fadetoone said:
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Nope, the way I see it is that BioWare is testing gamers, although the backlash is probably more than they expected.
Without going into too much detail (spoilers), I think that the "alternate" reading of the ending makes a lot of sense. The theme/event in that interpretation has been foreshadowed ever since Mass Effect 1, and that's what makes it legit. This technique is more commonly used in films, and even though there are still improvements to be made, BioWare has been brave in using subtlety in gaming narrative, moving our beloved medium forward in sophistication. Combined with the interactive nature (player choice) of the ending, the experience for me was even more impacting than the twist in the first BioShock (which I hold in high regard).
Now having said that, I think the ending is actually only complete when the DLC comes out (they hinted that there would be ending-related DLC even before the big announcement that tried to calm the fan rage, so it's quite obvious it has been planned that way since the beginning). So actually when I praise the ending, it includes the coming clarification, which I believe is intentionally delayed by BioWare in the first place to make things interesting. I can't be certain of their exact reasons to do this, but it's definitely fun looking at the intense gamer reaction, and waiting for BioWare to finally wrap everything up. But I totally understand that this would piss people off (which the company should know, but like I said, they probably didn't expect it to be this serious).
The writers at BioWare know their stuff. It is very unlikely that the same people who made the rest of the game, which was brilliant in an obvious way, would approve an ending filled with plotholes and lore-breaking madness. So I'm confidently accepting that the ending is also brilliant, albeit in a subtle way.
EDIT: Just a further example. I liked Dragon Age 2 - many flaws indeed, including the combat, maps, and general roughness. But still, the story was meaningful. Perhaps not what people expected, but it had important themes and representative characters to deliver the tension. What I'm saying is that there's always a functioning brain behind the story aspect of a BioWare RPG. Absolutely nonsense will certainly be filtered out. And the common, direct interpretation of Mass Effect 3's ending is absolute nonsense, so it's a lot more likely that we, the gamers, are doing/seeing something wrong.
However I agree with the general consensous that it's false adverising when BioWare said that there would be "wildly different conlclusions" (emphasis on quantity). But then again, no Mass Effect game has many different endings to choose from - and we were fine with that. The accumulated choices only mattered for the progress of a final mission (e.g. who lives / who dies), but the ending is still the same, such as in Mass Effect 2 (spoilers coming), no matter what you do, the suicide mission is actually still successful, even when everyone dies. And of course the same could be said about war assets in Mass Effect 3. But yes, I'd also would have liked to see some footage of my war assets in use during the final mission too, so it would have been good if they made it more like Mass Effect 2. But that's to do with the progress of the mission as a whole, a different issue to the actual ending.
So anyways, it's very interesting to say the least. But I think that's what BioWare wants to pull off in the end, and unfortunately most people had a different expectation, so they walk away with a bad taste in their mouth. For me, though, what's happening now (in-game and with the community) is a lot more exciting than a standardly good ending. If anything, it has been a memorable experience.
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