84 réponses à ce sujet

[fish of doom]

ALL HAIL INDULGENT SCHLOCK!

[Rob8228]

SmokePants wrote...

No, BioWare did a good job characterizing Sheperd (in ME3, at least). The fault lies with your expectations. You don't want Sheperd to be human or reasonable. You want him to be some god who can will himself out of any situation.

He had reached his limit. He was about to die. He had a limited set of options. They weren't ideal "no brainer" options, but they each would accomplish the goal of ending the cycle and the war. You think he'd just throw up a middle finger with some kind of 4th wall-breaking certainty that this is just a game and there has to be a perfect solution?

I throw my hands up. You people don't want a good ending; you want indulgent schlock.

Right because "Synthetics will always wipe out organics, so I use my synthetics to wipe out the organics to prevent that" isn't just  terrible reasoning.

That's like walking into a bank robbery shooting a teller in the face and telling the officer, "Listen, the robber was going to shoot her in the face with his gun, so I used my  gun and shot her in the face to prevent it". 


Don't tell us what we want, when you haven't the slightest clue.

[Militarized]

THE SKY WIZARD CONTROLLING THE DREADNAUGHT SARCOPHAGUS'S HAS SPOKEN, BE SILENT MORTALS AND PICK YOUR LIGHT SHOW!!!!!

[Drake_1000]

Why would Shepard bow to this character introduced one minute prior?

It seems to me the laser beam of Harbinger hit Shepard's balls and brain. Against TIM he's powerless, against the kid he act like a dumb : "destroy the mass relay ? i've done it before, i dont give a **** about what happen here".

Awful.

[WarBaby2]

And even if the hero is broken and falters... that's what support characters are for... you know, the people she/he sacrificed so much to help over three games... to pick him up and make it right.

That's just bad storytelling...

[x0 Misfit 0x]

Shepard might have been near death, but this is Commander Shepard, not some average Joe/Jane, this is the first human Spectre, a survivor/war hero/job gets done type person, and in just about every place of origin story, Shepard's life hasn't exactly been rainbows and cupcakes. Shepard went through a suicide mission, confronted Harbinger,has made tough calls, and assembled a flippin' army when she/he was still grieving over previous losses ( the dreams) all of that shapes a person, a sane person would have given up long ago. But Shepard was about to die, and had went through so much right before, right? No. A person who has done all that will have resolve to the very end, they won't give up no matter what, because they've seen things get really bad, and then get better, I think that most people's Shepard's would have looked for another way, any other way, they would have known that either option would have resulted in the loss of everything they'd worked for. The way the ending was, Shepard might as well have laid down on the ground and bled out rather then dooming all the galaxy.

[ArmyKnifeX]

SmokePants wrote...

No, BioWare did a good job characterizing Sheperd (in ME3, at least). The fault lies with your expectations. You don't want Sheperd to be human or reasonable. You want him to be some god who can will himself out of any situation.

He had reached his limit. He was about to die. He had a limited set of options. They weren't ideal "no brainer" options, but they each would accomplish the goal of ending the cycle and the war. You think he'd just throw up a middle finger with some kind of 4th wall-breaking certainty that this is just a game and there has to be a perfect solution?

I throw my hands up. You people don't want a good ending; you want indulgent schlock.

Yes, because a man who came back from the brink of death, and is more man than machine now, is human. That's why he destroyed an entire star system and works for a man in a robe. 

Huh. I just realized how similar Shepard is to Darth vader.

I'm sure you'd just love to see Odysseus start crying when (spoiler) his dog dies when Odysseus finally gets home, or for him to throw a fit and whine when he finds a bunch of suitors in his wife's  house all trying to get with her.

Or maybe you'd love to see Charlamagne's paladins run from their final fight because they were afraid of dying.

Do you think Batman should have given up in The Dark Knight?

Or maybe Captain/Admiral Adama should've just given up and let his people settle on a world. Oh right, that happened - it was the New Caprica plotline, and it sucked.

Maybe Luke Skywalker should've gotten cold feet and gone with Han Solo before the trench run in the Death Star, or not jumped to his own potential death rather than side with Darth Vader because he had given up.

How many more heroic characters do I have to list before you realize that your argument is invalid given this genre and its entire point? Shepard was characterized, yes, but to the same effect as Link being characterized in the Legend of Zelda TV show. Characterization for Shepard was unnecessary and in fact detrimental to the point of the game. You play Shepard. You are Shepard. Shepard is a pair of pants for you to wear and go around the galaxy stomping out evil (while sometimes being just as evil). Moody worked for Shepard about as well as Emo did for Spiderman.

Modifié par ArmyKnifeX, 10 mars 2012 - 08:45 .

[Almostfaceman]

Kitten Tactics wrote...

 I've voiced this in a few threads, but I'm hoping other will be able to chime in on it here.

Why would Shepard ever go along with the Catalyst's little game?

Sovereign told Shepard that resisting the cycle was futile.  (S)He tells Sovereign "If you won't give us a chance, I WILL find a way to stop you."

Harbinger tells Shepard that the reaper invasion, and our destruction, is imminent.  Shepard says "Stuff it, I'm coming for you and your friends.

The council tells Shepard that the reapers don't exist.  Ah yes, "Reapers", we have dismissed that claim.  Shepard tells them they are wrong and with or without their help (s)he will find a way.

The Catalyst tells Shepard that synthetics and organics will always destroy each other.  And even though Shepard has (depending on your choices) multiple pieces of evidence to the contrary, (s)he just goes along and picks one of the three horrible options without hesitation.  Why would Shepard bow to this character introduced one minute prior?

Shepard will never stress the odds, be intimidated, be forced, pushed around, or deflated.  Shepard will always find a way.  

As I have said before, Shepard would never do this.

Ever.

Yes, after some reflection I came to this same conclusion. This is my main gripe.

[chester013]

fish of doom wrote...

the catalyst is not just wrong, it makes a completely baseless statement that you can even disprove during the course of the main storyline!

As a chap with an education in science, and as a human with a (mostly) functioning brain, I can state with confidence that this is a a valid statement.

[Rob8228]

Kitten Tactics wrote...

 I've voiced this in a few threads, but I'm hoping other will be able to chime in on it here.

Why would Shepard ever go along with the Catalyst's little game?

Sovereign told Shepard that resisting the cycle was futile.  (S)He tells Sovereign "If you won't give us a chance, I WILL find a way to stop you."

Harbinger tells Shepard that the reaper invasion, and our destruction, is imminent.  Shepard says "Stuff it, I'm coming for you and your friends.

The council tells Shepard that the reapers don't exist.  Ah yes, "Reapers", we have dismissed that claim.  Shepard tells them they are wrong and with or without their help (s)he will find a way.

The Catalyst tells Shepard that synthetics and organics will always destroy each other.  And even though Shepard has (depending on your choices) multiple pieces of evidence to the contrary, (s)he just goes along and picks one of the three horrible options without hesitation.  Why would Shepard bow to this character introduced one minute prior?

Shepard will never stress the odds, be intimidated, be forced, pushed around, or deflated.  Shepard will always find a way.  

As I have said before, Shepard would never do this.

Ever.

I thought of another one OP.

At the end of ME2 if you choose to destroy the collector base when TIM tries to convince you otherwise Shepard's response was, "I won't let fear compromise who I am , we'll fight and win without it".

Okay, what happened to that?

[CrazyCatDude]

The problem with my Shepard giving in to the Catalyst's demands is simple. She had just fought through hell to reach the beam, had gotten up after being hit in the face by a damn Thanix cannon. Armor melted to her skin, slowly bleeding out, and as far as she knows, the love of her life and her best friend in the universe are both ashes on the ground next to her she still picks up a gun, kills four husks and stumbles into the beam. Then she limps through the citadel, overcomes indoctrination to shoot The Illusive Man in the gut, and opens the arms of the Citadel. She's tired, she's hurting, she watches the closest thing she's had to a father since Mindoir bleed out next to her from a gunshot she inflicted.

And yet, when Hackett calls, her first words are "What do you need me to do?" She doesn't want to say it. She doesn't want to move. She's so tired, in so much pain, she just wants to lay down and bleed out in peace. But duty calls, and she gets up again, stumbles to the console, and passes out.

Then, she gets up again, and tries to talk the Catalyst into shutting down the Reapers.

He offers her three horrible choices, and at that moment, instead of drawing on the same willpower that drove her up the side of Citadel tower to face Saren, that drove her to escape Lazarus station, and Horizon, and the Collector ship, and kept her and every single member of her squad alive through the suicide mission, that helped her unite every race in the galaxy, to get up again and again during the last long march to the Citadel in the final battle...

She just shrugs her shoulders and says "Okay, I'll do things your way, even though all you have to do is look outside at the Quarian and Geth, fighting side by side, to see that he's *wrong*.

[Kitten Tactics]

As someone else pointed out, Shepard ceased being who we wanted him/her to be and instead became who Bioware needed him/her to be, plain and simple.

[fish of doom]

chester013 wrote...

fish of doom wrote...

the catalyst is not just wrong, it makes a completely baseless statement that you can even disprove during the course of the main storyline!

As a chap with an education in science, and as a human with a (mostly) functioning brain, I can state with confidence that this is a a valid statement.

*does a happy shepard shuffle*

[aimlessgun]

 

astrophyzcs wrote...
I actually took so long to make my decision that I "died." It was pretty fantastic.

RESUME?

...must I? 

That's awesome.

SmokePants wrote...

No, BioWare did a good job characterizing Sheperd (in ME3, at least). The fault lies with your expectations. You don't want Sheperd to be human or reasonable. You want him to be some god who can will himself out of any situation.

He had reached his limit. He was about to die. He had a limited set of options. They weren't ideal "no brainer" options, but they each would accomplish the goal of ending the cycle and the war. You think he'd just throw up a middle finger with some kind of 4th wall-breaking certainty that this is just a game and there has to be a perfect solution?

I throw my hands up. You people don't want a good ending; you want indulgent schlock.

I'd rather have indulgent schlock than just schlock. And nobody expects there to be perfect solutions. They just want the option of searching for solutions that don't have absurd arbitrary conditions attached by the god child.

Hey, maybe you can't defeat the god child in the end, and you have to accept his choices. But to not even try?  Disgusting.

And also, you people who think Bioware owns Shep's character annoy me. The character is a joint project between player and developer. 

Modifié par aimlessgun, 10 mars 2012 - 09:13 .

[seirhart]

At first before playing ME 3 I had a problem with the endings that I heard about but now I don't. In my opinion from beginning to end I don't think anything about shepard changed from beginning to end its still the same shepard to me from 1 and 2. It seriously took some people 10 minutes or more to decide
on an option, when I got the option I didn't even think about it. My first play thru I picked control and my new game plus i'm going for destroy

[Qutayba]

No, we don't want indulgent schlock. We just don't want the final message of Mass Effect to be: "Ultimately, all choice is meaningless, there is only death." You can defend that statement philosophically, but isn't that the argument the Reapers make? The endings all have you accept the logic of either the Reapers or TIM. The hero submits. The bad guys win.

[Kitten Tactics]

I promise to only give this one gratuitous bump. There's just an influx of new people tonight, so I'm curious to see what others think.

[ibage]

Kitten Tactics wrote...

I promise to only give this one gratuitous bump. There's just an influx of new people tonight, so I'm curious to see what others think.

Well, I've been here since Thursday nerd raging about the ending the entire time. I've used this site a few times before that. I'm just here to complain about how bad it is.

[Altesio]

CrazyCatDude wrote...

The problem with my Shepard giving in to the Catalyst's demands is simple. She had just fought through hell to reach the beam, had gotten up after being hit in the face by a damn Thanix cannon. Armor melted to her skin, slowly bleeding out, and as far as she knows, the love of her life and her best friend in the universe are both ashes on the ground next to her she still picks up a gun, kills four husks and stumbles into the beam. Then she limps through the citadel, overcomes indoctrination to shoot The Illusive Man in the gut, and opens the arms of the Citadel. She's tired, she's hurting, she watches the closest thing she's had to a father since Mindoir bleed out next to her from a gunshot she inflicted.

And yet, when Hackett calls, her first words are "What do you need me to do?" She doesn't want to say it. She doesn't want to move. She's so tired, in so much pain, she just wants to lay down and bleed out in peace. But duty calls, and she gets up again, stumbles to the console, and passes out.

Then, she gets up again, and tries to talk the Catalyst into shutting down the Reapers.

He offers her three horrible choices, and at that moment, instead of drawing on the same willpower that drove her up the side of Citadel tower to face Saren, that drove her to escape Lazarus station, and Horizon, and the Collector ship, and kept her and every single member of her squad alive through the suicide mission, that helped her unite every race in the galaxy, to get up again and again during the last long march to the Citadel in the final battle...

She just shrugs her shoulders and says "Okay, I'll do things your way, even though all you have to do is look outside at the Quarian and Geth, fighting side by side, to see that he's *wrong*.

My problem with this is that in none of thes examples you gave, was Shepard bleeding out, and no other options. Horizon, he is with a squad depending a pole while EDI hacks it. He tried to stop them but failed. Citadel, he is not mortally wounded, and had a team helping him. Everyone thought he died, but he didn't and based on how he was running, he wasn't even hurt. Lazarus, he quickly found help, along with a voice telling him where to go and what is up ahead, and in perfect health since they did just bring him back.

Here Shepard is dying, no one else can help him, and has no other options besides to simply keel over and let the Reapers win. No matter which option he picks besides to sit there and die, the Reapers won't be a problem anymore. So would Shepard will himself to give up his life to stop the Reapers, or simply give up and die there?

To say this is out of character is like saying a kind hearted mother, who would never hurt a fly, taking a chair and knocking a man about to kill her child is out of character. It is, but completely reasonable, understandable, and realistic.

[ArmyKnifeX]

Altesio wrote...

CrazyCatDude wrote...

The problem with my Shepard giving in to the Catalyst's demands is simple. She had just fought through hell to reach the beam, had gotten up after being hit in the face by a damn Thanix cannon. Armor melted to her skin, slowly bleeding out, and as far as she knows, the love of her life and her best friend in the universe are both ashes on the ground next to her she still picks up a gun, kills four husks and stumbles into the beam. Then she limps through the citadel, overcomes indoctrination to shoot The Illusive Man in the gut, and opens the arms of the Citadel. She's tired, she's hurting, she watches the closest thing she's had to a father since Mindoir bleed out next to her from a gunshot she inflicted.

And yet, when Hackett calls, her first words are "What do you need me to do?" She doesn't want to say it. She doesn't want to move. She's so tired, in so much pain, she just wants to lay down and bleed out in peace. But duty calls, and she gets up again, stumbles to the console, and passes out.

Then, she gets up again, and tries to talk the Catalyst into shutting down the Reapers.

He offers her three horrible choices, and at that moment, instead of drawing on the same willpower that drove her up the side of Citadel tower to face Saren, that drove her to escape Lazarus station, and Horizon, and the Collector ship, and kept her and every single member of her squad alive through the suicide mission, that helped her unite every race in the galaxy, to get up again and again during the last long march to the Citadel in the final battle...

She just shrugs her shoulders and says "Okay, I'll do things your way, even though all you have to do is look outside at the Quarian and Geth, fighting side by side, to see that he's *wrong*.

My problem with this is that in none of thes examples you gave, was Shepard bleeding out, and no other options. Horizon, he is with a squad depending a pole while EDI hacks it. He tried to stop them but failed. Citadel, he is not mortally wounded, and had a team helping him. Everyone thought he died, but he didn't and based on how he was running, he wasn't even hurt. Lazarus, he quickly found help, along with a voice telling him where to go and what is up ahead, and in perfect health since they did just bring him back.

Here Shepard is dying, no one else can help him, and has no other options besides to simply keel over and let the Reapers win. No matter which option he picks besides to sit there and die, the Reapers won't be a problem anymore. So would Shepard will himself to give up his life to stop the Reapers, or simply give up and die there?

To say this is out of character is like saying a kind hearted mother, who would never hurt a fly, taking a chair and knocking a man about to kill her child is out of character. It is, but completely reasonable, understandable, and realistic.

That's just... wrong. Shepard can be put in this exact kind of situation if you want him to. Just play ME2 right and he can end up facing a baby reaper all by his lonesome. Hell you can even spend most of it near death if you want! Let's not forget that you can give him the Sole Survivor origin, too, wherein he went through something like this once before...

[Harbinger of Hope]

I completly agree. Having Shep give in like that would be like Batman in Batman Begins just going along with Ras-Al-Ghul.

[emperoralku]

DrowNoble wrote...

This is just one of the many reasons the ending was so bad. So very un-Bioware if you like.

The climatic ending to the Mass Effect trilogy is a long cutscene where you make choices that don't fit with the character we've known for 4+ years and played for 100's of hours. WHY Anderson is the Renegade Ending and Illusive Man is Paragon ending just eludes me.

As I see it this ending involves the least sacrifice. The geth and EDI live. Sure you still lose the relays but that is inevitable in any ending. The reapers may still live but they are under control. Maybe they could be harnessed to rebuild a relay network or do some other kind of reconstruction.

Anderson's ending is renegade because it's just so destructive. Destroying the geth and EDI just out of hate for the reapers. The only positive to this ending is that you may live yourself. 

Modifié par emperoralku, 11 mars 2012 - 01:54 .

[thetawaves90]

DrowNoble wrote...
 WHY Anderson is the Renegade Ending and Illusive Man is Paragon ending just eludes me.

Because TIM was right for the wrong reasons and Anderson didn't know the full impact of destroying the reapers.

TIM wanted power, but you'd want to bring an end to destruction and a way to avoid the Geth from getting fried.

Anderson wanted to destroy the reapers, but you now know that it will wipe out all sentient synthetic life unconditionally.

So in that respect it does collate to the moral choices throughout: Paragon choices are sympathetic and considerate, Renegade choices are pragmatic and goal-oriented.

Still, dwelling on it: the Mass Relays blowing up is a considerable oddity in the plot. Judging by Arrivals' events, there would barely be any galaxy left!

Back to OPs' post though: I think character-wise, the game has built up this decision being the only realistic choice. The entire military force of the galaxy was required to partially secure a single warzone and any delay in stopping the Reapers in anyway would result in the death of billions and leave sentient life in no position to defend itself. Shepherd is simply not in a position to argue as any deviance from the Catalyst's choice will have galactic life going the way of the Protheans. Then again the fact that Quarians and Geth are co-existing rather debases any point Catalyst has to make. Tricky.

Modifié par thetawaves90, 11 mars 2012 - 04:00 .

[sunnydxmen]

what other option did Shepard have the weapon was not working the forces were getting stomped by the reapers so Shepard was like it is over. the weapon was there only hope in when it did not fire  it was hopeless shepard had to do something so he made a decision to save everyone from the reapers wrath. there was no more time to find another way he was hurt bleeding it was no allies close ,also the catalyst says shepard is part synthetic how he knew that maybe those dreams shepard were him being indoctrinated .every dream showed the kid but the catalyst also takes that form maybe he was messing with shepard head enough so he can tell shepard what to do in the end.

[seirhart]

am I the only one who thought the child like creature you speak to at the end was the boy in the dreams or the boy you see running around and then in the hole in the wall?