Mass Effect 3 extended cut endings.

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I'm not sure why nobody has posted has posted a thread about this, but remember how there was fan outcry about the original endings to Mass Effect 3? Well, the extended cut DLC that Bioware said was meant to address concerns about the the ending and add more closure have been out since Tuesday. In addition to explaining the old endings, it also adds a new fourth ending.

Now, I have only watched the games on Youtube but haven't played them (they don't have Mac versions unfortunately), but for those of you who are fans of the series, have you downloaded the DLC and were you more satisfied with the new endings? Without spoiling anything, I will say that having seen them, they do offer a lot more closure and they explain a lot more than the original endings. You also actually get to see the effect your decision makes on the conflict, rather than that simply being implied and just having a "pick your colour" ending like before.

Did you download the extended cut DLC and what did you think of the new endings to the game?

I will once I my Ideapad Y570 is delivered, Gotta play ME2 first.

I watched them, still crappy and don't make much sense but they are an improvement and at least offer hope and something positive for those still invested emotionally in the series.

Still not good enough to make me ever want to replay Mass Effect 3 or buy another bioware game in the future ever again.

I watched them on youtube, can't be bothered with another playthrough. It's both sad and admirable that Bioware elected to end one of their flagship series in this manner. Sad in that it has gotten me to reach a point where I'll never be emotionally invested in another Bioware game ever, and admirable in that they demonstrated their integrity and belief in their story. However, as a long time Bioware fanboy, this kind of brings them full circle in their belief that ultimately the fan opinion matters very little and how their games are more outlets for their developers rather than their fans. Had there been a Mass Effect 4, Mass Effect 5, etc I would most likely have played them had ME3 not ended the way it did.

It has nothing to do with the death of Commander Shepard, I can live with that quite easily, it has more to do with the shoddy writing in ME3 towards the ending. The justification for the Reaper assault appears to be a case of logical fallacy, in that it goes "Organics will always create synthetics that will destroy organics" however, that conclusion is only supported when civilizations develop along the set path the reapers have orchestrated as admitted by Sovereign in ME1.

Secondly, the biggest plot hole that nobody ever mentions. Every civilization in the ME universe exist in the Milky Way galaxy, there are hundreds of millions of other galaxies in the Universe. If the Reapers have concluded correctly, then organic life will eventually become extinct in all of them, unless they have their own version of the cycle. With Synthetic expansion, the Milky way will eventually become overrun by synthetics from other galaxies, making the Reaper's mission an inevitable failure. If each galaxy has their own Reaper cycle, then destroying the reapers in the Milky way galaxy has little purpose.

I have to thank Mass Effect 3 because it unveiled the curtain before my eyes and showed me what modern gaming truly was. All the cash in dlc, the paid off reviews..I just never noticed it before. All the reviewers praising the game as art are the worst. I'll still play some video games but it'll never be the same, I lost a ton of respect for the medium and industry even though other companies have been doing what bioware has for awhile. The ending sucked but other aspects of Mass Effect 3 disappointed me as well. Diablo 3 kind of broke me too.

My opinions haven't changed.

The endings were okay. Not "great," or even "good," but okay.

Everything was pretty much the way I thought (which, for some reason, people just couldn't figure out on their own). Yeah, the GhostBrat was just an AI designed by organics. Joker was ordered to leave by Admiral Hackett for the purpose of protecting the remaining crew (aka: not a "coward"). They repaired The Normandy and flew away. No, the destruction of the Mass Relays didn't kill everything in the galaxy.

So, yeah, pretty much what I told the "Retakers" on BSN.

What I am disappointing in is that this stuff should've been in the original cut. Furthermore, there's going to be upcoming DLC wherein Shepard (prior to death) meets a "rogue Reaper" that will reveal more about the Reaper-creators, and hints strongly that they were operating on flawed logic, which means, essentially, that Bioware left our CORE ELEMENTS of the story to be included only in paid DLC. It's kind of like how many of the crucial plot developments were just side quests in ME1 and ME2. In other words, sloppy storytelling designed to milk as much money out of the consumer as possible.

Oh, and "Control" turned out exactly as I imagined it too.

I had a few reactions to the extended cut.

Firstly, why in the "none of the above" ending does it have the happily ever after epilogue with no explanation. The only reason that universe had a chance in this cycle was because the Protheans had tampered with the keepers without the Reapers knowing, and they wouldn't have made that mistake twice. It's like, "the cycle continues!" then "oh wait, no it doesn't! everything turns out the same!"

Secondly, I laughed when they showed the Krogan in the synthesis ending because I was imagining Shepard trying to explain that to them (if he was paragon), it would be something like:

Krogan: "Sheparrrrd, thanks again for reversing the modifications the Salarians made to our physiology without our permission."
Shepard: "You're welcome. By the way, you are now cyborgs"
Krogan:: "We WHAT!"

I still hold my original opinion, lousy ending(s), but not the worst of all time by any means. Just of the ones I'm familiar with I feel SO3's universe destroyed -> happily ever after with no real explanation as to how or why ending was worse.

I prefer the extended cuts. My problem with the original was that the message seemed to be that the only way for life to survive was by abandoning technology - and that Luddite message seemed an odd one for a sci-fi game played on a then-cutting-edge gaming machine...

Now, while the energy wave you send out destroys the mass relays, it also shows they can be rebuilt (well, haven't watched the Destroy ending, but that's how Control and Synthesis worked out), so galactic civilization isn't inevitably doomed. (Consider that without mass relays, FTL is only practical within a star cluster - and if there are krogan in that cluster, and Shepherd reversed the genophage, they will eventually need every planet in that cluster...) There really is such a thing as hope.

And there's a new ending, showing what happens if you reject any assistance from Casper the Friendly AI Ghost. (Spoiler: it's not a good thing. Not a good thing at all.)

Well, of course the creators of the Reapers were operating on flawed logic - they assumed that synthetics would inevitably rise up and destroy organics, but as Shepherd, you (may well have) proved this entirely wrong, by brokering peace and cooperation between the quarians and geth! A "rogue Reaper" would be interesting, but that point would only go to underscore and make blatant what the game already says in a more subtle fashion.