and fans are hurt as well. Unfortunate that this is marring what is otherwise a fantastic game. I hope that at the end of this everyone is at least content, and we can go back to enjoying ME3 for what it is, an awesome end to an incredible trilogy.
Way to dance the pr dance and dodge the issue, people didn't build their expectations out of nothing, they build their expectations on what bioware themselves said the ending and all its variability would be like.
As expected he didn't even hint on any kind of possibility that they did't deliver on their initial outspoken plans.
It's like "we're not finishing all this in time, we're not going to be able to deliver on our initial vision as we need to cut away some chunks" and then "INITIATE ARTIST INTEGRITY HARD-LOCK, THIS IS THE BEST WE'VE EVER DONE"
There really is a need for a tiny bit of transparency, it's this pink elephant in the room that bioware is not going to talk about, but everyone knows about it, it's well documented in interviews and articles.
There's the need for "we didn't deliver on our initial promises to our fans".
Lost my ME1 and 2 saves on my PC, so I know what I'm doing the week after the Darksiders 2 contest is done!
Obviously I haven't played ME3 yet, but all this huff puff about the ending sounds ridiculous. From what I understand people are upset that the ending doesn't tie up everything nicely and/or gives you the super happy ending. If that is the case I am looking forward to it! I'd much rather have an ending that makes me think and feel something ala Chinatown or End of Evangelion than just some big ol' EVERYONES HAPPY SHITTING RAINBOWS AND EATING BEGINETS.
From what I understand people are upset that the ending doesn't tie up everything nicely and/or gives you the super happy ending.
Read the entire thread, this is completely wrong and undermines the real issues people had with the ending, mainly the many promises bioware made to promote the product.
Lost my ME1 and 2 saves on my PC, so I know what I'm doing the week after the Darksiders 2 contest is done!
Obviously I haven't played ME3 yet, but all this huff puff about the ending sounds ridiculous. From what I understand people are upset that the ending doesn't tie up everything nicely and/or gives you the super happy ending. If that is the case I am looking forward to it! I'd much rather have an ending that makes me think and feel something ala Chinatown or End of Evangelion than just some big ol' EVERYONES HAPPY SHITTING RAINBOWS AND EATING BEGINETS.
I agree with Eld. This whole hulabaloo isn't about happy endings/bad endings, etc. People feel that they were lied to by Bioware, in that pre-release they were told that their choices would make a difference in how the game ended, just like they did in ME1 and 2. When it turns out that even if you skip ME1 and ME2, you can get the same ending as someone who imported a character all the way from ME1, people are going to call bullshit.
I want to see just what this extra content is going to be, then I'll officially cast my vote. I've watched a lot of videos supporting the indoctrination theory, and IF that was what Bioware meant to do, then holy shit, incredible. The other side of that is if Bioware didn't intend for that to be the case, and people are grasping at straws, when really they shipped an incomplete ending.
Read the entire thread, this is completely wrong and undermines the real issues people had with the ending, mainly the many promises bioware made to promote the product.
I agree with Eld. This whole hulabaloo isn't about happy endings/bad endings, etc. People feel that they were lied to by Bioware, in that pre-release they were told that their choices would make a difference in how the game ended, just like they did in ME1 and 2. When it turns out that even if you skip ME1 and ME2, you can get the same ending as someone who imported a character all the way from ME1, people are going to call bullshit.
I want to see just what this extra content is going to be, then I'll officially cast my vote. I've watched a lot of videos supporting the indoctrination theory, and IF that was what Bioware meant to do, then holy shit, incredible. The other side of that is if Bioware didn't intend for that to be the case, and people are grasping at straws, when really they shipped an incomplete ending.
From what I've heard from the people who have finished the game, they said that their choices did affect the ending, whether it was the difference between 3 endings or 20 endings, I guess thats an individual assessment of whether that was "good enough" or not.
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Everybody is mad just cause it's not a nice happy humanity rules the universe ending. boo hoo hoo.
Actually, bioware even talked about an ending where the reapers win, which would be an even more unhappy ending, which is part of the choices that fans wanted, not a per definition happy ending.
Instead shit turned green and everything got circuitry. Hoorah.
2 was amazing. you really need to get a savegame into 3 with all your crew intact.
yup.
To keep the Tuchanka example:
- If you want to trick the krogans and not cure the genophage, you'll have to shoot Mordin yourself to stop him from making the cure. I have to repeat it, you have to kill the best frickin character in Mass Effect with your own hand, which is like the most cruel thing a game can ever ask you to do. Oh and Wrex may eventually find out about this and then you'll have to kill him too.
- Unless you've killed Wrex and lost the female krogan because of the lack of Maelon's research, in which case you can persuade or scare Mordin to agree to trick the remaining krogan.
- I still haven't found out why Urdnot Wreav is killed by the mega Tresher Maw though and if he can be saved from that fate.
Yeah it's only one of the storylines and you also don't get to learn what happens
But there are endings, the above is actually one of the best in a video game ever, and previous choices do play a hell of a role in what happens.
http://www.gamefront.com/mass-effect-3-ending-hatred-5-reasons-the-fans-are-right/
It's not that I didn't get the "ending I wanted" or whatever, it's just that the ending was, in the most sincere way possible - stupid as all fuck.
If you've got the time (and if it hasn't already been posted a thousand times), read that article. You might even be surprised at some of the things you didn't even notice, and how ridiculous the ending is.
that article pretty much sums everything up.
THIS IS THE BIGGEST REVEAL OF THE GAME:
"The Reapers whole purpose is to save Organics by killing them, and turning them into synthetics. So that Organics wont make synthetics who will then kill organics."
That's just the tip of the iceberg, there are so many things out of line with the ending the writers decided to do that makes absolutely no sense to the universe itself. At best, it's lazy and cheap.
That explanation just sounded like a poor excuse made by the catalyst. Like saying that you save cows by eating hamburgers since it becomes a part of you.
I think the ending left a lot of open doors. I consider those hallucination explanations to be pretty far-fetched but they are pretty interesting. I guess we could wait for a dlc which would give us more clues to what happened.
While I would be lying if I said that the ending hasn't made me second-guess purchasing any future BioWare titles, I just want this tidily fixed (doesn't have to be a Hollywood 'everyone-wins' ordeal, just, y'know, sane) so I can get back to reminiscing of how good the actual game was with my friends, as opposed to just getting dismayed by the last five minutes.
http://www.i.imgur.com/QR3lS.jpg
Apparently this is what the ending that was leaked looked like - and that's pretty much how it should have gone, imho (except maybe the Geth versus Quarian thing).
this simply does not seem rational.
maby EA decidet that if they, despite everything they did for the players, still got the image of beeing that big, evil, gamecompany, they might aswell do something to deserve that reputation.
i realy cant explain why they threw it out there like this.
Just want to requote this since I thought the article was spot on.
I'm especially miffed at the people thinking everyone wants a happy ending and that's what it's all about.
You oversimplfy it...
Organic life will eventually develop synthetic life which will inevitably rebel against its creator - and win. This AI will then continue to evolve exponentially, keeping any kind of organic life from appearing.
Basically, the entire galaxy will fall prey to this new kind of AI and its biodiversity - basically the greatest thing in the entire universe, at least to some* - will be lost forever.
This realization also created a moral dilemma for them, in that they could not allow the galaxy to fall prey to another civilization that would fail to recognize this dead end in time. They felt responsible to protect any emerging species from this fate.
The Reapers serve two purposes; they're saving organic life in general by culling any sufficiently advanced civilizations before they can unleash this unstoppable force on the galaxy. Each new civilization is allowed to evolve and flourish for several millenia before they're harvested, and their achievements and spirit are captured and preserved in a Reaper body.
The other purpose is to win time for organic life to eventually find another solution to this moral dilemma that does not require the Reapers and their cycle of extinction.
At the end of Mass Effect 3, Shepard basically faces the same choice that the creators of the Reapers did, and he has to make the decision on his own instead of relying on the collective wisdom and knowledge of an entire civilization.
- avoid the singularity event by merging organic and synthetic life into a new whole; however this can also end in the death of biodiversity
- postpone the decision for another cycle by taking control of the Reapers and continuing their task; however this will cost the life of every advanced civilization and all of his friends
- take the risk of the singularity event and let life find its own way by destroying the reapers and all of their technology; however this will also cost the life of the Geth and EDI as well
The Mass Relays also need to go, because they represent a technological dead end, predestining every civilization to follow the same path that lead the creators of the Reapers to the singularity event.
The mass effect itself still allows some level of FTL travel, and there must be other ways and directions. Removing the convenient mass transportation will force organic life to find a new and hopefully better way.
Bioware could have done a better job explaining the above, I agree with that. It's also true that the actual ending has little to do with your previous choices, beyond the fact that you need to do very well to gather enough War Assets to get all the choices.
But all in all the ending is a fascinating hard sci-fi one with complex moral questions and maybe that's why it isn't as fitting to a game that involved so much shooting and setting enemies on fire.
* remember 2001, if you read the book
Other than direct aggression from their creators what reason would they have to want to wipe out organic life? the galaxy is huge and its been demonstrated that sufficiently advanced synthetics can simply leave it behind.
Also given that the conduit had a workable solution to the situation the entire time why did it hold out?
I still think that the Conduit God child was a cheap bit of Deus Ex Machina.
(I guess were getting down to opinions now though)
What? The entire Mass Effect series is filled with complex moral questions and depth. It's what made it such a great series and why people are mad to begin with.
The series has never been overly dark (even if you go full renegade) or very smart even, all of the crazy theories and shit is just people making it up themselves to over complicate a pretty straightforward narrative. Destroying the mass relays seems extra dumb fucked, simply due to the fact that all of the colonies (who rely on imports/trade to sustain themselves) and stranded societies are pretty much going to burn.
Ah well, maybe I just don't get it.
I certainly won't mind more story being told, but I hope they don't release something that totally changes the ending at this point. It is what it is.
AI, or rather, synthetic life, can be even more resource dependent than us. The Geth wanted to build a Dyson's sphere, basically surrounding a sun completely with solar panels to capture all of its energy - imagine how many planets have to be strip mined for that amount of minerals. Using self-replicating tools (Von Neumann machines) means that it can be done in a very short timespan, and as the AI multiplies, it can consume more and more planets at an exponential rate. Even garden worlds have mineral deposits, and who knows how much gold or platinum would be needed for such gigantic constructs.
And this is just simple theories from our limited thinking - but the idea behind a technological singularity is that AI advances at an exponential rate and thus the results are completely unpredictable.
We can not assume that it will have any moral inhibitions, it could easily decide that only the strongest is allowed to survive and biodiversity is unnecessary. Yes, it is also possible that it would be benevolent, but the risk is huge, and the entire idea behind ME and the cycle of extinction is that the Reapers' creators were not willing to take that risk.
However, they left a chance for another civilization to re-evaluate the situation and go ahead anyway, if they were willing to take the responsibility. That is the decision Shepard has to make at the end.
If either the Reapers or the Guardian (that's what the "child" is called although it's just a projection) is intelligent enough to come up with such ideas or execute them, then it's already capable of becoming the singularity on its own. So whoever designed them had to impose limits on them that restrained their evolution.
So, the Reapers thought themselves to be the pinnacle of evolution and yet they haven't advanced at all for millions of years; and the Guardian must have had some kind of built-in mechanisms that stopped it from making these decisions. That is why Shepard had to get there to break the cycle.
Yes we are, but that was Bioware's intention with the ending from the start. They were wrong with their prediction of how the community would react, though.
And yet when Bioware ends the trilogy in that spirit, they get flamed on the internet.
The mass relays were both a trap and a constraint on technological and social advancement. They offered an easy method of long distance space travel so noone bothered to research better ways, some cultures were already at a level of stagnation (like the asari).
Destroying them through the Crucible isn't as violent as blasting them with an asteroid, so no planets would be burned, everyone in the galaxy survives the event.
Short distance travel is also possible, just as it was before the relays were destroyed. Any starship can travel a few hundred light years in a reasonable amount of time, so trade will not die. If there are enough quantum entanglement devices in the galaxy then instant communication will also remain possible.
The main consequence is that long distance space travel is no longer as easy and it takes decades and huge amounts of energy. So, all the various civilizations now have a very big reason to focus their efforts on technological research, because they know that there's a huge world out there waiting for them. The entire society of every race will be changed for ever, and after millions of years the galaxy will once again see real progress. If it's not just a matter of a few minutes to move entire fleets around the galaxy, then war will become very different and far less affordable, too, which is actually another good thing.
So in my opinion, destroying the relays was a very, very good thing actually.
Your decisions have two very important consequences:
- The individual stories of races, conflicts and characters heavily depend on practically nothing else but your choices, sometimes even going back to the first game. The survival of Wrex for example can make or break the curing of the genophage.
(Basically, an aggressive race has been uplifted by the galactic society to help win a war against a fierce enemy, about a thousand years ago. They were however completely unfit for peace and rebelled against the rest of the galaxy to claim more territory - so an artificial plague was unleashed on them that cut their originally high reproduction rate to 0.1%, dooming the entire race to a slow death.
But the player has the chance in ME1 to encourage one member of the race, who will later become a charismatic leader that starts to unite the various fractions in ME2, and can give him a cure to this genophage in ME3, thereby gaining their loyalty - if he's willing to take the risk of restarting their rebellion and war...)
- The number of choices available in the endgame, and Earth's actual fate, are depending on how many war assets the player can rally, and that is also a consequence of all the choices made throughout the three games. What's more, the game does not necessarily reward Paragon choices or punish Renegade choices, so it isn't even as simple as a black and white morality.
This. I'm sure there's a huge snowball effect in progress here because of the internet. Back in the '90s there was no way to be influenced by others so things weren't blown out of proportion.
As someone pointed out, the ending of Monkey Island 2 could have been a great example of a worldwide flame war on Tim Schafer if there had been an internet back then.
Even that seems limited. The AI would want to build a Dyson's Sphere... for what purpose? It's assumed they would multiply, but that's a very human/organic thing. They could be well satisfied just being individuals, like Data or something.
And as we know, moral inhibitions is not something all humans have anyway. And yet we don't freak out about the chance that a new generation of humans will destroy us all. Like say the Krogan, they're basically following the same premise the Reapers put forth, only in an organic way. Which is why the disease "had" to be made. It's like the same basic story, only in a smaller scale.
*SPOILERS*
I don't know if it is just me grasping, but at least with the "destroy" ending I tend to think that the final bit was a dream (though I do not put stock into the indoctrination thing) from the minute he was hit by the beam - the little "teaser" at the end, of the body breathing in rubble etc would make sense that he is indeed still on earth after the beam hit him, and wakes up after the "dream".
(It would be a little impossible to survive and awake in rubble after being on an exploding spacestation - as well as all the other various wounds)
I think too much of the last bit of the game was a little ambiguous/abstract or non-sensical, just like a dream would be.
And Casey Hudson's "This isn't the last you've seen of Shepard" quote gives me some hope that there will be something more to possibly fully conclude the series - be it DLC (though i hope not) or an expansion, or even possibly an entirely new game (though at this point I cannot see how they could squeeze out an entire game with the current point in the story)
But either way, Mass Effect 3 was an incredibly emotional journey, moreso than any game I've ever played - and I thoroughly enjoyed It, albeit with a bittersweet ending. Though I would be lying if I said I wasn't hoping there will be a proper conclusion.
Just my thoughts anyway ^^
In the context of BioWare's many previous games, this is one of their most constricting narrative blunders. BioWare has always been about putting a twist in their stories, sure - but the twist was always then followed by a rewarding explanation of just what the fuck was happening, even further blowing one's mind, rather than "I said so. Do it. M'kay?" Shephard was always about finding another way when presented with only two seemingly possible solutions to a problem (Hell, the Geth/Quarrian war happens in the same game) and to have him blithely accept, not even attempt to question the dilemma presented is completely uncharacteristic.
aside from the 3rd ending and survival I wasnt aware of any impact from the war assets. (aside from a cosmetic one of the fleet)
That was just an example of what our limited minds can come up with - stuff that would already be enough to end all organic civilizations in the galaxy.
But, again, the very theory behind a technological singularity is that it evolves at an exponential rate and consequences become unpredictable in a very short time. Which means unpredictable risks.
AI designing more clever AI designing more clever AI... and artificial systems are always more efficient compared to organic life. Our babies need like 14-20 years to become fully matured, and they require a lot of resources and a lot of attention to reach their full potential. Whereas a machine only needs a short time to mass produce and it's 100% efficient from the start. It's also trivial to maintain and repair and it never dies of age or exhaustion.
Humans can't evolve or expand at an exponential rate. We still have our biological limitations and it's unlikely that we'll ever overcome them.
You may actually have a point there
But again, Krogan are also limited. Sure, they can multiply very fast, but it's still relatively limited, as any organic being is.
I think there are two issues here... First and more importantly, Bioware has not managed to execute their intentions as well as they should have. There's no need to explain this, I think
Second, and I don't mean to offend with this, they also overestimated their players a bit, most people weren't ready for this kind of ending that intentionally left a lot to interpretation.
Also keep in mind that it's still an extremely loud minority. Say, 50 thousand people signed a petition or voted against the ending - but that's against at least two million people who bought the game, so it's about a quarter percent of their customers. Yeah, I'm sure that a lot of the silent majority also has problems with the ending - but it's still blown out of proportion, IMHO.
Well, I think it's one of the more daring moves in video game history, and the backlash is a sign that the audience is still not ready for this, even after like 20-30 years.
It will take a few more decades for the gamers to mature if someone wants to deliver a more complex and philosophical ending. I also think that Bioware has learned its lesson and they'll go back to the more mainstream solutions in their upcoming games.
It is a bit sad, but I understand it too - we go to these games for escapism and we don't want to face the harsh realities of life in our safety zone. Video games have not tried to explore the more serious themes that literature, movies, and other art forms have conquered by now, but it is the youngest art form so that's no problem.
Yes, I think that what most people miss is a fourth, more comforting choice, an out of the box solution to the problem that's not the merging of organic and synthetic life. We'll see if I'm right if Bioware decides to release an update to the ending, eventually.
So many unanswered questions, plot holes, etc. Leaving it up to the viewer to decide what happened, take to the internet, fellow workers, friends, etc and talk about it and try to come up with their own theories, etc?
Yes, this ending is brave, and it poses interesting questions, but brave doesn't equate to good. Plus it's still pretty pathetic in comparison to the rest of the game. Hell, some side missions were more interesting.
No difference that I can see, but considering one of the writers (Casey Hudson I think) was quoted as specifically saying it wasn't going to end like Lost, just makes it that much more maddening.
I think this is mildly offensive actually, because you just sweep all arguments away with saying that players are immature and not smart enough. Which you've stated with different words in several posts.
Perhaps not the best ending or the ending you "wanted" but in the end it's not our game. It's not our baby or story or idea. It was our choose your own adventure book and anyone that has read those knows that no matter what option you pick you are going to get 1 of several scripted endings no matter what. Not like they procedurally created story and had the game systems create randomness for you.
Dead Rising had like 7 endings and people got a different ending based off their decisions. They weren't spectacular.
We all should know how it is in crunch and when features get cut, story gets edited / chopped for time sakes and to ship on time on a first hand basis. So this stuff doesn't surprise me. I'm sure in a meeting it was like ok well we can add this color and change a few things and boom that is one ending and so on...
You can't have infinite combos of endings. No one has time to do that.
Inception and lost didn't foster the expectation that your choices had an impact on the plot. I think its like you said, lack of money. There are a few pointers to the ending being cut back to save on money.. which is madness considering this is the finale of an trilogy.
Sorry if it came out that way.
What I've meant is more in the way of going way too far even for intelligent people. Like if the new Prometheus movie - which I think we all expect to be a far smarter movie than Transformers - had an ending lifted straight from a swedish Dogma movie. The two just wouldn't fit together well for most people, even though some of the viewers would surely still like it.
The two big things they've left open is what will happen after Mass Effect 3 and what is Shepard's fate if he indeed survives in one of the endings.
But nearly every ongoing plot thread has been resolved one way or another. The genophage, the geth-quarian war, relationships with squad mates etc.
What's left for speculation is how the existing civilizations are going to deal with the new world order where the mass relays have been destroyed. This really is a big thing, but it's probably enough material for a completely new trilogy of games, rediscovering everyone after decades and so on. I certainly don't think that it could be condensed into some endgame cinematic or a few lines of epilogue like "they all had to develop a new way for fast space travel and they did it in 72 years"
Some of the questions about the Reapers are not answered either, that is correct, but maybe they did not want to completely eliminate the mystery around them.
Or maybe there'll be a DLC mission where the player can discover their original homeworld and find out how they were created...
MGS4's ending comes to mind....
I think the ending was good, it's a bit sad to see that all of the different endings were so similar but I liked them anyway. I don't understand them very well but I guess a DLC would be able to clear things up. And I agree with the fact that everything shouldn't be explained, it would ruin the mystery around some things.
As expected he didn't even hint on any kind of possibility that they did't deliver on their initial outspoken plans.
It's like "we're not finishing all this in time, we're not going to be able to deliver on our initial vision as we need to cut away some chunks" and then "INITIATE ARTIST INTEGRITY HARD-LOCK, THIS IS THE BEST WE'VE EVER DONE"
There really is a need for a tiny bit of transparency, it's this pink elephant in the room that bioware is not going to talk about, but everyone knows about it, it's well documented in interviews and articles.
There's the need for "we didn't deliver on our initial promises to our fans".
Obviously I haven't played ME3 yet, but all this huff puff about the ending sounds ridiculous. From what I understand people are upset that the ending doesn't tie up everything nicely and/or gives you the super happy ending. If that is the case I am looking forward to it! I'd much rather have an ending that makes me think and feel something ala Chinatown or End of Evangelion than just some big ol' EVERYONES HAPPY SHITTING RAINBOWS AND EATING BEGINETS.
Read the entire thread, this is completely wrong and undermines the real issues people had with the ending, mainly the many promises bioware made to promote the product.
I agree with Eld. This whole hulabaloo isn't about happy endings/bad endings, etc. People feel that they were lied to by Bioware, in that pre-release they were told that their choices would make a difference in how the game ended, just like they did in ME1 and 2. When it turns out that even if you skip ME1 and ME2, you can get the same ending as someone who imported a character all the way from ME1, people are going to call bullshit.
I want to see just what this extra content is going to be, then I'll officially cast my vote. I've watched a lot of videos supporting the indoctrination theory, and IF that was what Bioware meant to do, then holy shit, incredible. The other side of that is if Bioware didn't intend for that to be the case, and people are grasping at straws, when really they shipped an incomplete ending.
I'll read the thread when I'm done with the game.
From what I've heard from the people who have finished the game, they said that their choices did affect the ending, whether it was the difference between 3 endings or 20 endings, I guess thats an individual assessment of whether that was "good enough" or not.