17000 endings?

[Donduffino]

Ok I remember in the interview with frizzy haired British woman she mentioned there are over 17000 endings, yet some people here have mentioned there isn’t even a Black Isle style “state of the world” epilogue where the narrator describes the consequences of your decisions on different parts of the game map?

Where does the “17000 endings” come in? I figured when I heard her say that it would be something like the little descriptions at the end of the original Fallout or Arcanum: just a quick blurb of how the druids or goblins or whoever did after you left them.

So did she just straight up lie? Or are there really lots of different little permutations for the end game?

[Powercrank]

thats just the grand total number of permutations, including every little tiny possible difference. Not 17000 specific different fleshed out individual endings.

it's one of those "technically true" loads of crap that marketers simply cannot stop themselves from using.

[alex010300]

It does go to that number if you add in little variants in side quests and decisions.

[Damedius]

It's called marketing, propaganda or ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, depending on your point of view.

[Dr. Sinclair]

to avoid spoiling, imagine having 2 variants of an ending, in one, a character says hello, in the other, a character says hi. that's what their "17000 ending variations" feel like, and it feels deliberately misleading with just disappointing the endings actually are.

[Lur Nen Rue]

I think 800 strings could easily lead into 17000 permutations, if it ever the case

[Dr. Sinclair]

Originally posted by alex010300:

It does go to that number if you add in little variants in side quests and decisions.

99% of the side quests and decisions trough the game have no effect on the ending, tho.

[Nani!?!?]

Pretty sure the 17K ending means that you can watch the games 4 or 5 endings with 17k variations of race/face/gear/party in your cutscene.

[Dr. Sinclair]

Originally posted by Nani!?!?:

Pretty sure the 17K ending means that you can watch the games 4 or 5 endings with 17k variations of race/face/gear/party in your cutscene.

Pretty much.

[Prashanth]

Last 10 minutes runies the overall game choice matters .

There is no epilogue, no closure for karlach and many other npc world character .

There is need for epilogue for good ending and bad ending .

[Reconciler]

Definitely about the journey and not the destination. Just finished it today and the ending is the worst part.

[WastingSanity]

Watch... their version of 17000 different endings is... formation, who is where and who is with you at the end. So if the line up is PC, Gale, Ast and Shadow in one ending. Your next run the line up is PC, Ast, Gale and Shadow, then they consider that a different ending. Then the run after that you have completely different characters. Of course there is also respecing. Changing all companion classes this also be considered changing the ending (not really).

Is it silly? Yes! But is it possible that is what they meant, definitely. As they can claim that this is a selling point.

[Giganx]

Just as an example of how bullshitty this kind of statistic can be, the number of different permutations of 10 digits is 3,628,000.

So, take 10 different dialogue blurbs that can appear in the ending, alter their inclusion and order based on thousands of tiny decisions you made throughout your playthrough, and reaching 17,000 "different endings" is pretty simple.

[SpockEndil]

I knew that there wouldn't be that many meaningful endings, but based on the statement, I did expect more than three, with a few superficial differences to individual characters.

[L e e C e e e]

Originally posted by Prashanth:

Last 10 minutes runies the overall game choice matters .

There is no epilogue, no closure for karlach and many other npc world character .

There is need for epilogue for good ending and bad ending .

(SPOILERS BTW)
is it possible for Karlach to live at the end? I didn't find the infernal blacksmith guy in Baldur's Gate so maybe I just missed out on it?

[SpockEndil]

Originally posted by Reconciler:

Definitely about the journey and not the destination. Just finished it today and the ending is the worst part.

Yes. The last hour or so of game time no longer exists for me, until/unless modders get beefy enough tools to create new endings. I'll just end the game before the end-game stuff starts, and create my own head canon endings.

I haven't been this disappointed in the final part of an overall good game since Mass Effect 3.

Edit: Spoiler
I don't feel like trying to look it up right now, but I can almost swear that the devs said back some time ago that it would be possible to remove the tadpole at some point in the story. It would be optional, but possible. I guess that option died in the re-write.