The thread I created for it is
here.
Dear Bioware:
After my first playthrough during the first week of release, I only just managed to finish my second completionist
playthrough. And I have 'narrowed' my final thoughts/dissatisfactions with the endings down to four main points.
- Normandy's Fate
- The Mass Relays
- The Choices & The Catalyst
- Your management of PR pre/post-release
1. Normandy's FateI assume this was a result of budget/time constraints or just a purely incidental but equally horrible oversight. I think there have been enough complaints regarding how the normandy wound up where it did, and especially the crew that were magically aboard it. I am sure this will definitely be one of those things you will address in the upcoming 'clarification' content. So... I am not going to dwell on this very much.
2. The Mass RelaysI fully appreciate HOW you came to the decision to destroy the Mass Relays. The Mass Relays, along with the citadel, are figurative and literal shackles of the reapers and their cycles. Not only do they ensure that any civilization that reaches space-faring age develops along the technological and possibly political paths the Reapers desire, they also ensure that all space faring civilizations are linked and easy to reach for the harvesting season.
The Mass Relays and the citadel are as much part of the same evil that the players are fighting as the reapers themselves. Therefore logically, it does makes sense that these relays are 'defeated' along with the reapers at the end.However, the mass relays are also an integral part (could not emphasis 'integral' enough) of the universe that you've created and had your audience fall in love with throughout the series. It really should have been very apparent to you as an important factor that gave you serious pause when making this decision (perhaps it was). Without a single indicator as to what the consequences of this will be after the fact, your audience is only left to assume the worst of the very universe and its characters (races) that they've come to love, and most definitely signalled the end of the Mass Effect universe that was built around the mass relays, the core fabric that glued together the universe as the fans knew it. This was personally the BIGGEST punch in the gut as a fan of the series for me, and one of the components of the conclusion that really should have not been left to the audiences' imagination/despair.
I've heard that the reason why you handled the endings the way you did was because you wanted things to be left to open to interpretation. And there's certainly something to be said for leaving certain things unanswered, and leaving it to the imagination of the audience. The spinning spindle at the end of the movie Inception for example is a recent and a very eloquent example of this. However, the conclusion that ME3 provides doesn't leave the audience dwelling on their interpretations of the story, but instead, leaves the audience QUESTIONING the story itself. There are certainly merits to inciting open-interpretation and provoking the audience's imagination instead of trying to slap answers on everything. Mass Effect 3's conclusion was an example of doing anything BUT that.
3. The Choices/The CatalystThey each on their own make sense and arguably work, but they did not work for me because of the way the catalyst was implemented (more on that below), the destruction of the relays in every scenerio (as mentioned above), a certain level of disconnect between everything the players have done up until that point, and the fact that they're all very... very... grim and offer very little sense of hope, not just specifically to the Mass Effect universe that the audience had come to love, but simply as a solution to problems.
Even without the destruction of the relays in consideration, all of the three endings are very morally ambiguous, dark, and/or offer very-little resolution to the main-conflict that the players have been fighting throughout the three games.
Syntheis.. the concept of changing every organic being in the galaxy and turning them to synthetics, whether that is truly is the genetic destiny or not, is a very questionable one. It's a solution that is incredibly ambiguous from a moral/ethical stand point. Albeit fascinating, when it's one of THREE definitive options, where the other two are even more 'crappy,' I can't help but think if there's some crazy religious fanatic in your team (of the technological variety) pushing an agenda or if whoever was in charge was smoking copious amounts of funny substances (I hear canada is lenient on pot ;p).
The control option is seemingly the least destructive option. Shepard sacrifices him/herself to save the universe without making any destructive changes to it (other then the destruction of the relays which seems odd to me, considering the reapers aren't being removed). However, for anyone thinking even 5 years ahead, it also offers very little resolution to the conflict. The very beings that can choose to destroy the universe at their whim (reapers), are still being preserved, with very little assurance of Shepard's 'essence' holding them back for anything longer than the immediate future. Even the catalyst's own words are ambiguous about this. The catalyst tells shepard that everything that made Shepard as people know him/her will be gone, but for the control he/she exercises over the reapers. Not only does that bear little hope for the future of the galaxy, it also essentially offers zero-closure on the resolution of the conflict.
The destruction option does provide closure, however at the cost of genocide of an entire race, which also happens to be the one true hope of combating what the 'inevitable' technological singularity that the catalyst says caused all of this in the first place. It's an acceptable ending of its own that does provide closure and doesn't force a very questionable philosophy, except for the genocide part. When that's arguably the least evil of the three choices... it's saying something.
I understand the notion of wanting to place significant consequences/thought to all of the options, and making them 'meaningful'. However, the 'weights' of the decisions presented here also feel arbitrary and feel forced purely for the benefit of satsifying that notion, rather than them being appropriate to the overall narrative. The truth behind the origin of the reapers, creations of a being (the catalyst) that has seen/been through a technological singularity, is actually a very cool idea for a conflict set in a space sci-fi setting. Even the idea that the purposed/enforced solution by the catalyst was simply to 'harvest' advanced civilizations periodically before they reach yet another technological singularity to preserve order of the universe (something that many fans have been ragging on) is actually cool. That is actually one thing you can blame the fans for not really trying to accept/understand (then again, I also feel that the fan's true source of anger was not really this, and in consideration of the context, they’re kind of right to). Sure, it's 'flawed' logic, but if it wasn't flawed, they wouldn't be the 'bad guy' would they, and Shepard wouldn't be fighting this war in the first place.
However, the conclusions (the choices) that are provided by the catalyst, ultimately feel too forced/contrived in execution, and provide very limited and almost purely nihilistic set of consequences for the universe. The fact that the answers to basically to a very high-level concept of solving the problem of 'technological singularity' and the question of 'how the future of the entire universe should be determined' are narrowed to merely three choices, seem very forced. They also ultimately do not really feel releavant to what the overall narrative has been about, which was never really to answer the 'question of universe, life, and everything.' It was always about fighting the galaxy's imminent doom presented by an unfathomable force. Perhaps it would have been more wise to at least provide an option to avoid trying to answer the philosphical question presented by the catalyst and just the immeidate threat of the reapers. Perhaps allow Shepard to be the voice of reason and hope against the Catalyst's logic, and postpone this act of judgment (and tie EMS ratings as a time-factor that allows Shepard to do this). I don't know, what I do know is the ending options that are given, just do not feel right at all, not for Mass Effect, and not for the high-level concept you're introducing.
Ultimately, and with all due respect, while Mass Effect may be a fantastic/ground-breaking achievement in storytelling in videogames, it is still just a video game that hasn't quite 'earn' the conclusion it tries to provide.
When Mass Effect makes the jump from 'fighting mysterious evil entities threatening the universe' to trying to ANSWER the question of the 'end of man?' (a solution to technological singularity), a topic just as morally/philosophically charged as the ancient and still disputed question of the 'origin of man'... something feels wrong. I want to note that I truly respect and fully support your decision to introduce and tackle such a thought-provoking subject in your game. However, you also trivialize the subject immediately after introducing it by narrowing down 'the answer' into three very contrived/flawed choices. If you want to tackle subjects and discussions like these, you also have to do it right and do it justice.I don't always believe in happy endings, and certainly not for the story you told here. You've done a beautiful job building up the last moments of the game as being the last moments of Shepard's journey. But when the outcome of his/her journey (and ultimately your fans' journey with you) are these... well you can't blame the fans for feeling betrayed.
4. Your management of PR pre/post-releaseAt the time of the game's release and in the weeks leading up to it, you probably did not expect this kind of reaction at all. I don't blame you at all, and I can fully empathize with this. It's been clear to me that you were blindsided by the vitriol from the very fans you painstakingly labored to create this game for. The only words I can think of to describe your current circumstance are 'unfortunate' and ‘heartbreaking’.
However, there are still some aspects of the way you conducted yourself through this that I must criticize as a fan.
Pre-Release. When pouring your heart/soul into something you love, it's easy to get overwhelmed by the enthusiasm you have for the project as well as the prospect of releasing it to the very fans that have also poured the same level of heart/soul into your products. But there's something to be said for self-restraint.
These days, many people (especially fans) criticize the lack of soul and truthfulness in how developers conduct themselves in today's gaming culture and their tendency to be too-calculated and over filtered by the PR. However, it should be noted that all of that is for a good reason. A lot of Casey's pre-release statements/interviews were sorely lacking the level of consideration and caution that should be expected of any representative discussing an unreleased project. It seems cruel to criticize someone merely for being enthusiastic about the current project of his team,
but it should be noted that there are repercussions from going overboard with the fans who are eagerly waiting in the dark picking up everything you say with the same level of if not higher level of enthusiasm and anticipation.
The post-release reactions, which grew greatly over time, were probably unexpected for you, and perhaps even a little unfair. However, there's still something to be said for humility and truly respecting your fans.
The round-about/dismissive tweets and, more significantly, indirect but rather offensive re-tweets from some of the high-level members of your team were not at all in good taste and did not help your situation. Some of the articles/tweets that were re-tweeted by your staff were no less distasteful/offensive than some of the more distasteful/out-of-line fans themselves. You should not have stooped the same level as the unsavory fans or the distasteful/dismissive media that engaged in the sh*t storm. Your high-level employees at this point must surely understand that they're public figures, and what they say in public WILL represent the company and be subjected to the fan's perception of you, a crucial thing to remember especially when there's a problem like this.
I also feel that your moderating team who were handling the brunt of the backlash (and did an admirable job for the most part) did not maintain a truly 'neutral' stance through this crisis, and this was quite damaging. Many members of the moderating team clearly vocalized their own stances (aka "Pro-ending") regarding the very subject matter they were attempting to moderate and filter to be relayed on to the development team. Perhaps this was an attempt to seem more human and honest, but it really did not help your cause in containing the situation at all. It only fueled the notion that truly no one at Bioware was interested in listening to the fans or that they cared (the truth which I am sure and hope was anything but).
It did seem however, that the most of the core-creative staff eventually went into a state of complete silence once the backlash grew to be something more than your usual post-release whinefest, and I can only hope it's because you really started taking the magnitude and the validity of the lashback/complaints seriously.
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This post might seem a little too late and too long (I am sure not many will read this in its entirety), but I still thought they were worth typing out. For those few that did read, thank you. And I can only hope this message reaches those at Bioware.
Bioware, you have my sincere thanks for the Mass Effect series, which was nearly* perfect, and will most certainly be remembered as an important landmark in the history of the RPG genre. I am rather disheartend that such an important/brilliant trilogy did not quite get the ending it deserved, and will most likely be tarnished for it. Based on the quality of the rest of the series (and the endings of the last two ME2 games), I can only assume there were some factors outside of your control that resulted in what happened to ME3. I hope the fan movement gave you more leverage in that.
You also have my condolences for your current predicament, and I look forward to seeing your answer to this situation in April as I hope for the best.
Lastly, I am sure you'll definitely think back to this situation as you go forward on to your other future projects, and I really hope you will take away and learn from this situation rather than simply trying to ignore/forget it.
Best Regards,
A Fan
Modifié par pikey1969, 04 avril 2012 - 09:57 .
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But some of the little moments that made the game a joy to play.
