23455 réponses à ce sujet

[bossmonkeykj]

thefallen2far wrote...

varnol wrote...

bryceax wrote...

Congrats on being part of the 0.1%

Yeah, well, I know I'm rare gem, but I still believe that most people hated the ending because "Sheppard dies, oh noes!" and "where is my slideshow!" - and that is just... weird. To spend so many hours on this, so many emotions - and fail to appreciate it fully  means that people are just being negative about it.

I can understand the "Shepard is like God" symbolism and I can see how people can like it for that reason.  But that's just one reason to like it, and a big reason to not like it.  Religion is a very sensitive subject.   If it's shoehorned onto someone, they're going to act negatively.  hink about the ending of Lost.... it was following the Buddhist concept of accention to a higher plain of conciousness.  Some people loved the ending and thought it was great and a lot of people just didn't like the ending.

One of the common themes is if you're rated high enough, there's options to how the story unfolds.  There wasn't so much rigidness throught the games.  You don't have to fight Saren, you could convince him to kill himself.  You could talk wrex down instead of killing him.  You could kill Garrus's traitor or loose his loyalty mission, or if you were good enough, you could convince Garrus not to kill the traitor.  When Tali is on trial, you could let her take the fall, blame her father, or if you're good enough then you have the option to not make that choice. You could side with Quarians or the Geth, or if you're good enough you could make peace between the races. 

There were many choices, but in the end... you're given your choices and you have to accept those choices as the only options regardless of how good or leveled up you are and you never see the effects of your actions you're just promised if you pay more money, you could expand on aspects of the ending you already said you hated.  Definative endings were against the style of the game throughout the game... that was its appeal.  

I mean, a lot of people are saying that Phantom Menace left a bad taste in people's mouth and ruined their enjoyment of the Star Wars franchise.  This ending is very akin to that.  They don't have to change it, but they have the option to.  With multiple endings, it's a win-win, you get your ending maybe everyone else gets theirs.

Christian themes find their way in to all sorts of media.  And there's nothing particularly religious about them.  They're just themes that they both share.  Who's going to get offended every time there's a martyr or a selfless person in a story because there are parallels with Jesus?  that's ridiculous.

[LordTridus]

varnol wrote...
Yeah, well, I know I'm rare gem, but I still believe that most people hated the ending because "Sheppard dies, oh noes!" and "where is my slideshow!" - and that is just... weird. To spend so many hours on this, so many emotions - and fail to appreciate it fully  means that people are just being negative about it.

And you'd be wrong. I didn't expect Shepard to live. You can't win this kind of war without sacrifice, and that includes the hero. Plus once you find out that the Citadel is the Catalyst and you have to go there to fire it... yeah. Not surprising.

That doesn't excuse a God AI Starchild throwing faux logic at you, a choice that really amounts to nothing, and EDI somehow magically transporting from my party and on Earth to the Normandy, which itself somehow magically transported into the Mass Relay network ahead of the Crucible firing instead of... you know, fighting the damn war it was there for.

Then there's the whole mass-extinction caused by everyone being stranded around Earth. Good times.

[General Tiberius]

jeweledleah wrote...

General Tiberius wrote..
Boromir from The Lord of the Rings would like a word with you concering epic deaths 

I disagree with your view on the Relays. The races all have FTL travel which doesn't rely on the Relays which they use to travel between systems in local clusters. The Reapers managed to travel to our Galaxy from dark space in around three years, so the alien fleets could travel back to their homeworlds on normal FTL. It'd just take longer and they'd have to refuel/resupply along the way.

Also, the more technologically advanced races (Asari, Turian, Salarian, Human) could probably rebuild the relays, the Protheans managed to build a relay after all. It'll be easier if you picked the destroy ending, all those dead Reapers will be a very easy source of Element Zero and research into their mass effect cores will no doubt yield incredible technological advances. They were built by the same people who built the Mass Relays so their technology will be very similar to the Relays, just on a smaller scale.

The destruction of the relays is not the apocalypse people make it out to be. It opens up the possibility of new technologies. As for dooming this cycle, I'd say being alive on your home planet/system/local cluster is better than being turned into goo and fashioned into a machine of destruction, wouldn't you? 

I didn't like his death,  I thought it was tragic.  i didn't think it was epic.

as for ftl travel - reapers, apprently don't need to discharge their cores periodicaly or risk frying electronics and organics alike.  traveling outside of clusters?  aint happening.

rebuilding relays you say?  relays are worthless without an exit point.  so lets say they rebuild the sol relay.  and?  it will go absolutely nowhere.  when protheans built the conduit - they built it as a matched pair. 

and as for dying as goo or dying on your planet from starvation?  I don't know, its stll a cruel death.  picking a lesser evil doesn't make that lesser evil any good.  its still evil.

lastly.  "even the dead god dreams"  how dead are reapers exactly?

A death can be both tragic and epic. It is tragic that he died. It is epic that he killed around 30 Uruk Hai before they managed to kill him.

Right, so the Reapers have the technology we need. They're also all deactivated in my game so let's get the scientists ripping out their parts. As for how dead they are, they were fried by their own technology, their own governing intelligence. I'd say they are completely dead. The dead Reaper in ME2 still had its Mass Effect core running, so it was more in hibernation. Cut the power and they will fail, just as if you'd removed an organic's heart.

As for Relays needing an exit point, there was no relay on the other side of the Omega-4 relay in ME2. The Normandy also managed to leave that system and make it back to the terminus systems without using a Relay.

So after we've taken their technology and built ships capable of inter-cluster travel on standard FTL we begin the true reconstruction of our galaxy. Construction teams on enormous arks travel to major systems and build new relays. The galaxy is connected again. It may take centuries but if that's what it takes then that's what we do.

People aren't going to starve. All the races have enough technology to grow food in inhospitable environments. The Quarians have been growing food on their ships for centuries, take that technology and apply it hundreds of times over the face of a planet, food problem solved.

Modifié par General Tiberius, 26 mars 2012 - 02:04 .

[Jigokou]

Alright, finished the game, disappointed by the ending as many others, but that's not what I want to talk about right now. As I'm sure it's just beating a dead horse. What I want to talk about, is the final battle. All the forces I recruited for my army, all the choices I had to do during my playthrough, why didn't I see them unfold in the final battle? Where was the fun, where was the sheer badassery? I was discussing this with some people on another forum, here some snippets.

In other news, I've been thinking more and more about how awesome it
would've been to get some proper cutscenes involving your squad members
during the final push/last battle/post-game. I wanna see Zaeed beating
the crap outta some Husks! I wanna see Wrex charging at a Brute head on
and blowing it to shreds!

Is any of that even remotely possible at this point? I mean, could they
include something like that using in-game models and stuff via DLC? Or
is that just a missed opportunity this far along?

Dude, I've been thinking the same. Overall, the ending and final battle
for earth were kind of a letdown. Where were Jack, Samara, Zaeed, Wrex
and the freaking rest of the gang? I fantasized the entire day about
scenarios during the final battle. Like Jack taking down a Brute with
bare hands, Wrex and Victus standing back to back, Zaeed wreaking havoc
with Jessie, Grunt stomping Husks beneath his boot, stuff like that.
Where was all the badassery?

I agree with you both. That would of
been a cool sendoff to see all of your remaining squad members doing
work. It also would of been really powerful, if you saw some of them die
in those moments.

Plus how amazing would it have been to
see your choices reflected in those scenes. Like if you recommend to put
the students from Grissom Academy on the front lines, Jack sacrifices
herself to save them coz they weren't ready. That s**t would've rocked
me to the core. I can't believe they had free reign to finally make
choices matter and they completely disregarded the opportunity. It blows
my mind.

Oh, man that would've been so great. Such an epic fail to not include
stuff like that. You spend so much time building up this awesome army
and then you don't get to see squat as a result lol.

And you're so right about the little choices REALLY coming into play in
scenes like this. That would've been the PERFECT time to see choices
pay off. Saved the Rachni? Well, watch as Grunt is about to be
obliterated by a swarm of Banshees only to have the Rachni Queen show up
and completely decimate 'em! Cured the Genophage? Watch as the
Krogans obliterate everything in sight! Sided with the Salarians? See
Wrex and Grunt back to back, fighting off an invading swarm, when
they're suddenly overwhelmed and set off a grenade, sacrificing
themselves to wipe out the swarm.

PLAYER CHOICE, man. That's where it pays off. I remember in ME2 when
Grunt died during a playthrough and the Collectors whisked him away in a
cloud of death it was actually SAD. I FELT it.

So dumb to not have scenes like these!!

I'm right beside you! Like I said yesterday, I wanted things on an even
bigger scale than just squadmates though. Here is my post from
yesterday:

Honestly, I was cool with the ending at first, but the more I thought on
it, the more it irked me. I think that I wanted to like it so badly
that I overlooked just how much BW wasted the potential of the climax.
Where was the scene of Shepard leading that massive army he built into
battle like in the Take Back Earth trailer? I want to emerge from the
shadows with an army of humans, Krogans, Asari, Geth, Quarians and
Turians in tow. As I fight on the battlefield, I want to see in the
distance, thousands of Rachni, viciously crawling up a Reaper and
tearing it apart piece by piece. I want to watch the Elcor "living
tank," that I've heard so much about gun down Brutes. I want to duck
from an explosion as Aria's mercenaries kamikaze Reapers. I want to run
through the trenches covered by Volus bombers. I want to fight the war
with the army that I spent the whole game....nay trilogy....building,
not just two squadmates.

Sigh....Everything prior to Earth was so effin great. But Bioware drove
the ball for 92 yards....and then settled for a field goal on 4th and
inches.

I loved the final Collector Base battle in ME2, I wish they would have done something similar for the final battle on earth. See the people fight and actually have your choices matter.

Modifié par Jigokou, 26 mars 2012 - 02:04 .

[LaFawn]

oldretired60 wrote...

bossmonkeykj, you better believe after spending as much time and money on these games as we have there are thousands of us that fell entitled to have a choice to have a good ending.  It could have been added among the other endings.  If you don't, good for you, you seem to be in the minority.

I agree. I was really looking forward to the ending based on the choices I made in the first two games because that is what Bioware said was going to happen and that was taken away.

[jeweledleah]

General Tiberius wrote...

jeweledleah wrote...

General Tiberius wrote..
Boromir from The Lord of the Rings would like a word with you concering epic deaths 

I disagree with your view on the Relays. The races all have FTL travel which doesn't rely on the Relays which they use to travel between systems in local clusters. The Reapers managed to travel to our Galaxy from dark space in around three years, so the alien fleets could travel back to their homeworlds on normal FTL. It'd just take longer and they'd have to refuel/resupply along the way.

Also, the more technologically advanced races (Asari, Turian, Salarian, Human) could probably rebuild the relays, the Protheans managed to build a relay after all. It'll be easier if you picked the destroy ending, all those dead Reapers will be a very easy source of Element Zero and research into their mass effect cores will no doubt yield incredible technological advances. They were built by the same people who built the Mass Relays so their technology will be very similar to the Relays, just on a smaller scale.

The destruction of the relays is not the apocalypse people make it out to be. It opens up the possibility of new technologies. As for dooming this cycle, I'd say being alive on your home planet/system/local cluster is better than being turned into goo and fashioned into a machine of destruction, wouldn't you? 

I didn't like his death,  I thought it was tragic.  i didn't think it was epic.

as for ftl travel - reapers, apprently don't need to discharge their cores periodicaly or risk frying electronics and organics alike.  traveling outside of clusters?  aint happening.

rebuilding relays you say?  relays are worthless without an exit point.  so lets say they rebuild the sol relay.  and?  it will go absolutely nowhere.  when protheans built the conduit - they built it as a matched pair. 

and as for dying as goo or dying on your planet from starvation?  I don't know, its stll a cruel death.  picking a lesser evil doesn't make that lesser evil any good.  its still evil.

lastly.  "even the dead god dreams"  how dead are reapers exactly?

A death can be both tragic and epic. It is tragic that he died. It is epic that he killed around 30 Uruk Hai before they managed to kill him.

Right, so the Reapers have the technology we need. They're also all deactivated in my game so let's get the scientists ripping out their parts. As for how dead they are, they were fried by their own technology, their own governing intelligence. I'd say they are completely dead. The dead Reaper in ME2 still had its Mass Effect core running, so it was more in hibernation. Cut the power and they will fail, just as if you'd removed an organic's heart.

So after we've taken their technology and built ships capable of inter-cluster travel on standard FTL we begin the true reconstruction of our galaxy. Construction teams on enormous arks travel to major systems and build new relays. The galaxy is connected again. It may take centuries but if that's what it takes then that's what we do.

People aren't going to starve. All the races have enough technology to grow food in inhospitable environments. The Quarians have been growing food on their ships for centuries, take that technology and apply it hundreds of times over the face of a planet, food problem solved.

did they bring that technology with them? you know to create enough food to last centuries?  what about small colonies that weren't equiped to go dark for this long?  what about tuchanka?  what if reapers traveling between clusters depending on not having to carry organics with them?  after all, reaper troops are no longer organic, they are repurposed and modified and don't need specific temperatures and enviroments to survive?  how are we going to figure this out if even reapers didn't have it available?

and how about dem control and merge endings?

we'll agree to disagree about Boromir.

Modifié par jeweledleah, 26 mars 2012 - 02:04 .

[bossmonkeykj]

LaFawn wrote...

oldretired60 wrote...

bossmonkeykj, you better believe after spending as much time and money on these games as we have there are thousands of us that fell entitled to have a choice to have a good ending.  It could have been added among the other endings.  If you don't, good for you, you seem to be in the minority.

I agree. I was really looking forward to the ending based on the choices I made in the first two games because that is what Bioware said was going to happen and that was taken away.

yeah, that's different.  if they promised something was going to be in the game and it wasn't, that's not ok

[Omnike]

bossmonkeykj wrote...

LaFawn wrote...

oldretired60 wrote...

bossmonkeykj, you better believe after spending as much time and money on these games as we have there are thousands of us that fell entitled to have a choice to have a good ending.  It could have been added among the other endings.  If you don't, good for you, you seem to be in the minority.

I agree. I was really looking forward to the ending based on the choices I made in the first two games because that is what Bioware said was going to happen and that was taken away.

yeah, that's different.  if they promised something was going to be in the game and it wasn't, that's not ok

That was kind of the problem. They said we wouldn't have the ABC endings that we got. Kind of sucks.

[chkchkchk]

As time goes by, the thing that kills me the most is my squadmates deciding at the last minute that they didn't care about the fight against the Reapers. They stopped charging. Joker abandoned the space battle. They all flew off to Pluto.

Setting aside all the plot holes and space magic, what kills me the most is how these characters completely change in the last fifteen minutes. It's like the emotional equivalent of a plot hole.

Only the indoctrination theory can save this ending.

[Cross429]

This. Is. Awesome.

As a professional writer myself, couldn't agree more.

http://jmstevenson.w...-mass-effect-3/

[Mbednar]

I honestly think that Susan O'Connor said it best when asked of her opinion in PCGAMER:

www.pcgamer.com/2012/03/23/mass-effect-3-ending-what-do-game-writers-think/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Susan O’Connor
O’Connor is a professional game writer. She’s written for
BioShock, BioShock 2, and Far Cry 2, among other games. She founded the
Game Writers Conference, now part of GDC Austin. In 2008, she shared the
GDC “Best Writing” award (for BioShock) with Ken Levine, Joe McDonagh,
and Emily Ridgway.
“Whoever said ‘Dying is easy, comedy is hard’ never wrote for video
games. I haven’t played Mass Effect 3 yet, so I can’t speak to that game
specifically, except to say that my heart goes out to those guys on the
team, who I am sure worked incredibly hard on that project. This whole
experience has got to be a punch in the gut for them. Speaking more
generally, this issue feels like one of player expectation. The
takeaway, for me, is that if players are promised player agency, they’re
going to want to see that promise delivered all the way to the (bitter)
end.
If players know from the get-go that they’re playing an authored
game—or if they’re lulled into complacency with the illusion of
agency—then they’ll accept an authored ending, as we’ve seen with other
successful games. The trick is to know up front which kind of game the
team is making, so that they can set player expectation—AND TEAM
expectation as well.  If the creatives know up front that they’re not the
ones telling the story—that their job is to give players the tools to
tell their own story, and then get out of the way—then they’ll come at
the work from a completely different place. And the end result will be
dramatically different. Better? That I don’t know. Only time will tell.
(I’m a sucker for a good story, myself, so I’m a little biased.)”


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Again.  This was one of the statements in PCGAMER, not my own original content.

Modifié par Mbednar, 26 mars 2012 - 02:28 .

[oldretired60]

Cross429, As for the quality mentioned of Baulder's Gate, it was great, but  from what I've been reading on the forums, a lot of the original Bioware employees that developed Baulder's Gate and the older games are gone.  On one forum I read that even the original ones that made Mass Effect and part of Mass Effect 2 are gone.  Just what I read, could be wrong.  Maybe, can't trust what you read on the net most times.

I just wanted an option for a happy ending along with the others. 

[Lochwood]

This explains my disappointment: http://www.themetaga...oblem-with.html

So my issues basically date back to Aristotle, and are fairly universal in human storytelling. You can keep "spocks brain" and the other foibles of the "bad old days" of science fiction.

varnol wrote...

Lochwood wrote...

You may have spent hours with the games, but I don't think you've spent hours thinking about the internal rules of the technology and physics as they're presented in the games' many codex entries. They spent a HUGE amount of time working out and explaining how the discovery of eezo and mass effect fields fueled the development of society and the corresponding constraints -- and at the last second they resort to having an all powerful God show up LITERALLY in the last five minutes, and then bail the main character out of the dire situation with MAGIC.

I've read the codex through and through, it's just that - I like old  sci-fi because... You never knew, you couldn't predict the ending. It would often be non-sensical, yet inspiering. Think about Solaris, for example.

It's not like the soap operas of today, when you know all the rules. Something just happens - and you just stay there in awe, because the universe is suddenly much bigger and much  stranger place than you thought just a moment ago. Its a new concept in todays entertainment - but a good one. People need to be in awe once in  while. You can not downgrade this to table-top game rules. Even those are easily broken when the GM decides so.

Well, the execution of the concept could have been better in this example, I'd admit.  But I expect FANS should be a little bit more forgiving. And I guess some of us are. The, uh, younger and less prepared in sci-fi experience are not.


I know that I loved the ending because the idea of synthesis - and Shepard becoming part of it - as a whole - was something that I was prepared for, his strictly paragon approach was actually leading towards this all along -  thus  it satisfied me fully .

Instead of repeating what others have said,  think- honestly- why you personally didn't like the ending. On the emotional level.  I could never understand how a plothole - even gaping wide plothole can possibly ruin the RPG expirience - however far CRPGs might be from that. You either go along for a ride, or you back away and start looking for an exit - anything that can break the immersion for the sole reason that YOU DON'T LIKE where it's going.

[Omnike]

bossmonkeykj wrote...

LaFawn wrote...

oldretired60 wrote...

bossmonkeykj, you better believe after spending as much time and money on these games as we have there are thousands of us that fell entitled to have a choice to have a good ending.  It could have been added among the other endings.  If you don't, good for you, you seem to be in the minority.

I agree. I was really looking forward to the ending based on the choices I made in the first two games because that is what Bioware said was going to happen and that was taken away.

yeah, that's different.  if they promised something was going to be in the game and it wasn't, that's not ok

Lies 
Official Mass Effect Website 
http://masseffect.com/about/story/ 

“Experience the beginning, middle, and end of an emotional story unlike any 
other, where the decisions you make completely shape your experience 
and outcome.” 

Interview with Mac Walters (Lead Writer) 
http://popwatch.ew.c........c-walters/ 

“[The presence of the Rachni] has huge consequences in Mass 
Effect 3. Even just in the final battle with the Reapers.” 

Interview with Mac Walters (Lead Writer) 
http://business.fina...-all-audiences/ 

“I’m always leery of saying there are 'optimal' endings, because I think 
one of the things we do try to do is make different endings that are 
optimal for different people “ 

Interview with Mike Gamble (Associate Producer) 
http://www.computera...missing-in-me2/ 

“And, to be honest, you [the fans] are crafting your Mass Effect story as 
much as we are anyway.” 

Interview with Mike Gamble (Associate Producer) 
http://www.360magazi...ferent-endings/ 

“There are many different endings. We wouldn’t do it any other way. How 
could you go through all three campaigns playing as your Shepard and 
then be forced into a bespoke ending that everyone gets? But I can’t 
say any more than that…” 

Interview with Mike Gamble (Associate Producer) 
http://www.eurogamer...me-people-angry 

“Every decision you've made will impact how things go. The player's also the 
architect of what happens." 

“You'll get answers to everything. That was one of the key things. Regardless 
of how we did everything, we had to say, yes, we're going to provide 
some answers to these people.” 

“Because a lot of these plot threads are concluding and because it's being 
brought to a finale, since you were a part of architecting how they 
got to how they were, you will definitely sense how they close was 
because of the decisions you made and because of the decisions you 
didn't make” 

Interview with Casey Hudson (Director) 
http://www.gameinfor...s-effect-3.aspx 

“For people who are invested in these characters and the back-story of the 
universe and everything, all of these things come to a resolution in 
Mass Effect 3. And they are resolved in a way that's very different 
based on what you would do in those situations.” 

Interview with Casey Hudson (Director) 
http://venturebeat.c...fans-interview/ 

“Fans want to make sure that they see things resolved, they want to get 
some closure, a great ending. I think they’re going to get that.” 

“Mass Effect 3 is all about answering all the biggest questions in the 
lore, learning about the mysteries and the Protheans and the Reapers, 
being able to decide for yourself how all of these things come to an 
end.” 

Interviewer: “So are you guys the creators or the stewards of the franchise?” 
Hudson: “Um… You know, at this point, I think we’re co-creators with 
the fans. We use a lot of feedback.” 

Interview with Casey Hudson (Director) 
http://www.gameinfor...PostPageIndex=2 

Interviewer: [Regarding the numerous possible endings of Mass Effect 2] “Is that 
same type of complexity built into the ending of Mass Effect 3?” 
Hudson: “Yeah, and I’d say much more so, because we have the ability to 
build the endings out in a way that we don’t have to worry about 
eventually tying them back together somewhere. This story arc is 
coming to an end with this game. That means the endings can be a lot 
more different. At this point we’re taking into account so many 
decisions that you’ve made as a player and reflecting a lot of that 
stuff. It’s not even in any way like the traditional game endings, 
where you can say how many endings there are or whether you got 
ending A, B, or C.....The endings have a lot more sophistication and 
variety in them.” 

“We have a rule in our franchise that there is no canon. You as a player 
decide what your story is.” 

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

bossmonkeykj wrote...

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

bossmonkeykj wrote...

art done well is always a good business decision.  a large franchise is exactly the best speakerphone to do something artistic and groundbreaking.  It all depends on how confident you are in the message you're giving.  Taking risks on the business end for the sake of artistic integrity is something that should be admired, not admonished.

I'm not going to necessarily agree with you. The problem with doing this with a mass marketed product is that you as the publisher have to be willing to face the music, and sometimes, as you've seen, the music isn't always pretty. If something flops one might need to revise it. Something is "so groundbreaking it has to be explained" perhaps it didn't work in the first place -- especially in something like a video game.

A role playing video game is a mass marketed interactive graphic art form with narrative. Now being interactive means that there is another party involved, which is the player. The player has ownership of the actions of the protagonist, and the effects of those actions affect the way the rest of the environment (characters, etc.) react to the protagonist -- I'm oversimplifying, but you get my point.

In a one shot game it's a one shot agreement between the writers and the player. In a trilogy it's a agreement that spread over three parts, and the player has expectations spread over three parts. In the third part of ME3, the player was given a set of expectations by 1) previous experience with the first two installments; 2) presales hype and assurances on how the series was going to end. While the game play and story delivered, the ending did not for too many people, myself included. Thus Bioware is facing the music.

The ending was poor storytelling, IMO. It introduced completely new material without any explanation, and just seized control of Shepard from the player, and changed Shepard from a problem solving ass kicker into a putz who had completely given up hope, and was saying to herself what I the player was thinking "f*** it." And that is called "art." I am having difficulty wrapping my 140+ IQ around this. On that is what Bioware is staking their reputation.

In a story like this you're wanting to give multiple endings yet bring things back together at the same time. The writing in Dragon Age: Origins did this very well. The writing in Mass Effect 3 for the ending missed the boat. Quite simply, it needs significant revision.

I agree, taking that risk isn't going to be good every time, especially if it's poorly executed.  But I still see it as admirable, and if art would win over money more often, our culture would be richer for it.  But if you've seen my other posts, I'm a believer in the indoctrination theory, and I am expecting a free DLC with the real endings any day now

Funny about that. While I still think the indoctrination theory is polishing a turd, to make sense out of why the ending is the way it is, I've had to accept at least portions of it. I'm hoping that the real ending drops as DLC in April and has someone like Garrus dragging Shepard out of the rubble and saying "Shepard, you okay? Come on. We've got to get out of here." He's a tough old bird.

[Cross429]

Mbednar wrote...

I honestly think that Susan O'Connor said it best when asked of her opinion in PCGAMER:

www.pcgamer.com/2012/03/23/mass-effect-3-ending-what-do-game-writers-think/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Susan O’Connor
O’Connor is a professional game writer. She’s written for
BioShock, BioShock 2, and Far Cry 2, among other games. She founded the
Game Writers Conference, now part of GDC Austin. In 2008, she shared the
GDC “Best Writing” award (for BioShock) with Ken Levine, Joe McDonagh,
and Emily Ridgway.
“Whoever said ‘Dying is easy, comedy is hard’ never wrote for video
games. I haven’t played Mass Effect 3 yet, so I can’t speak to that game
specifically, except to say that my heart goes out to those guys on the
team, who I am sure worked incredibly hard on that project. This whole
experience has got to be a punch in the gut for them. Speaking more
generally, this issue feels like one of player expectation. The
takeaway, for me, is that if players are promised player agency, they’re
going to want to see that promise delivered all the way to the (bitter)
end.
If players know from the get-go that they’re playing an authored
game—or if they’re lulled into complacency with the illusion of
agency—then they’ll accept an authored ending, as we’ve seen with other
successful games. The trick is to know up front which kind of game the
team is making, so that they can set player expectation—AND TEAM
expectation as well. If the creatives know up front that they’re not the
ones telling the story—that their job is to give players the tools to
tell their own story, and then get out of the way—then they’ll come at
the work from a completely different place. And the end result will be
dramatically different. Better? That I don’t know. Only time will tell.
(I’m a sucker for a good story, myself, so I’m a little biased.)”


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Again.  This was one of the statements in PCGAMER, not my own original content.

She's right. And I know she's describing a conundrum which affected the writers of this series.

However, the solution can't possibly be: give the players incredible agency through 2.9 games, an agency which defines the series and of which Bioware claims unique invention and marketing rights, only to end said series with the above example of summary "authorship." Emphasize summary. The ending was bad even if Bioware did want to abandon its party line about player choice: there were plot holes, there was no resolution in terms of characters we've spent years with, etc. This is a development team which has owned a much-respected philosopgy regarding  player determination, of which there was virtually none in this conclusion to the entire trilogy.
 
I hope that IT is correct and that Bioware intended a "speculation" ending followed by a proper conclusion, which would be superior to a simple wrap-up. Nonetheless, I mourn the series ending on such a shallow - not depressing, depressing is fine - note.

Modifié par Cross429, 26 mars 2012 - 02:38 .

[taloris]

General Tiberius wrote...

The destruction of the relays is not the apocalypse people make it out to be. It opens up the possibility of new technologies. As for dooming this cycle, I'd say being alive on your home planet/system/local cluster is better than being turned into goo and fashioned into a machine of destruction, wouldn't you? 

So all the Batarians that got obliterated when the Alpha Relay was destroyed was just an oversight and doesn't actually establish anything about Relay destruction? 

[Lochwood]

bossmonkeykj wrote...

oldretired60 wrote...

bossmonkeykj, you better believe after spending as much time and money on these games as we have there are thousands of us that fell entitled to have a choice to have a good ending.  It could have been added among the other endings.  If you don't, good for you, you seem to be in the minority.

you gave bioware money, and they gave you a product.  you got what you paid for.  if you didn't like it, tough, you don't have to buy from them any more.  the amount of time you spent playing their game and how invested you got is all a bonus, and you aren't entitled to enjoying it.  it's obviously good business to make a product you'll enjoy, but if you didn't, they don't really owe you anything more, especially with the hours of good entertainment you got out of it, regardless of the ending.

I agree. But let's see how EA comes to terms with near universal dissatisfaction from their most loyal customers. How did DA2's final sales figures work out? I have no proprietary on contractual rights as against EA -- but if I don't get what I want, our commercial relationship may just sour in a way that's unsatisfying for ea shareholders. We're basically discussing semantics.

[Meix]

Now that I've read more of this thread and peoples' reactions... I have to agree in that the ending did feel out of my control. The fact that all the endings were essentially the same, so no matter what choice you made, it didn't matter quite so much in the end for *your* Shepard... So yeah, disappointed with the endings, but I have temporarily made peace with it. I have faith in Bioware and that they'll respond to fans' well-thought out suggestions for improvement. If anyone can do it, it's Bioware. All we can do is keep on giving our constructive criticism in a poilte, open discussion and stay positive.

[Blakes812]

1st Post ever... Not Happy with the ending. I feel as though I was not given what promised. I dont need a happy ending, just the ability to make my own semi custom one that does not involve different colors, and so many plot holes and unexplained wierdness.

[Mbednar]

Cross429 wrote...

Mbednar wrote...

I honestly think that Susan O'Connor said it best when asked of her opinion in PCGAMER:

www.pcgamer.com/2012/03/23/mass-effect-3-ending-what-do-game-writers-think/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Susan O’Connor
O’Connor is a professional game writer. She’s written for
BioShock, BioShock 2, and Far Cry 2, among other games. She founded the
Game Writers Conference, now part of GDC Austin. In 2008, she shared the
GDC “Best Writing” award (for BioShock) with Ken Levine, Joe McDonagh,
and Emily Ridgway.
“Whoever said ‘Dying is easy, comedy is hard’ never wrote for video
games. I haven’t played Mass Effect 3 yet, so I can’t speak to that game
specifically, except to say that my heart goes out to those guys on the
team, who I am sure worked incredibly hard on that project. This whole
experience has got to be a punch in the gut for them. Speaking more
generally, this issue feels like one of player expectation. The
takeaway, for me, is that if players are promised player agency, they’re
going to want to see that promise delivered all the way to the (bitter)
end.
If players know from the get-go that they’re playing an authored
game—or if they’re lulled into complacency with the illusion of
agency—then they’ll accept an authored ending, as we’ve seen with other
successful games. The trick is to know up front which kind of game the
team is making, so that they can set player expectation—AND TEAM
expectation as well. If the creatives know up front that they’re not the
ones telling the story—that their job is to give players the tools to
tell their own story, and then get out of the way—then they’ll come at
the work from a completely different place. And the end result will be
dramatically different. Better? That I don’t know. Only time will tell.
(I’m a sucker for a good story, myself, so I’m a little biased.)”


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Again.  This was one of the statements in PCGAMER, not my own original content.

She's right. And I know she's describing a conundrum which affected the writers of this series.

However, the solution can't possibly be: give the players incredible agency through 2.9 games, one which defines the series and of which you claim ownership and marketing rights, only to end with an example of summary "authorship." Emphasize summary. The ending was bad even from a POV denying player choice: there were plot holes, there was no resolution in terms of characters we've spent years with, etc. Never mind bad from the perspective of player determination, of which there was virtually none.

I hope that IT is correct and that Bioware intended a "speculation" ending followed by a proper conclusion, which would be superior to a simple wrap-up. Nonetheless, I mourn the series ending on such a shallow - not depressing, depressing is fine - note.

No I agree with you.

I think that Bioware should have taken more time in making player choice have a more significant impact.  And, there should have been more options at the end of the game.

Because in the end, Bioware has said it themselves, We are authoring our OWN story.  There is no CANON.

[ragnorok87]

bioware is just a bunch of liers. as for the ending dlc all we are going to get is some different coloured explosions. oh and more space magic

[Cross429]

ragnorok87 wrote...

bioware is just a bunch of liers. as for the ending dlc all we are going to get is some different coloured explosions. oh and more space magic

Sorry, but ending of ME3 aside, Bioware has earned our trust. You can treat them like a typical game compnany, but you'd be wrong.

I believe that they're working on a DLC to fix this. Yes, the promises made have not - so far- been realized. That's not to say they won't, and that's why we're here.

[improperdancing]

Cross429 wrote...

ragnorok87 wrote...

bioware is just a bunch of liers. as for the ending dlc all we are going to get is some different coloured explosions. oh and more space magic

Sorry, but ending of ME3 aside, Bioware has earned our trust. You can treat them like a typical game compnany, but you'd be wrong.

I believe that they're working on a DLC to fix this. Yes, the promises made have not - so far- been realized. That's not to say they won't, and that's why we're here.

Trust is a hard thing to gain, but an easy thing to lose.  BioWare earned my trust, sure, but between this game and Dragon Age II, they've gone a long way toward losing it.  I feel like, since the EA acquisition, they're quickly turning into just another game company that's far more concerned with turning a profit and pumping out DLC than they are with quality control.

[bossmonkeykj]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

bossmonkeykj wrote...

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

bossmonkeykj wrote...

art done well is always a good business decision.  a large franchise is exactly the best speakerphone to do something artistic and groundbreaking.  It all depends on how confident you are in the message you're giving.  Taking risks on the business end for the sake of artistic integrity is something that should be admired, not admonished.

I'm not going to necessarily agree with you. The problem with doing this with a mass marketed product is that you as the publisher have to be willing to face the music, and sometimes, as you've seen, the music isn't always pretty. If something flops one might need to revise it. Something is "so groundbreaking it has to be explained" perhaps it didn't work in the first place -- especially in something like a video game.

A role playing video game is a mass marketed interactive graphic art form with narrative. Now being interactive means that there is another party involved, which is the player. The player has ownership of the actions of the protagonist, and the effects of those actions affect the way the rest of the environment (characters, etc.) react to the protagonist -- I'm oversimplifying, but you get my point.

In a one shot game it's a one shot agreement between the writers and the player. In a trilogy it's a agreement that spread over three parts, and the player has expectations spread over three parts. In the third part of ME3, the player was given a set of expectations by 1) previous experience with the first two installments; 2) presales hype and assurances on how the series was going to end. While the game play and story delivered, the ending did not for too many people, myself included. Thus Bioware is facing the music.

The ending was poor storytelling, IMO. It introduced completely new material without any explanation, and just seized control of Shepard from the player, and changed Shepard from a problem solving ass kicker into a putz who had completely given up hope, and was saying to herself what I the player was thinking "f*** it." And that is called "art." I am having difficulty wrapping my 140+ IQ around this. On that is what Bioware is staking their reputation.

In a story like this you're wanting to give multiple endings yet bring things back together at the same time. The writing in Dragon Age: Origins did this very well. The writing in Mass Effect 3 for the ending missed the boat. Quite simply, it needs significant revision.

I agree, taking that risk isn't going to be good every time, especially if it's poorly executed.  But I still see it as admirable, and if art would win over money more often, our culture would be richer for it.  But if you've seen my other posts, I'm a believer in the indoctrination theory, and I am expecting a free DLC with the real endings any day now

Funny about that. While I still think the indoctrination theory is polishing a turd, to make sense out of why the ending is the way it is, I've had to accept at least portions of it. I'm hoping that the real ending drops as DLC in April and has someone like Garrus dragging Shepard out of the rubble and saying "Shepard, you okay? Come on. We've got to get out of here." He's a tough old bird.

it wouldn't be polishing a turd if they meant for it to happen the entire time, and are currently just ****ing with us so we sit in this state of indoctrination until they release it.  if that's true, they will release the free dlc soon as proof that they didn't just throw something together to paint over a ****ty ending and appease us