355 réponses à ce sujet

[The Razman]

Darkeus wrote...

The Razman wrote...

Put it this way. BioShock had a bad ending ... a catastrophically bad ending. Did it evoke this kind of emotional reaction from fans? No.

You can try and deny it ... but you've got people on the other forum almost in tears over their emotional reaction to the end of the story. That's not normal for "a couple of plotholes and a bit of an unsatisfactory ending". That ending was an emotional experience ... and it can only be called a success in those terms.

If you want to attack it in terms of plotholes, go right ahead. But I can't be hearing any tripe about the sheer volume of response to the ending merely being "because it's bad". This isn't the reaction that bad endings get.

See, you are making the mistake of dismissing the emotional investment in teh GAME SERIES and that effect on the emotional response to a bad ending.  Yes, it is the response bad endings get, especially if it does not do anyting to satisfy the emotional investment of a game series people have been playing since 2007....

People are flipping out because the ending does the series no justice, and in return do the investment of the player no justice as well.  Not hard to see....

That argument works both ways. If you're insisting I take the emotional investment into account as a reason for it being bad, you also have to recognise that your emotional investment may be clouding people's judgements about whether the ending is good or not.

Not getting what we want in a game we're emotionally invested in can be painful.

[firetruck501]

People, the endings are pretty accurate, against the odds there would be heavy loses no matter what, on top of that, i liked the endings, there not bad and paint a accurate outcome of what would really happen.

[Bluefuse]

Psychlonus wrote...

Judging from the ME2 forums from about a year ago, everybody was all set to complain about the reapers being the new Borg: a lot of invincibility hype being undermined by a relatively painless resolution.  Bioware was damned if they did and damed if they didn't.

BioWare set up a perfect ending for the series after the final encounter with "you-know-who", but failed to execute a satisfying ending like they promised. There are two things that BioWare has been caught lying to us about now, and it has severely tainted their reputation. I want a new ending, but after I see the real conclusion, I'm done with BioWare games. At least for day 1 purchases... I needed this game to conclude my story.

[The Razman]

Just because it provokes an emotion it doesn't mean that it was a job well done.  What matters is the kind of emotion the writers were trying to provoke in the participant, and I'm severly doubting that anger and confusion was the aim of the ending.

There were points in the game that had me sad - Mordin and Legions passing were both bittersweet affairs.  But the ending was just a case of "Huh?" and kind of lazy in having similar endings to cut down on the time needed to produce the CGI for significantly different out comes. 

If it wasn't a spoler free zone it'd be possible to go into this with greater depth, as well as provide how the endings could have gone with the same choices, and provided significantly more satisfying out comes.

The writers said in an interview last month that some people would be angry with the ending. They knew what they were doing when they wrote it. I don't see much legitimate confusion regarding the ending (only over the Normandy issue, which I agree is a plothole depending on which ending you've got).

I'd like to understand your reasons though, so if you feel like PMing me explaining in greater, spoilery depth, I'd appreciate it.

[PanzerDivision]

Lord Aesir wrote...

Shinwolverine wrote...

umm yeah it is pretty bad. Ive put so many hours into the mass effect series and ive been nickle and dimed by bioware because I want the best possible experience. But then to find out that none of that **** mattered and that the ending comes down to 3 choices none of which are good at all. All of them leave you disappointed. Its like they just got lazy or something. I could think of a million better endings that actually make sense.

So you played the game for the ending?  I thought you said you wanted a great experience?  I enjoyed the endings for the lack of perfect results.  I loved the message that the war for survival demands sacrifice of us all, Shepard being no exception.

For 1 playthrough? Sure, it's an OK ending.

But for those with multiple Shepards expecting different endings, it's really disappointing.

Hell, a "reapers win" situation would be enough to replay the game.

But I'm not saying they should rewrite the ending, not at all, but the ending is bad in such way you just don't want to play it anymore... There's not enough endings, I guess, or maybe the required conditions for each ending are just too simple.

Can't say much without spoiling it.

You like it? Well, good for you, but tell me something just out of curiosity... How many Shepards do you have? Are you planing on replaying with any of them?

[Vlta]

Massive plotholes, kills the lore, endings don't fit the theme of the games, makes all three games choices made irrelevant, Space magic, magical transportation, mass genocide no matter which choice at the end, I don't get how people thought it was good it honestly makes no sense. I get the feeling that many who have beaten the game and say the ending was good(yes singular ending) are just trying to scrap up some excuse and make it seem less terrible.

[Heimdall]

Mx_CN3 wrote...

Lord Aesir wrote...

I honestly felt most of my decisions had found closure before the actual end of the game.  So I don't feel they were forgotten, I just don't feel they needed to have anything to do with the final decision.  Maybe they should have implemented something close to the suicide mission in terms of player input, but the effect would be minimal as it was then.

Well, this was advertised as Shepard's story.  So closure for Shepard's fate is closure for the game's story.  What is not provided is closure for the rest of the universe, and I'm content to leave that to my imagination.

A lot of them were addressed during the course of the game, yes.  What I've been seeing is that people were thinking that their decisions affected the outcome of the story.  However, the outcome of the story is affected by nothing much other than a short walk in a chosen direction.  And I do think people wanted it to be closer to the suicide mission; it's logical to assume that BioWare showed us how "decisions mattered" in one game, they would do something similar in the next.  But they didn't.  They made the entire outcome based on one decision only.  (I'm not referring to the differences you get from War Assets in this case, btw.  Those only have a minimal impact on the climax and possibly outcome, but even in that case, we still don't know what happened as a result of them.)

And I think that people that, like you, see this as only Shepard's story, will feel content with the ending.  And that's fine, I'm glad at least someone was happy with it.  But a lot of us felt that this was about much more than Shepard, and yet at the end, all we know for certain is what happens to him/her.

Thing is I felt it wasn't different from what Bioware has done previously in the Mass Effect series.  SO I felt neither surprised nor particularly dissapointed.

[Bluefuse]

Vlta wrote...

Massive plotholes, kills the lore, endings don't fit the theme of the games, makes all three games choices made irrelevant, Space magic, magical transportation, mass genocide no matter which choice at the end, I don't get how people thought it was good it honestly makes no sense. I get the feeling that many who have beaten the game and say the ending was good(yes singular ending) are just trying to scrap up some excuse and make it seem less terrible.

I think almost everyone who didn't mind the ending are people who never played ME1.

[Darkeus]

Wuppie wrote...

Darkeus wrote...

Lord Aesir wrote...

My emotional respone to the ending was fantastic, and I did find it satisfying.  This is a very subjective topic.

A subjective matter than many do not agree with you on.  Some will like the ending, I have found that most across the net do not....

Even if it is subjective, there is a point where that turns near universal.  We are approaching that point.

Just because it seems like "most people hate xyz" because the internet is full of people spewing bile at it does NOT make it representitive of the masses.

If you are happy with a coffee do you go back and say "awesome coffee dude"? unlikely. If it tastes like crap you probably will go back and say something.

People generally only make noise about things they dont like, rarely do they yell and scream because they like something or are indifferent towards it.

Food for thought....

I would agree with you if EVERY DAMN SITE that discusses games were not flooded with topics about how bad the endings are.

Like I said, there is a point where it turns mostly universal, whether that is accurate or not.

[LeTtotheC]

The Razman wrote...

Just because it provokes an emotion it doesn't mean that it was a job well done.  What matters is the kind of emotion the writers were trying to provoke in the participant, and I'm severly doubting that anger and confusion was the aim of the ending.

There were points in the game that had me sad - Mordin and Legions passing were both bittersweet affairs.  But the ending was just a case of "Huh?" and kind of lazy in having similar endings to cut down on the time needed to produce the CGI for significantly different out comes. 

If it wasn't a spoler free zone it'd be possible to go into this with greater depth, as well as provide how the endings could have gone with the same choices, and provided significantly more satisfying out comes.

The writers said in an interview last month that some people would be angry with the ending. They knew what they were doing when they wrote it. I don't see much legitimate confusion regarding the ending (only over the Normandy issue, which I agree is a plothole depending on which ending you've got).

I'd like to understand your reasons though, so if you feel like PMing me explaining in greater, spoilery depth, I'd appreciate it.

If they said that in an interview then my guess is that they were laying the ground work for any potential back lash like the one that Bioware is recieving now.  That's my gut instinct mind you.  

[LeonardoLuiz]

Its not a question of people "Whining".
I'm still impressed with the fact that the Gaming Media is writing articles making the fans sound "immature" or "Stupid"
Atleast here on BSN we are not acting like your common "Internet rage"/"Twitter offenses"

And really click on "Polls" and order the "Most Voted"
You will see 33000 Votes, 89% asking for a decent ending.

Now take a look at the 6# most voted poll "Disappointed with Mass Effect 2? ", That was whining and the result of that poll prove that.

Ending, Epilogue or not. Bioware got the worst feedback possible from its own community.

To put it simple, Yeah, is bad as it looks

Modifié par LeonardoLuiz, 13 mars 2012 - 03:03 .

[Mx_CN3]

Lord Aesir wrote...

Mx_CN3 wrote...

A lot of them were addressed during the course of the game, yes.  What I've been seeing is that people were thinking that their decisions affected the outcome of the story.  However, the outcome of the story is affected by nothing much other than a short walk in a chosen direction.  And I do think people wanted it to be closer to the suicide mission; it's logical to assume that BioWare showed us how "decisions mattered" in one game, they would do something similar in the next.  But they didn't.  They made the entire outcome based on one decision only.  (I'm not referring to the differences you get from War Assets in this case, btw.  Those only have a minimal impact on the climax and possibly outcome, but even in that case, we still don't know what happened as a result of them.)

And I think that people that, like you, see this as only Shepard's story, will feel content with the ending.  And that's fine, I'm glad at least someone was happy with it.  But a lot of us felt that this was about much more than Shepard, and yet at the end, all we know for certain is what happens to him/her.

Thing is I felt it wasn't different from what Bioware has done previously in the Mass Effect series.  SO I felt neither surprised nor particularly dissapointed.

And there we differ.  I envy you, in some ways.

ME3 was supposed to resolve a lot of our decisions from ME1 and ME2.  It did that.  But I, and many others, feel that it didn't resolve our decision from ME3.  If there were going to be a ME4 that continued the story, I would bet large amounts of money that there would not be nearly the fuss about the endings that there is.

[Darkeus]

The Razman wrote...

Darkeus wrote...

The Razman wrote...

Put it this way. BioShock had a bad ending ... a catastrophically bad ending. Did it evoke this kind of emotional reaction from fans? No.

You can try and deny it ... but you've got people on the other forum almost in tears over their emotional reaction to the end of the story. That's not normal for "a couple of plotholes and a bit of an unsatisfactory ending". That ending was an emotional experience ... and it can only be called a success in those terms.

If you want to attack it in terms of plotholes, go right ahead. But I can't be hearing any tripe about the sheer volume of response to the ending merely being "because it's bad". This isn't the reaction that bad endings get.

See, you are making the mistake of dismissing the emotional investment in teh GAME SERIES and that effect on the emotional response to a bad ending.  Yes, it is the response bad endings get, especially if it does not do anyting to satisfy the emotional investment of a game series people have been playing since 2007....

People are flipping out because the ending does the series no justice, and in return do the investment of the player no justice as well.  Not hard to see....

That argument works both ways. If you're insisting I take the emotional investment into account as a reason for it being bad, you also have to recognise that your emotional investment may be clouding people's judgements about whether the ending is good or not.

Not getting what we want in a game we're emotionally invested in can be painful.

Not getting a satysfying ending to any kind of story can be painful as well, especially if the ending seems to shift gears and go straight out of the ball park with regards to the rest of the story.  It makes the rest of the story, good or bad, seem worthless and a waste of time.  People do not like to feel like they have wasted their time with a story, especially one they have been invested in since 2007.

[Vlta]

Bluefuse wrote...

Vlta wrote...

Massive plotholes, kills the lore, endings don't fit the theme of the games, makes all three games choices made irrelevant, Space magic, magical transportation, mass genocide no matter which choice at the end, I don't get how people thought it was good it honestly makes no sense. I get the feeling that many who have beaten the game and say the ending was good(yes singular ending) are just trying to scrap up some excuse and make it seem less terrible.

I think almost everyone who didn't mind the ending are people who never played ME1.

Yeah that could be it as well, idk, I just don't know....

[Texhnolyze101]

Yes the endings are nothing but absolute fail.

[LeTtotheC]

PanzerDivision wrote...

Lord Aesir wrote...

Shinwolverine wrote...

umm yeah it is pretty bad. Ive put so many hours into the mass effect series and ive been nickle and dimed by bioware because I want the best possible experience. But then to find out that none of that **** mattered and that the ending comes down to 3 choices none of which are good at all. All of them leave you disappointed. Its like they just got lazy or something. I could think of a million better endings that actually make sense.

So you played the game for the ending?  I thought you said you wanted a great experience?  I enjoyed the endings for the lack of perfect results.  I loved the message that the war for survival demands sacrifice of us all, Shepard being no exception.

For 1 playthrough? Sure, it's an OK ending.

But for those with multiple Shepards expecting different endings, it's really disappointing.

Hell, a "reapers win" situation would be enough to replay the game.

A reaper win would have made for a brilliant ending, especially with the odds being so stacked against the other races.  In fact it should be a default option if Bioware wanted people to replay it, with other endings cropping up as to how much effort a person put into it.  


Reaper win.
Draw (Everyoine is killed in an act to end the cycle - reapers and all).
The three different endings as is. 
Super-duper good guy win. 


...so that's four different groups of endings off of the top of my head, each could have been implimented with the different choices having been made over the games.  

Modifié par LeTtotheC, 13 mars 2012 - 03:09 .

[bleetman]

The Razman wrote...
I don't see much legitimate confusion regarding the ending (only over the Normandy issue, which I agree is a plothole depending on which ending you've got).

I'd consider the stated reason for the existence of the Reapers and their culling of all advanced organic life to be a little... strange, for starters. In a "did anyone devote more than ten seconds of thought time to this" kind of way.

I'm personally somewhat confused as to why two of the endings involve doing exactly what the main antagonists of two seperate games thought they were also doing minutes after telling one just how wrong he is to try, too.

Modifié par bleetman, 13 mars 2012 - 03:10 .

[The Razman]

Darkeus wrote...

The Razman wrote...

Darkeus wrote...

The Razman wrote...

Put it this way. BioShock had a bad ending ... a catastrophically bad ending. Did it evoke this kind of emotional reaction from fans? No.

You can try and deny it ... but you've got people on the other forum almost in tears over their emotional reaction to the end of the story. That's not normal for "a couple of plotholes and a bit of an unsatisfactory ending". That ending was an emotional experience ... and it can only be called a success in those terms.

If you want to attack it in terms of plotholes, go right ahead. But I can't be hearing any tripe about the sheer volume of response to the ending merely being "because it's bad". This isn't the reaction that bad endings get.

See, you are making the mistake of dismissing the emotional investment in teh GAME SERIES and that effect on the emotional response to a bad ending.  Yes, it is the response bad endings get, especially if it does not do anyting to satisfy the emotional investment of a game series people have been playing since 2007....

People are flipping out because the ending does the series no justice, and in return do the investment of the player no justice as well.  Not hard to see....

That argument works both ways. If you're insisting I take the emotional investment into account as a reason for it being bad, you also have to recognise that your emotional investment may be clouding people's judgements about whether the ending is good or not.

Not getting what we want in a game we're emotionally invested in can be painful.

Not getting a satysfying ending to any kind of story can be painful as well, especially if the ending seems to shift gears and go straight out of the ball park with regards to the rest of the story.  It makes the rest of the story, good or bad, seem worthless and a waste of time.  People do not like to feel like they have wasted their time with a story, especially one they have been invested in since 2007.

You speak as if I don't have knowledge of such things ... but believe me, I do. I myself was left deeply unsatisfied with Mass Effect 2's ending. I was emotionally invested in the series then, as now. I never had this kind of reaction back then.

Is it not possible that part of the dissatisfaction from the ending stems from wanting it to be something else? Something which fits your desires more than anything to do with how the ending played out in reality? Look at all the "fanfic" suggestions for alternate endings. They all are happier, less bleak.

[The Razman]

bleetman wrote...

The Razman wrote...
I don't see much legitimate confusion regarding the ending (only over the Normandy issue, which I agree is a plothole depending on which ending you've got).

I'd consider the stated reason for the existence of the Reapers and their culling of all advanced organic life to be a little... strange, for starters. In a "did anyone devote more than ten seconds of thought time to this" kind of way.

How so? I can't go into it on a spoiler-free forum, of course ... but what doesn't make sense about the reason?

[LeTtotheC]

bleetman wrote...

The Razman wrote...
I don't see much legitimate confusion regarding the ending (only over the Normandy issue, which I agree is a plothole depending on which ending you've got).

I'd consider the stated reason for the existence of the Reapers and their culling of all advanced organic life to be a little... strange, for starters. In a "did anyone devote more than ten seconds of thought time to this" kind of way.

A lot of the issues in the game are down to that old nemesis - the deadline.  The story suffered badly because no one had planned it out, and thus they suffered from make-it-up-as-you-go-along syndrome.  Which means when a fresh team of writers came on board, they had to try and deal with a creation not of their own making, putting in their own ideas and trying to meld it all together in one tangled mess of story telling and lore. 

[Fawx9]

The Razman wrote...

bleetman wrote...

The Razman wrote...
I don't see much legitimate confusion regarding the ending (only over the Normandy issue, which I agree is a plothole depending on which ending you've got).

I'd consider the stated reason for the existence of the Reapers and their culling of all advanced organic life to be a little... strange, for starters. In a "did anyone devote more than ten seconds of thought time to this" kind of way.

How so? I can't go into it on a spoiler-free forum, of course ... but what doesn't make sense about the reason?

The things that are killing you were created in order to stop you from creating things that will kill you.

[Darkeus]

The Razman wrote...

Darkeus wrote...

The Razman wrote...

Darkeus wrote...

The Razman wrote...

Put it this way. BioShock had a bad ending ... a catastrophically bad ending. Did it evoke this kind of emotional reaction from fans? No.

You can try and deny it ... but you've got people on the other forum almost in tears over their emotional reaction to the end of the story. That's not normal for "a couple of plotholes and a bit of an unsatisfactory ending". That ending was an emotional experience ... and it can only be called a success in those terms.

If you want to attack it in terms of plotholes, go right ahead. But I can't be hearing any tripe about the sheer volume of response to the ending merely being "because it's bad". This isn't the reaction that bad endings get.

See, you are making the mistake of dismissing the emotional investment in teh GAME SERIES and that effect on the emotional response to a bad ending.  Yes, it is the response bad endings get, especially if it does not do anyting to satisfy the emotional investment of a game series people have been playing since 2007....

People are flipping out because the ending does the series no justice, and in return do the investment of the player no justice as well.  Not hard to see....

That argument works both ways. If you're insisting I take the emotional investment into account as a reason for it being bad, you also have to recognise that your emotional investment may be clouding people's judgements about whether the ending is good or not.

Not getting what we want in a game we're emotionally invested in can be painful.

Not getting a satysfying ending to any kind of story can be painful as well, especially if the ending seems to shift gears and go straight out of the ball park with regards to the rest of the story.  It makes the rest of the story, good or bad, seem worthless and a waste of time.  People do not like to feel like they have wasted their time with a story, especially one they have been invested in since 2007.

You speak as if I don't have knowledge of such things ... but believe me, I do. I myself was left deeply unsatisfied with Mass Effect 2's ending. I was emotionally invested in the series then, as now. I never had this kind of reaction back then.

Is it not possible that part of the dissatisfaction from the ending stems from wanting it to be something else? Something which fits your desires more than anything to do with how the ending played out in reality? Look at all the "fanfic" suggestions for alternate endings. They all are happier, less bleak.

Again, I think we should just leave it be.  You have your opinion and I have mine.  It is obvious we are going to feel differently about this subject.  That is fine.  I can only hope Bioware does something better than what is there.

This is not my original quote but it comes from a professional writer (I am a writer too, but I only have my name in one Table-top RPG.)  It sums up how I feel about the situation quite clearly.

"This is a lesson I think all game developers need to learn. It's the golden rule of writing.



You can write the most amazing and emotive, brilliant story - but your
ending is where your story lives or dies. Screw up the ending and you
might as well bin the whole story. The ending is what sticks in the
audience's mind most and it is the pay off for the journey. If people
don't get the payoff, they feel that their time was wasted.



Too many game writers and developers have the mistaken impression that
the body of the game is all they need to worry about. But if they are
going narrative - they have to get the ending right."

[LeTtotheC]

Fawx9 wrote...

The Razman wrote...

bleetman wrote...

The Razman wrote...
I don't see much legitimate confusion regarding the ending (only over the Normandy issue, which I agree is a plothole depending on which ending you've got).

I'd consider the stated reason for the existence of the Reapers and their culling of all advanced organic life to be a little... strange, for starters. In a "did anyone devote more than ten seconds of thought time to this" kind of way.

How so? I can't go into it on a spoiler-free forum, of course ... but what doesn't make sense about the reason?

The things that are killing you were created in order to stop you from creating things that will kill you.

*goes cross eyed and wibbles...a lot*


It's the grandfather paradox without the time travel!  Yay!  

[Mx_CN3]

[quote]The Razman wrote...

[quote]bleetman wrote...

[quote]The Razman wrote...
<Possibly count as spoilers>
[/quote]
How so? I can't go into it on a spoiler-free forum, of course ... but what doesn't make sense about the reason?

[/quote]Well, leaving behind all the logic of the matter, the reason I didn't like it was because it completely changed everything we thought we knew.  Which is fine to do... at some point other than the very end of a series, where you can't really delve any more into the hows or whys.

I realize this wasn't an answer to your question, but there is more than one reason to be upset about that little bit of the ending.

[The Razman]

Fawx9 wrote...

The Razman wrote...

bleetman wrote...

The Razman wrote...
I don't see much legitimate confusion regarding the ending (only over the Normandy issue, which I agree is a plothole depending on which ending you've got).

I'd consider the stated reason for the existence of the Reapers and their culling of all advanced organic life to be a little... strange, for starters. In a "did anyone devote more than ten seconds of thought time to this" kind of way.

How so? I can't go into it on a spoiler-free forum, of course ... but what doesn't make sense about the reason?

The things that are killing you were created in order to stop you from creating things that will kill you.

Indeed. It's ironic. But what doesn't make sense about it?