Bioware listens; plans to "extend" ME3's ending

[Iceglow]

It's great that they are doing it but I'm worried about how this will affect the gaming industry. If enough people bitch, video games have to be altered? I dunno. I don't want people to be bitching about every ending of every game form now on.

This isn't the first incident of this. The only difference is that the previous publisher to change an ending to a game over the fans disappointment in the original ending was Bethesda with Fallout 3 and they charged for it, it was Broken Steel which was well received. The only major difference here is that if you download the DLC for Mass Effect 3's "Extended cut" before April 2014 you'll get it for free.

Maybe developers will put more thought into things before they release games then. Instead of beta testing paying customers.

Not having played ME3, I can't really comment on that specifically though.

I think it wasn't a case of that, I genuinely believe Bioware thought the ending would be sufficient in wrapping up the game plots. However they tried to introduce the unexpected ending to a series which took hundreds if not thousands of hours to complete within 14 lines of dialogue. It also disappointed the fans because regardless of the story you'd built over 3 games, who lived, who died, the endings were all on a level which didn't incorporate that they just totally disregarded it. I found it funny that in the final moments of the game (just prior to the part where you meet the AI on the Crucible) you can still earn renegade and paragon points for your actions and yet the minute you board the crucible firing room there is no changes to the ending based on these points that are earnable. It felt more like a different team worked on the ending than on the actual story of the past 3 games. The dark visual overtone that there could be no happy ending option for Shepherd also didn't feel right in the eyes of the players. Or even the option of a sad ending but one where the player rejects the Catalyst's "choices" and decides that the galaxy will win without firing the crucible or die trying. (this ending in particular would have given Bioware an awesome excuse to show Shepherd taking down Harbinger in any way possible up to and including the use of the Normandy as a bullet to the face in a suicide run where he is simply so unforgivingly determined to destroy the reapers it's deemed necessity for victory at any cost, this would've been an awesome Renegade Shep ending)

It is ridiculous and a big insult to the story writers and artists. People claiming a different ending aren't writers. They are not professionals. Game developers should not listen to them.

Let's compare it to other great things non-game designers have brought to the game universe. Like the levels made in Little Big Planet and Modnation Racers. Were they good? No; 99% of user-generated content is absolutely unplayable. Why? They are not level designers, just as these people demanding a new ending are NOT story writers. It shouldn't happen.

A dark day in history of gaming.

You're comparing a game trilogy made up of 90% story development to a game like little big planet which is approximately 10% story development. That's like comparing a Chimp to a Human because we share 10% of the same DNA as them. Or an apple and an orange because both are round and both are fruits. It's not plausible to see where you are going on this. You claim it is a dark day for gaming history, I like Pike and Huxley am somewhat of a writer, though I freely confess, Pike is better than I could hope to be because unlike myself she had the guts to get something published. The ending as I pointed out to Julian, jarred badly with the story of the games and also with what Bioware's development team promised the fans. They promised us wildly different and diverse endings based on the decisions made over the course of 3 games. These endings based on player decisions never materialized, instead we had 3 ending choices which were pre-determined, poorly explained and required little to no choice from the player and did not rely at all upon the decisions made in the 3 games. I suppose the only thing which did get determined by the decisions made in previous games is who out of your crew (also considering the blast by Harbinger should have killed your companions in your party it was more than a little weird for myself to see EDI on board the Normandy completely unscathed when Shepherd himself was nearly killed and his N7 armour was all but totally destroyed) would be alive to randomly selected to appear on the Normandy fleeing the explosions of the Mass Relays. Something which in itself was never explained, especially considering Joker would never have fled that battle. I doubt this extended cut dlc will answer every players questions, as do I doubt that it will provide an adequate ending for Mass Effect in the eyes of a majority of players. I do however feel it is far from a dark day in gaming history and the world will not crumble overnight as a result of this being done.