The ending really does suck. There's no doubt about it. 
The rest of the game is great.
That's fine. I may or may not agree with you on that... The haters were looking for things to hate even before the game was completed; the ending just gave them some ammunition. They just jumped from one complaint to another to another until reaching the End. This game never had a chance! Even after the new ending is made... there's NO WAY they are going to make everyone happy! They'll just jump on some other band-wagon one way or another.
Although I used ME3 as an example, I am most curious as to WHY this occurs with EVERY major release!
I never actually played any of the Mass Effect games, nor do I have any interest in doing so, so I can't comment firsthand on the experience. But if history has shown us anything, if something gets built up over the course of several years (i.e. Star Wars prequels) there will be a very vocal population who will scream loudly enough to make the casual observers assume they're the majority of a fanbase. Add in the people who just hate the game because it's success, and therefore needs to be knocked down a few pegs (i.e. anything with Zelda or Call of Duty in the title), and you end up with enough people making noise that everyone will turn their head just like any other good trainwreck.
In the case of Mass Effect, Patcher actually pointed out something that was pretty funny. The people who were unhappy enough to donate to that charity to encourage Bioware to change the ending was less than 2% of the people who bought the game. So let's just move on and enjoy some fantasy farming with Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny. Who's with me??
Yeah its usually when something becomes the most popular in its genre that people suddenly feel the need to act like its no good, and I think its because many people LIKE feeling as if they're in a small group of people who really understand what makes something special or not. And when something becomes huge and mainstream, that feeling is taken away. So whether or not the hate is justified, I think that's the key behind most of it.
You saw it happen with Final Fantasy and Zelda 10 years ago. Then it was GTA and Halo. Now its Mass Effect.
"Before the game came out there was the whole Jennifer Hepler affair. Raging nerds took some statements this BioWare writer made and blew them completely out of proportion. She was speaking of Romance in games and making gaming stories accessible to players that don't want to have to play their way through all the action sequences (women). She got blamed for homosexual content in Bioware games. She got blamed for the "dumbing down" of games in general."
Sounds like she should have been blamed for sexism.
The whole homophobia thing is disgusting. 
The worst part is the lack of backlash. You see the odd racist comment about games like San Andreas (looking at you, Edgy) but that's always called out (thanks Aspro).
Really, though it is abhorrant. I think it actually makes all the other rage completely irrelevent. Where was the backlash to the homophobia? Perhaps BioWare should have commented on that rather than pandering to fans with the ending. Will the next Mass Effect remove male homosexual content just to appease homophobes?
It is because they love it so much. If they did not care about it they would not be going through these pains to "remedy" what they feel is a wrong.
No other game has provided a three game game save carry over, they have a tremendous amount invested in how that experience comes to an end.
I don't agree with their position -- clearly they have over-invested in the franchise -- but it is their privilege as paying customers of a product to express their disatisfaction.
Their belief that anyone would listen is delusional. But apparently BioWare has done the math and they don't want to lose the DLC income they otherwise would if they ignore this vocal group.
This kind of bias --REALLY-- gets to me. I don't believe there's ever really a good reason to HATE something or someone. It's not like Mass Effect killed your family or ran over your puppy. It's just hate for hate's sake. It's hate based on superficial reasons. It's hate without reason or logic behind it. It's like HATING someone for the color of their skin or their sexual orientation. People can say "It's only a videogame" but when someone is inclined to hate something as insignificant as a game for such silly reasons as were displayed these last few months, they are probably just as inclined (or more) to hate for things like race and sex, etc. Hating things or people --JUST-- because they are popular... not cool. Sorry, Hamster, I know you were probably just kidding, but the overall population of gamers that have this attitude, are not.
Foolz said:You see the odd racist comment about games like San Andreas (looking at you, Edgy) but that's always called out (thanks Aspro).
?
Wait...what?
edgecrusher said:Wait...what?
Maybe it was Archie? Perhaps someone else. Don't you remember when you (or whoever else it was) said that they didn't like San Andreas and Aspro said it was because of racism?
Well I didn't care for San Andreas because I had grown tired of the sloppy mechanics of the game like driving and shooting. I was also not that impessed with the graphics either, I only played the PS2 version, and I really wasn't all that interested in the overall story and main character. If this makes someone think that I'm a racist then so be it. I not interested in trying to justify myself against such an infantile accusation.Foolz said:edgecrusher said:Wait...what?
Maybe it was Archie? Perhaps someone else. Don't you remember when you (or whoever else it was) said that they didn't like San Andreas and Aspro said it was because of racism?
Archangel3371 said:Well I didn't care for San Andreas because I had grown tired of the sloppy mechanics of the game like driving and shooting. I was also not that impessed with the graphics either, I only played the PS2 version, and I really wasn't all that interested in the overall story and main character. If this makes someone think that I'm a racist then so be it. I not interested in trying to justify myself against such an infantile accusation.Foolz said:edgecrusher said:Wait...what?
Maybe it was Archie? Perhaps someone else. Don't you remember when you (or whoever else it was) said that they didn't like San Andreas and Aspro said it was because of racism?
This.
I felt very similar to Archie about it, but I ended up really liking the game after getting further into it and seeing some of the more creative missions. GTA 3 is still my favorite though. The only people I'm racist against are fat people. And Pilgrims.
There was that one time when I was called a racist because I don't care for rap music. That was funny.
Speaking of Hate, the new 3 Stoogies movie looks like shitttttttt.
aspro said:For the record my comment was not directed at Archie or anyone else on the site.
Given how defensively they reacted it probably should be, though.
The early hate probably came from the Bioware hardcore that feels like ME is the end of the bioware they knew. They demand this series to be an RPG and hate it cause it is not. The ending brought everyone else on board.
Yeah that's ok, I figured as much anyway.aspro said:For the record my comment was not directed at Archie or anyone else on the site.
Back in the day of the Super NES and the Genesis there was a rivalry between Nintendo and Sega that was mild at best. Sure, Sega did their Nintendon't ads. Nintendo had a hard time catching up to the popularity of the Genesis. There were fanboys on either side then. RPG geeks loved the SNES, the cool kids loved the Genesis. All in all though, everyone got along. Gaming was considered taboo back then, so gamers that knew about each other, mostly respected the other members of their "secret club of gamers" rather than provoked them.
As time has gone on though and gaming has gotten more and more mainstream, System Wars have escalated, Rivalries have become bitter and actual HATE has arisen between fans of one system and/or series and another. It's gotten ugly. Whether this is just the nature of man in general showing through because of the sheer number of gamers, or this is a side-effect of gaming that needs to be examined more, I couldn't tell you.
No other game in recent history has taken the brunt of this more than Mass Effect 3. The Haters just can't help themselves with this one.
Before the game came out there was the whole Jennifer Hepler affair. Raging nerds took some statements this BioWare writer made and blew them completely out of proportion. She was speaking of Romance in games and making gaming stories accessible to players that don't want to have to play their way through all the action sequences (women). She got blamed for homosexual content in Bioware games. She got blamed for the "dumbing down" of games in general. She got threatened on Twitter and throughout the internet when she struck back to defend herself and when BioWare came to her defense. Her family was threatened as well. Let's just say at this point, the shit got real.
As this died down, up jumped the homophobes. Learning you could have (male) Shepard have a romance with another Man, just set them off in a ranting rage. People claiming to be long-time BioWare fans promised to boycott the game and the rest of BioWare's efforts due to this new gay-friendly image. Call me stupid, but hasn't it been the case since Mass Effect 1 that the Asari (women) would mate with ANYONE, male or female, and could produce offspring? Apparently, that's OK as long as it's two women... Dragon Age had homosexual characters and themes too, but there wasn't nearly as much backlash.
As the time of the release approached and the Hepler and Gay scandals finally quieted, the Day One DLC bitchers started THEIR campaign. At this point it just seemed as if raging fanboys were SEARCHING for trouble. Rage, whining, bitching, complaining, conspiracy theories galore... as the launch happened things reached a fever pitch. Fanboys claimed that you were paying for a simple unlock key and all of the content was already on the disc. Even in the face of near indisputable evidence in the form of a 650+ meg download and BioWare claiming otherwise, the nerds just would not hear of it. Things had gotten silly at this point...
Then a day or two after that... The End. Not of the controversy, but of the game itself. The hordes of haters had a new thing to cry about... Funny how they bought the game and played through it in 24-48 hours after complaining about it for months prior, but I digress. Petitions for change, bogus charity drives and bitch-blogging to new heights became their latest past-time.
Forget the fact that the PS3 version has legitimate issues. That seems to be fine with the angry mobs. All of the other invented issues took precedence over actual problems. Now BioWare has relented and agreed to change the ending, taking their time, energy and resources away from fixing things that need to be fixed!
WHAT. THE. HELL? What is it about Mass Effect that has drawn such ire? Is it the game's content? Is this hate justified? Is this just a case of haters hating whatever is popular? Where does this come from? Why does this happen every time a major release occurs? In my opinion Mass Effect is --THE--series of this generation. Does the biggest series draw or deserve this much hate? The bigger the game, the bigger the hate? It all seems so convenient; haters looking for something, anything, picked apart every aspect of this game from early development to the Release, from the End to the DLCs and beyond... It was, and still is, never-ending.
Anyone care to offer ideas as to WHY?