378 réponses à ce sujet

[McScroggz24]

The plotholes were so big they drove their own plotholes though them! Ha, get it? Funny, right? Right?!!?

[DeadLetterBox]

Storytelling is an art. Assuming that you are correct and most of us just don't "get it", it is the job of the person telling the story to make the ending relatively easy to get. Or at least interesting to entertain.

So, yes. The ending is art. Just not really good art. Good art does not need the creator to insist that it really is good and you're just an immature philistine if you don't get it.

Case in point? Dragon Age Origins. Sad ending, but beautiful and perfect for the story they were telling from the beginning.

Also, it's worth noting that DAO had the option for a happy ending, if you sold your soul to get it, and the fact that the "happy" ending didn't feel right for most people just emphasized the point they were trying to make.

I bought a sandwich at a restaurant a while back and it was terrible. I sent it back (and I never send food back, this was a truly awful sandwich.) The manager came out and tried to tell me I just didn't know what it was supposed to taste like. The implication being it wasn't their fault, I just wasn't sophisticated enough to "get" their food. This wasn't strange food that I'd never had before, incidentally. It was just really bad and they were trying to convince me it was my fault because I was just backward and not very bright.

It's an old, tired tactic. It's also one that has never worked on me. I am comfortable with my own intelligence. This many unhappy people means that somewhere along the way the storytellers didn't do a very good job. That's it. It is that simple.

[redhaudiof]

Enlighten us plebians, please.

[Senario]

If you need to argue that the ending is "Deep" with quotes...They clearly haven't done a good job of making an ending. Considering no plot holes were filled.

Sure you can interpret the endings in many ways, but that is mostly wasting your time because you are making up meanings to a game which really was more about choices and how they affected the end of the game (or the middle of the game).

[Aedan276]

KiroKatashi wrote...

Artful and poetic does not mean good.

Indeed, it was very artful and poetic when the Star Child set my Shepard straight on the Geth-Quarian issue: 

Shepard: I made peace between the Geth and Quarians. 

Star Child: Created will always rebel against Creator. 

Shepard: Are you sure? I also hooked up my friend with a hot AI who really cares about humans. 

Star Child: No. They'll kill all Organics eventually. 

Shepard: Oh. Okay then. So can I choose which color I get disintegrated by? 

Star Child: You bet. 

[HKR148]

HolyAvenger wrote...

I think they were going for art. I think they failed. Gigantic plot holes through which you could drive a Mack truck? Yeah, nah, that's not going to work as a satisfactory ending I'm afraid.

As soon as they went under the EA's financial protection and the investment; no matter how much creative freedom they were promised, they've alredy given up majority of their creative freedom to the demands of the stockholders and the EA. Have they been not under the EA, does anyone on forum honestly believe that Bioware would've thought about putting the multiplayer content? Very unlikely I believe.

[yukon fire]

Pete = hipster

[Dreogan]

daisekihan wrote...

I was recently accepted to the University of Arkansas's Master of Fine Art's program for creative writing with an emphasis in poetry. I have had a handful of poems published in journals. I say this not to boast, but to establish that I am quite familiar with the "poetic", and this, sir, is not poetic.

Good sir, when you create a fine work of fiction do please let me know. I'd be honored to purchase a signed copy.

The Krogan avatar paints a beautiful mental picture, by the way.

[Akael_Bayn]

PeterG1 wrote...
ANY movie that has an ambiguous and poetic ending... BW didn't fail at all; our anger and sadness is all a part of what happened in-game. I think that's why so much passion is behind it, at least partially...

100% disagree.  I enjoy my share of downer endings, and I enjoy my share of fruity philosophical works (it's OK to call it fruity if I like it, right?) and I enjoy my share of the poetic and ambiguous.  ME3's ending wasn't any of that, though.  It was just a sudden jolt from an intense, believable, and realistic story into a complete "WTF?"  I really have no emotion over the ending whatsoever.  It was just completely out of the blue and had nothing to do with the rest of the series.  It was like finding someone had torn the last 10 pages out of a book I was reading and glued in pages from a fashion magazine to replace them.  I guess you can call it art if you want, but I call it "Where the hell are my ten pages?"  I've got a lot of emotion over the fact that I was lied to about the number of endings; indeed, the very existance of endings; but the "ending" itself is just this big weird thing floating awkwardly in my mind, disconnected in every way from the rest of the Mass Effect series.  I regard it with no more hate than that which I regard anything that wastes a few minutes of my time to no effect.

PeterG1 wrote..
But we didn't get that, we got something...memorable. As Hudson said in that interview, it is memorable.

Yeah.  My grandma dying was memorable, but that doesn't make it good; and doesn't make it an acceptable ending for a sci-fi series.

DeadLetterBox wrote...
So, yes. The ending is art.  Just not really good art. Good art does not need the creator to insist that it really is good and you're just an immature philistine if you don't get it.

Yeah, that.

Modifié par Akael_Bayn, 15 mars 2012 - 06:29 .

[kato42]

LotharanAeron wrote...

Other games have tried this (I think Deus Ex HR tried it. Not well, it was dramatically and plot-wise weak) and failed.

Personally I think DX:HR did a far better job.  The choices were very clear, the presentation of suddenly being presented with choice fit the themes of the game and every ending had a clear narration detailing the pros and cons of said choice.  It left the future "open" but there was no doubt about what you did or how it will immediately change the world.

ME3 could have been that, if there were fewer plot holes and a little less ambiguity.

It was at least in keeping with the original DX, both in the way the options were presented, at that none of them were really good.  But that was the nature of DX.

I thought the somewhat pretentious and preachy voice overs were a poor choice though.

What we have here in ME3 is a total non-sequitor, A does not lead to B.  Which is why many people think its a PR stunt, that the 'real' ending is after this when Shepard wakes up and realizes he's still on Earth, perhaps with Harbinger messing with his head (although I still wonder why in that case Harbinger didn't just kill him, far more efficient, and certain).

[RGC_Ines]

ME3 ending would be " art" or " good" if it was created with Mass Effect fans in Devs mind, not a new player for whom ME3 is a perfect point to start theirs ME experience. A lot of players invested many years and hours in a Trilogy, only to discover, that all those things above and theirs choices means nothing at the end. I can accept that BioWare wanted to show us a war and yes, a war isn't a " fairy tale". Im ok with Shepard death, but not with destroying all universe, and a big f..... from Devs for all my hours of gameplay...

[Chromie]

Maria Caliban wrote...

Skelter192 wrote...

PeterG1 wrote...  Other games have tried this (I think Deus Ex HR tried it. Not well, it was dramatically and plot-wise weak) and failed..

I find it funny you think Deus EX HR did a worse job. Their ending was much better and it's so obvious Bioware was trying to emulate it and failed.

The original Deus Ex did this and was lauded.

But the entire game was about the effect of new technologies on the world and various groups attempting to control humanity.

He was talking specifically about Human Revoluiton. Everyone and their mother knows Deus Ex 1 is amazing. Human Revolution while terribly rushed once you reached Panchea fit nicely with Deus Ex 1.

 

Modifié par Skelter192, 15 mars 2012 - 06:27 .

[Gulkin]

Too bad english isn't my first language because for a moment I thought he was sarcastic.

[HKR148]

DeadLetterBox wrote...

Storytelling is an art. Assuming that you are correct and most of us just don't "get it", it is the job of the person telling the story to make the ending relatively easy to get. Or at least interesting to entertain.

So, yes. The ending is art. Just not really good art. Good art does not need the creator to insist that it really is good and you're just an immature philistine if you don't get it.

Case in point? Dragon Age Origins. Sad ending, but beautiful and perfect for the story they were telling from the beginning.

Also, it's worth noting that DAO had the option for a happy ending, if you sold your soul to get it, and the fact that the "happy" ending didn't feel right for most people just emphasized the point they were trying to make.

I bought a sandwich at a restaurant a while back and it was terrible. I sent it back (and I never send food back, this was a truly awful sandwich.) The manager came out and tried to tell me I just didn't know what it was supposed to taste like. The implication being it wasn't their fault, I just wasn't sophisticated enough to "get" their food. This wasn't strange food that I'd never had before, incidentally. It was just really bad and they were trying to convince me it was my fault because I was just backward and not very bright.

It's an old, tired tactic. It's also one that has never worked on me. I am comfortable with my own intelligence. This many unhappy people means that somewhere along the way the storytellers didn't do a very good job. That's it. It is that simple.

Couple days ago I showed pretty much the concise script of Mass Effect 3's ending to the English Lit. Professor at U of I who I've befriended some years ago, didn't took alot of time before he bursted out in laughter and said "who wrote this [s]? unbelievable."

[Aedan276]

RGC_Ines wrote...

ME3 ending would be " art" or " good" if it was created with Mass Effect fans in Devs mind, not a new player for whom ME3 is a perfect point to start theirs ME experience. A lot of players invested many years and hours in a Trilogy, only to discover, that all those things above and theirs choices means nothing at the end. I can accept that BioWare wanted to show us a war and yes, a war isn't a " fairy tale". Im ok with Shepard death, but not with destroying all universe, and a big f..... from Devs for all my hours of gameplay...

I'm not sure why people keep saying they're "okay" with Shepard's death as if at some point Mass Effect stopped being an RPG. 

Obviously Shepard should die as the price of some decisions and as a punishment for failing to prepare, but this idea the PC should die "no matter what" needs to stop. 

[Jake71887]

 Even if it was poetic or artful.. It wasn't GOOD art or poetry.

[TcomJ]

Even a toilet is an art...

[Sentr0]

I bought a videgame not a damm painting from a museum

[Almostfaceman]

I would like to see someone who likes the endings, to address the complaints.

Why is it better to not see the battle through the eyes of our squad?
Why is it better to have the War Assets affect the ending in some unseen, ghostly, nebulous way rather than us see our troops that we've united kick Reaper butt?
Why is the Starchild a better opponent than, say, Harbinger?
Why do Joker and my squad not come and rescue me when I open the Citadel arms? Why do I not call out for aid?
I've been giving the Reapers (up close and personal) the finger for three games, why do I suddenly capitulate to the Starchild?
Why are my crew not only deserting me but all the way into a Relay stream running away from the battle?
Why is an ending like Baldur's Gate 2 or Dragon Age Origins inappropriate?
Why would Shepard pull the trigger on multiple mass relay detonations when he's just seen one wipe out a solar system?
How in the world did not only the Normandy stay intact but manage to land on a planet that's habitable, which is like at least a trillion to one in odds?
What the heck happens to the quarians and the geth and the krogan and the turians, blah blah blah... I've only worked really hard for three games to unite them and get them to work together. The ending is divorced of all that effort.

If you want any respect in stating your opinion about why you like the end, you have to answer these questions. Saying repeatedly "I like it" doesn't mean anything to the person who has well-thought-out reasons for not liking it.

[Lazamoose]

It's not art. EA is a company whose goal is to PLEASE customers.

[ediskrad327]

yes, it made so clear why the Normandy was at the Charon Relay and explained very well why the guardian needed Sovereign to open the citadel and made it very clear why they needed to go all the way to the Alpha Relay instead of just opening the guardian himself the citadel when Sovereign failed.....oh wait

[die-yng]

Everyone has a right to his opinion, but let me say this.

Mass Effect was never about originality.
All the plot points, the races, even the type of hero Shepard iis have been in existence in Science-Ficiton Space operas for ages.

No, what made Mass Effect unique was the depth of the games world (not philosphical depth, the amount of work and time spent on providing a background to everything in the game) and the ability to lead the story the way you wanted to, by makint your own decisions.

The ending sucks, because it never delivers what everything leading upo to this point has promised, it doesn't give you much of a choice and for all that your decisions changed the game, in the end they practically amount to nothing, as no matter which routes you chose you get the same crappy endings, just changed by how long you played the multiplayer and the number of war assets.
It's flat, it's boring, it's much to short, gives no closure and tries to hide this behind a masquue of "deep" choices and a sort of artsy, tragedic spin.

I didn't want to go into rant mode in my reply to this post, but I also just finished the game and my disappointment is still very raw, I'm sad and I'm angry and I doubt my insanity for spending so much of my free time and money on three games, when this ending is all I get for closure.

[ElectronicPostingInterface]

"Deep" endings that are actually "deep" don't leave their audience with the impression that the ending was stupid and pointless for them to come back and find excuses to go, "Ohhh, this had secret meanings..."

[Chromie]

die-yng wrote...

Everyone has a right to his opinion, but let me say this.

Mass Effect was never about originality.

 



And OP 2001: A Space Odyseey was beautiful that was art. It gave us much with so few words. It used music and film but not words to tell a story. It's amazing and it's an insult to call ME3 art while masterpieces such as Space Odyssey exist.

Modifié par Skelter192, 15 mars 2012 - 06:34 .

[Maria Caliban]

DeadLetterBox wrote...

Storytelling is an art. Assuming that you are correct and most of us just don't "get it", it is the job of the person telling the story to make the ending relatively easy to get. Or at least interesting to entertain.

I disagree that storytellers have a job to create easy to get stories.

The Wire requires hours of watching and remembering a host of different characters and actors. It's the closest thing I've seen to 'an epic' on TV, but it demands a great deal of the viewer. David Lynch has some great movies that are difficult to unravel. One of the better fantasy epics of the last decade is the Malazan Books of the Fallen, which seems to have twenty different viewpoint characters per 300k word novel, some of whom will appear for five pages and then disappear for two hundred.

I agree that a work should be compelling, though compelling is a subjective reaction, but I’d say that Mass Effect 3 is compelling. It is emotionally taunt and delves into conflicts in a way that’s far more satisfying than the previous games of the series.

Which is one of the reasons that the ending is so disappointing.