So, the letter I have wrote during the past twenty minutes and which I have send there by e-mail. I hope our movement (RetakeMassEffect) takes this as an appropirate language and feels it is dealing with the issues.
Dear Bioware,
I am writing this letter in regards to your recently released game "Mass Effect 3". While I have to give credit where credit is due, for example to the Soundtrack or the
animations, your handling of some matters in this game are in no way worth the effort of playing to the scenes mentioned below.
Namely those things would be to
handle the revelation of important mysteries after hundreds of hours of
playing the games by Photoshopping an image from "Gettyimages" to fit
into your Mass Effect
historical backround, and to
develop an ending that kills the replayability of the game by making the
main selling point of your two previous games absolutely unimportant. While the authors of the Mass
Effect universe have in every way
the right to develop the Mass Effect universe in a way they see fitting,
and to design characters the way they think appropirate, it is a matter
of the way it was handled
regarding advertisment and seemingly facts left out, "plot-holes".
An ending should give a certain,
well, "end" to the medium it is used in. An ending can be sad,
bitterweet, dramatic and truly epic, very happy or an "villain win" ending, it should certainly give answers to
questions the "fans" of the medium have. Seeing
a game that heavily relied on the choices the player or "fan" made in
the previous two games and in the hours before the climax of Mass Effect
3, this ending
is in no way answering the
questions a player or fan would have. Important things to mention seem
to be left completly blank, for example important characters (example:
Harbinger) who played a more then major role in
past events, and it only raises
more questions to the matter at hand, for example: The S.S.V Normandy
entering an FTL (Faster-then-Light) jump, the stories of certain
individuals and/or races.
Another point about the endings
which is to a certain extend not acceptable is the way we were promised
it would be. During many interviews of your developers, they told us
that "Every decision up to the climax
would have a big impact on the
outcome.", that "16 different endings would be contained in the game,
which can't be seperated by naming them "A, B or C", and the opportunity
to not know in any way which end
the player would receive after completing the final mission.
While I feel that my expectations
of the game were not missplaced during the early stages and the later
parts regarding the soundtrack, gameplay, character development and
such, I feel that my expectations for an
end to the trilogy were simply not even meet the slightest.
When we were told that there were "16 different endings" we expected it
to be vastly different. The current endings are a simple recolorization
of the exact same video,
only applying new colors to them. In no way those ends can be seen as "different" in any way.
By "16 different endings" in a
medium such as the Mass Effect trilogy, fans of the franchise would
expect different outcomes and views of the events following the final minutes of the game. Such including: "Does the protagonist,
Commander Shepard, live or die?".
"Is the galaxy saved or destroyed?". "Is the cycle ended or not?". "Is
there a happy end to our characters or not?". Essentially, it should be a
both rewarding and satisfying experience to witness them.
They can be, as mentioned above,
have different views of the following events, but they should be vastly
different in terms of character fates by summing up every choice in the
previous games to this very point. There should be endings
in which the protagonist, i.g Commander Shepard, has to die, or will live. Different outcomes and approaches have to be made.
As stated above, your authors
have every right to develop the "Mass Effect" universe and its
characters in any way they see fitting to their opinion of beeing
"Good", yet certainly also give a certain feeling of accomplishment and
satisfaction
to the owner of the game "Mass Effect III".
Thus said, in the current state
of the game, it does not feel in any way fitting the previous two games
and their main selling points, "satisfying and answering questions
alike." and is simply not even close to what was promised trough
the countless interviews and
answers we were given, considering I heard some of the answers with my
own ears on last years "Gamescom" in Cologne. Even considering the
current endings as "vastly different", there are only 6
possible endings which all end the same way. That is in no way the 16 different endings we were told to get by buying the game.
Another major point, which negates the good state the other parts of the game are in,
is the handling of "The revelation of Talis face.". This exact things
was a mistery up until the final hours of Mass Effect 3, beeing always
very hidden.
By using a photoshopped image
from the website "Gettyimages", only altered slightly in some ways to
fit into the Mass Effect franchise and overall physical appereance of
her, it feels in no way fitting for the game as a whole and for
customers. It just feels like the
developers had in no way the intention of making it a big moment in any
way. It simply indicates that it was never such big of a deal, which
seems not to be true due to the secrecy the developers always had
about that certain matter.
As I mentioned several times
above, I do not take any right into the Mass Effect universe, thus it is
the complete right of the authors of the Mass Effect story and/or
universe to write the story and show the characters in any way they see
most fitting. But as a customer
and loyal fan for close to 5 years now, investing much time into the
Mass Effect series by purchasing several books and all three games and
some fan-articles, I feel utterly disappointed. I was not
placing too high expectations into the game, I usually never do that, even not with a BioWare medium, yet I was left very disappointed. This game was in every way considerable "good", and "above average", but the above mentioned
endings have simply rendered it "bad" for most fans of the franchise.
I hope that this matter can be
resolved in a most civil matter. As member of the #RetakeMassEffect
movement, and as a passionate fan, I take distant from certain actions
involving legal parties. Judging BioWare by my past experience,
the company seems to be very
fan-connected. Thus, I hope this matter can be resolved in a civil and
kind way without involving any more 3rd parties. I hope I am not simply viewed as another "Raging fanboy". I am only bringing
my concerns about a franchise I
love, and about it's utterly missed ending, to you. In no way I want to
be "entitled" to anything, yet people could argue that "Games are made
by the developers for the players.". And if players seem to
agree so much (50.000 votes
during a week, 58.000$ raised for a charity company for the cause of
helping children, the reviews of many neutral internetsides), maybe it
is time to give consideration about adressing the issue, even if just
in-company.
I sincerely hope those words are taken into consideration, as I am certainly not alone on this.
Best regards,
Modifié par LPKerberos, 17 mars 2012 - 08:32 .
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