I'll summarize this for those of you short on time:

While we believe Mass Effect 3 is excellent and the ending is exactly what we wanted it to be and the only people who really matter to us gave it some of the best ratings we've ever had guaranteeing that not only has the game already been an astronomical financial success but will continue to rake in cash money, we're going to pretend that we care about your opinions for PR purposes and in a month or so we'll release some downloadable content that purports to address your concerns but will mainly provide a launch pad for a new series in the Mass Effect universe, to be announced formally within the next year or so. This was our plan all along but now we're going to pretend that it's in response to your campaign against us and it doesn't really matter whether you believe us or not because you'll buy the sequel anyway. Thank you, and don't forget to send us your money.

The Mass Effect team, like other teams across the BioWare Label within EA-

[Paragon Interrupt]
Fans: "Don't you see! You've been indoctrinated by the rEApers! You must fight it!"

Bioware: "Aghhh! I can't...do...it" *pulls out gun and commits suicide*

Fans: "It was the only way"

We're working hard to maintain the right balance between the artistic integrity of the original story while addressing the fan feedback we've received.

How come they always hide behind "artistic integrity" to defend not fixing what they farked up?

If you had originally maintained artistic integrity, you would've have contradicted/thrown out your own storylines in favor of a quick palette swap ending.

However, most folks appear to agree that the game as a whole is exceptional, with more than 75 critics giving it a perfect review score and a review average in the mid-90s.

Those 75 critics are pandering kiss-asses. The ending alone should've invalidated a perfect score, but even with that the game is not perfect. Framerate issues and animations locking up (had Shepard twist his head all the way around in a cutscene like Exorcist) are two I've experienced quite a bit.

I loved 98% of it, but it is far from a perfect game.

Bought Mass Effect on Steam, couldn't get into it. Maybe I'll try again in the future, but for now I'll stick with Skyrim.

Merkin Ball: Does the end of the game tell the player to go outside and live a little or something?

Nope! It pops up a text window that says "Buy some DLC".

Mass Effect 3 concludes a trilogy with so much player control and ownership of the story that it was hard for us to predict the range of emotions players would feel when they finished playing through it. The journey you undertake in Mass Effect provokes an intense range of highly personal emotions in the player; even so, the passionate reaction of some of our most loyal players to the current endings in Mass Effect 3 is something that has genuinely surprised us.

Hey, guys? Do you maybe think it might have something to do with that bolded part, the entire reason the games are fun, being completely meaningless in the final five minutes as your writers pull the most ridiculous, non-sequitur deus ex machina ending ever seen in an RPG? All those various choices and story arcs you guys wrote in are invalidated and erased by a literal god living in a machine telling you the game has to end. Then he asks your favorite color, some shiat blows up, and there's no closure or real resolution of any kind.

Seriously, your writing team should get an award for the dumbest ass-pull ever seen in gaming.

kingoomieiii: telling you how the game has to end

FTFM

ME3 players:

You'll get over it.

Merkin Ball: Does the end of the game tell the player to go outside and live a little or something?

I think it says "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine."

My son says it's fine. He doesn't get what all of the whining is about.

Vaneshi: 8 Paragraphs of PR department approved faux-olive branch bullshiat.

Enough of being civil and polite. It's getting us nowhere. Time to get nasty folks, if they won't expose the throat we'll tear their wind pipe out. Continue returning your products, unsubscribing from TOR, review bombing and get their forums on farking fire.

Bonus points for making a PR bunny cry. Do not stop until the head of EA begs you to and offers you whatever the hell it is you want, including ponies. For free.

The fact that prices have been cut by 1/3 across the board (including XBox's official store) for a blockbuster game that's only been out 2 weeks is insane.

LarryDan43: Obviously Tron lost to Master Control so the ending sucked. Ka is but a wheel.

"In a climactic confrontation, Flynn and TRON assault the MCP, but are interrupted by a appearance of another program, earlier seen as a background extra. He claims that he is the CPU, and that the protagonists don't understand the true nature of the MCP. Then, everyone is de-res'd. You know, because."

-Bioware's TRON

Translation:

We may patch this ending with some DLC but until we can get the team back together for that, maybe you can go lighter on the flaming of the damn boards and stop spamming our In Boxes? Seriously. We get it. You didn't like the endings, and we'll work on that, but until we get the talent back to the studio, you're just annoying the crap out of the folks who have to sift through your constant torrents of outrage. We just delete the flamebait, but we understand that maybe we borked this...

hubiestubert: Translation:

We may patch this ending with some DLC but until we can get the team back together for that, maybe you can go lighter on the flaming of the damn boards and stop spamming our In Boxes? Seriously. We get it. You didn't like the endings, and we'll work on that, but until we get the talent back to the studio, you're just annoying the crap out of the folks who have to sift through your constant torrents of outrage. We just delete the flamebait, but we understand that maybe we borked this...

But will we get blue babies?

I'm more annoyed at the terrible writing and editing at the end - if we can find out why Joker, et al were on the Normandy and if the final choice with the Catalyst at least acknowledges the core defining feature of Shepard (find some way, any way, to accomplish a hopeless goal) then I'd probably let my grumpiness go. Or, shiat, at least some acknowledgement that the writers and editors made some rookie mistakes in those final moments.

Some of the criticism, that has been delivered in the heat of passion by our most ardent fans, has unfortunately become destructive rather than constructive. We listen and will respond to constructive criticism, but much as we will not tolerate individual attacks on our team members, we will not suppor-



+5 Renegade

Thank you for your feedback - we are listening.

Translation: UAIF? DIAF.

Skirl Hutsenreiter: Skr: Artistic Integrity my furry arse. I keep wanting to place most of the blame on EA but the Bioware spokesmitigators are making it difficult.

I watched the ending to see what all the fuss was about, and it looked like some slapdash thing to replace a planned ending that somehow didn't fit in with their ongoing series plans. The number of glaring plot-holes makes it look like something plotted in one meeting and thrown together on a deadline. So I'm not buying the artistic integrity line.

\I'm still inclined to buy it eventually and just pretend that ending is non-canonical, but when I summarized the end for my husband, who had thought it was all just spoiled whining, he suddenly didn't want to buy it.

Everything up to that last sequence is just awesome, especially the sequences dealing with Mordin and Legion - I'm working on a second play through now because I enjoyed that stuff so much. Just know that you won't get closure.