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[darkway1]

3DandBeyond wrote...

darkway1 wrote...

3DandBeyond wrote...

darkway1 wrote...

3DandBeyond

Just read your fanfiction,work in progress.........It's beautiful,thank you for sharing.

Hey thank you.  A lot to work out of course, but it's a start. Your thoughts mean a lot.

You capture that bond between characters very well and you create a scenario I at least want to see,Liara always seemed a little sad to me through out the series,it's nice to imagine her truely happy in the end.

I think what happened for me is that I began to see the game as a profound romance set against insurmountable odds.  It's not only a romance of course but that's a big part of it.  No matter what Shepard you, the player chose, Liara was the most feeling of the LI choices in my opinion.  Tali could have been, but was hidden behind that mask.  Liara's eyes were always so expressive.  Garrus was a fantastic character, with an interesting life, but someone I just wanted to get a drink with or shoot the breeze and bottles with.  Liara just always became the natural love interest.  Thane could have been, because of his deep, deep soul, but he was doomed and even when I wanted to go there (he called me Siha), I just couldn't face the certain heartache.  It was bad enough as it was. 

It just seems so much like this is the biggest fail of the ending, that it didn't take into account, didn't "get" just how much people cared about all of these characters.  Mordin, this guy who'd made some of the worst choices along the way, I loved Mordin.  It was so funny when he thought I was trying to come onto him in ME2.  And Thane, that broken man who saw his fate clearly.  Miranda, the perfect woman unable to have children, yet so focused on the one child she hoped to save.  Jack, broken and beaten in some desire to create the perfect biotic soldier, showing that she still had the capacity to love with her biotic kids.  The Krogans as a whole, overcoming the systematic changes that other species had made to them, and deciding, just deciding to forge a different path.  The Geth and Quarians willing to overlook the sins that each other perpetrated and move on.

This freaking ending just smashes all of that.  It was a great story with great pathos and romance and selflessness turned into some incomprehensible goo.

Yes,the characters introduced in Mass2 were my fav part of the game franchise,each one had a unique standpoint,each one had a charm of their own.........Zaeed was not my fav character for example but I took him on missions because his banter entertained the hell out of me........I found it interesting that instead of playing the game to win,I actually played to suit the characters I liked........which is a strange way to play a game really........but goes to show the influence the characters have.
It's this very subject I feel got dumbed down in Mass3 and by the time we got to the end of course it was abandoned all together,even having the chance to say a few last words with your team before the final push seemed emotionally detached.....I feel that I spent more time talking crap on the Citadel than you do in your final hour so to speak.
....but yeah,you nailed it on the head I think,the bond between player and character/character and character was some thing special.....Bioware created some thing unique with this franchise......seems insane that they end it in such a mindless way.

[Voodoo-j]

Archonsg wrote...

In regards to the boss fight, there is a way to make the Crucible make sense of sorts. Let it be a transmitter that allows you to "hack" into the Reaper's AI VR world, very much like on Rannoch with Legion and the Geth. The Catalyst, a living mind, in this case Shepard.


So, this last fight, will be a two man party fight against a VR representation of Harbinger and the rest of the Reapers consciousness, programming, hive-mind...whatever. It already has a precedence on Rannoch, and it doesn't "bend" the rules too much, and you don't have the "improbable" issue of Shepard fighting Harbinger with a peashooter Blackwidow.

Plus, it'll give the writers leeway to "disable" Reaper systems thus allow the Alliance Fleet to win a conventional fight against the reapers.

This is more what I was actually expecting for the end of the game.

[Levi1988]

Can we say false advertising perfected.

[noivoieidoi]

AmstradHero wrote...

noivoieidoi wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...
If you're willing to disbelieve things that are directly stated as truths to the player, then we may as well throw the whole ending out entirely.

Father: We, the mature ones, built this Body.
Kid: This Body is my home and it is part of Me.

Supplementary - this is consistent with:

Kid: I control father and I never said I created him. Father kicks your beep on a regular basis once in 5 days. He was my solution. never said my creation, to keep you from accidentally hurt yourself make big bubu with your toys.

Again, basically you're manipulating the presentation to suit your own desire or explanation, or expecting the child to be speaking in a misleading manner.

Perhaps English is your second language (I'm getting that impression from the irrelevant paragraphs you're posting that don't actually support your point) so you don't comprehend the nuance of the language used.

The child says: "The reapers are mine. I control them. They are my solution." He owns them. This isn't some child talking about his father. They are his solution. A solution is something that has to be calculated and created. If they are ITS solution, that implies that it created them. It is potentially the collective consciousness of very species to "ascend" to Reaper form, considering it has to have existed the first time around to create the solution to the problem. Just because the Catalyst has taken on the FORM of a child, it doesn't mean that it is one. We're talking about something that has existing for presumably millions of years. It's not stupid. Its words have meaning.

"We found a way ... to restore order for the next cycle. ... Without us, synthetics would destroy all organics. We've created the cycle so that never happens."

Everything about the conversation implies that the space child is either part of the collective Reaper consciousness or some kind of deity that created/controls the Reapers. It provides the new options, and it offers Shepard the ability to control "us" i.e. the Reapers.

Believing that the Catalyst was created by the Reapers requires you to interpret its speech in a fashion at odds with its wording and vocabulary. Then again, the ending is so horribly written that maybe the writers screwed that up too.

Still beyond our reach? Let’s try another example: this light bulb (mine, I own it) is my solution to your corner’s darkness. Does this make me the creator of the light bulb? Somebody invented it, some factory made it and so on; I bought it at Home Depot. See it now?

On the bright side, we began to understand some differences though, judging by the way we try to bury the changes in our discourse under a great deal of nonsense, isn’t it? (Now we talk about ‘implied’ instead of ‘directly stated as true’, ‘misleads’ instead of ‘lies’). Good. Once we fully understood it all, we can deepen our knowledge by putting things in different contexts so we can see how the implications may differ under various circumstances. But you need to work with me here, OK? Don’t be afraid, I’ll hold your hand...

I’m confident in a few more steps we may also begin to understand how to make proper use of some concepts, ideas or criteria when writing a literary analysis. For instance, how to show other people what went wrong and how could we explain that by the insertion of a somewhat new character right before the end of the story. The final step will consist in speculating about the value and the downsides of the choice the authors made when they sacrificed the clarity and detail in order to achieve a stronger emotional response and ask some questions as any artistic creation should. Don’t worry - I’ll be monitoring your progress and come up with this point at the right time, so we won’t be that confused the next time.

What’s the difference between a story (ME series, objectively, as given) with a beginning and an ending, which is meant to send the message the authors intended, and a game having a different outcome function of our choices will be analyzed sometime the next year, not sure about the exact date. The schedule will be dynamically adjusted according to our progress. However, one cannot decide what was all about BEFORE finishing the thing, as well as the 'established lore' (another thing the unhappy ones abuse) cannot be established randomly by each player at the point they decided to stop playing.


Forgot:

Modifié par noivoieidoi, 24 avril 2012 - 07:14 .

[Leem_0001]

Levi1988 wrote...




Can we say false advertising perfected.

You know, watching this, and the quotes made by the Bioware staff, I really feel like the endings they had planned incorporated all of this. They were the endings we all wanted. The choice and variety. I just think SOMETHING happend where they were aborted kind of last minute. Whether that was EA's involvement or some technical issue, who knows. The thing is, Casey Hudson and the Bioware team - I don't for one second think they are stupid people. If the ending we have was always the one envisioned, no way would they have come out with these statements.

I may be completely wrong, but I think up until the games release all of these statements would have held true. And for whatever reason, they had to scrap the plans and cobble something together. Such a shame too, and I would love to know the real reason behind it.

Can't say for certain, but if I was a betting person I would put my money on EA's involvement having something to do with it.

Of course, this is pure conjecture - but reading the quotes made by the team in the build up, its the only thing that makes any kind of sense to me. And they cannot come out and tell us what has happened, so they have to stick by what we have and play the PR game.

Such a massive shame, as I was a huge fan of Bioware and the ME series.

[Elsidur]

Actually replayed ME1, ME2 and then  played ME3 and took me like 1 month to finish all of em(working man). Epic win for ME3 bad ending for me left me with a sour taste. Addicted to the multiplayer tho ahaha. will play that until they release a good patch with better ending and ending CG. 7k fleet readiness when i finished the game

[Chrislo1990]

I just can't get my head around how Bioware had the  audacity to release  a game that  ruined the integrity of an entire franchise! It's been about a month since I beat the game and I still can't get over the sorrow it has brought me.  Mass Effect is my favorite game franchise of all time. I fell in love with  its deep interactive storytelling and emphasis on player choice. To see such a masterful franchise conclude in such an atrocious manner is insulting both to me and the franchise itself! One would have thought that more care would have been taken in developing the final chapter. Players expected choices to have weight and meaning to them. They expected their decisions to result in wildly different outcomes grounded within reason. Bioware devs have gone on record not only once but multiple times promising full player control over Shepard's fate. They promised variety but what do we get instead? We get an ending that not only defies the logic but also invalidates ME3's predecessors. Our decisions prove meaningless. Player control is reduced to nothing more than choice between different colored explosions filled with plot holes. That to me is unforgivable. 

Guys the extended cut dlc won't save ME3. The endings are just so ridiculous and implausible that further "explanation" will make them seem even more implausible. No amount of clarification can undo the fact that Bioware took away player choice in determining the end of Shepard's story. No amount of clarification can undo the fact that past decisions had little to no weight to them. Bioware  knows  this all to well and yet they refuse to add additional endings to rescue their OWN franchise! If this isn't a clear sign of  carelessness towards their games and their fanbase, then I don't know what is. Artistic integrity is no excuse for lying to us about a subpar product and then throwing all of our feedback right back to our faces. How dare you Bioware? Lord knows we've all contributed to this thread out of our love for Mass Effect. When the call for feedback was made,  we answered immediately, pouring both our hearts and minds in our desperate attempts to save Mass Effect from it's developers own mistakes! Now you have the stomach to tells us bluntly that you won't change the endings out of a sense of artistic freedom? Who do you think you're fooling?

Guys please continue posting your thoughts and  hold your wallets with future dlc. If Bioware wants to stick to the artistic integrity card, then let us show them that ME3  is a product first and foremost. Let us hold our money until said product meets our expectations. Let's see if they'll stick to their artistic integrity when profits start decreasing dramatically.

[3DandBeyond]

Awesome, just awesome. But, even if they had not made explicit promises, there are some that are implied. You keep faith with dogma.

If I want to write a story about Superman, I don't change it to say he was born on Earth and drank special baby formula and then call it artistic. Not if I don't want to ****** off a lot of Superman fans.

"You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind. You don't pull the mask off of that old Lone Ranger" and you don't mess around with Mass Effect. My thanks to Jim Croce.

We all know what's basically wrong with the ending. We even can state ways to make it better and to make it work better. We can even see validity in creating these truly different endings that could range from great to all out nasty. And we can see that our decisions have the potential to lead us to these conclusions. So, why can't they? Actually, I think what's far worse is that they can. I don't believe they believe what they've said. I believe they also cared about these characters and stories. I just think they have backed themselves into a corner. They did it when they over-promised. What they don't and didn't understand is that fans may well have accepted a few different endings, not needing and endless amount of endings (something that no one could deliver), but we wanted them to have context within the game and we just freaking wanted them to be different, logical endings. Endings that are different from each other.

1.Really bad, boom, Reapers not destroyed, Reapers destroy everything.
2.Bad, boom, Reapers not destroyed, but Reapers disabled or run away. Fleets stranded. Massive destruction.
3.So-so, Reapers destroyed, half of galaxy screwed.
4.Kind of good, Reapers destroyed, technology screwed, fleets limping home, some relays destroyed.
5.Better, Reapers destroyed, relays in place, many team members unaccounted for.
6.Even better, Reapers destroyed, relays in place, team members survive.

Throughout these choices (no, not choices but consequences of your actions) there is sprinkled the probability of Shepard's death, the possibility of Shepard's survival, the possibility of Shepard's death, and the probability of Shepard's survival.

I'm not saying this is what we all want, but just showing that you can have a limited number of endings with some variation of choice and of doom and gloom or happy, sappy. My imagination says it even would have been great for Shepard to survive, but experience impending destruction as the Reapers finish the cycle. But that's something the current endings don't allow for-doesn't matter anyway, since they wouldn't let you see it. Just like you don't get to see the impact now.

I imagine the emotional impact seeing Shepard crawling away from Harbinger, thoughts of his/her friends and LI, and then Shepard looking up as apparent doom approaches.  S/he is spared by Harbinger but then Earth implodes or whatever.  I also imagine the alternate emotional impact of everyone but Shepard surviving.  Or of Shepard surviving, but knowing friends gave all.

Modifié par 3DandBeyond, 24 avril 2012 - 07:37 .

[Grompher]

3DandBeyond wrote...

Awesome, just awesome. But, even if they had not made explicit promises, there are some that are implied. You keep faith with dogma.

If I want to write a story about Superman, I don't change it to say he was born on Earth and drank special baby formula and then call it artistic. Not if I don't want to ****** off a lot of Superman fans.

"You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind. You don't pull the mask off of that old Lone Ranger" and you don't mess around with Mass Effect. My thanks to Jim Croce.

We all know what's basically wrong with the ending. We even can state ways to make it better and to make it work better. We can even see validity in creating these truly different endings that could range from great to all out nasty. And we can see that our decisions have the potential to lead us to these conclusions. So, why can't they? Actually, I think what's far worse is that they can. I don't believe they believe what they've said. I believe they also cared about these characters and stories. I just think they have backed themselves into a corner. They did it when they over-promised. What they don't and didn't understand is that fans may well have accepted a few different endings, not needing and endless amount of endings (something that no one could deliver), but we wanted them to have context within the game and we just freaking wanted them to be different, logical endings. Endings that are different from each other.

1.Really bad, boom, Reapers not destroyed, Reapers destroy everything.
2.Bad, boom, Reapers not destroyed, but Reapers disabled or run away. Fleets stranded. Massive destruction.
3.So-so, Reapers destroyed, half of galaxy screwed.
4.Kind of good, Reapers destroyed, technology screwed, fleets limping home, some relays destroyed.
5.Better, Reapers destroyed, relays in place, many team members unaccounted for.
6.Even better, Reapers destroyed, relays in place, team members survive.

Throughout these choices (no, not choices but consequences of your actions) there is sprinkled the probability of Shepard's death, the possibility of Shepard's survival, the possibility of Shepard's death, and the probability of Shepard's survival.

I'm not saying this is what we all want, but just showing that you can have a limited number of endings with some variation of choice and of doom and gloom or happy, sappy. My imagination says it even would have been great for Shepard to survive, but experience impending destruction as the Reapers finish the cycle. But that's something the current endings don't allow for-doesn't matter anyway, since they wouldn't let you see it. Just like you don't get to see the impact now.

I imagine the emotional impact seeing Shepard crawling away from Harbinger, thoughts of his/her friends and LI, and then Shepard looking up as apparent doom approaches.  S/he is spared by Harbinger but then Earth implodes or whatever.  I also imagine the alternate emotional impact of everyone but Shepard surviving.  Or of Shepard surviving, but knowing friends gave all.

Actually, that ladder of different endings doesnt seem that hard to make. And I personally think that sort of system would have been incredibly satisfying.

It would even have motivated me to play like **** to get the horrible endings once or twice too

[Pectar]

Deus Ex Machina x3:
1) A plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object. (Introduction of the star-child)

2) Literally translates to "God from the machine." (The star-child)

3) A video game published in 2000 by Eidos that had three selectable endings:
1. Join the villains (Illuminati [reapers]) to control events of the future [blue].
2. Cause the collapse (Destroy technology across the world [red])
3. Release a technology to blend and unify everybody to a single perfect
biological/mechanical hybrid [green].

Any questions?

Modifié par Pectar, 24 avril 2012 - 07:48 .

[3DandBeyond]

noivoieidoi wrote...


What’s the difference between a story (ME series, objectively, as given) with a beginning and an ending, which is meant to send the message the authors intended, and a game having a different outcome function of our choices will be analyzed sometime the next year, not sure about the exact date. The schedule will be dynamically adjusted according to our progress. However, one cannot decide what was all about BEFORE finishing the thing, as well as the 'established lore' (another thing the unhappy ones abuse) cannot be established randomly by each player at the point they decided to stop playing.


Forgot:

Ok if you are talking about comparing the story in a book to the story in a game, this game still fails, but there are vast differences.  Books are not interactive and only require that you read them and follow along.  They may allow for the use of your imagination to guide you, but they are linear.  One of the worst things you can say about a game that defines itself as having choices, is that it is linear.  Unfortunately, ME3 starts out as non-linear (or at least has that appearance, some decisions are of necessity linear) and ends up being very linear.  You are limited in a way the games have never limited you. 

Your supposition is that this ending is what Bioware intended it to be and the truth is even Bioware disagrees with you.  They never intended the ending to be like this.  Even 2 days before release, the ending they described was nothing like this.  Their notes, their desires were dumped somewhere along the line and they created the 3 choice linear ending.  This is not what they ever wanted, but it may be what they had to make do with.

I am not sure I totally understood what you were trying to say so if not, I'm sorry. 

The bottom line here is the game is not a book.  The game was not supposed to have a 3 choice ending.  Even with 3 choices, you get basically the same ending.  You just get to decide how things get messed up is all.  And it's not the ending, not even close to being the ending we were told we'd get.

[Chrislo1990]

Leem_0001 wrote...

Levi1988 wrote...




Can we say false advertising perfected.

You know, watching this, and the quotes made by the Bioware staff, I really feel like the endings they had planned incorporated all of this. They were the endings we all wanted. The choice and variety. I just think SOMETHING happend where they were aborted kind of last minute. Whether that was EA's involvement or some technical issue, who knows. The thing is, Casey Hudson and the Bioware team - I don't for one second think they are stupid people. If the ending we have was always the one envisioned, no way would they have come out with these statements.

I may be completely wrong, but I think up until the games release all of these statements would have held true. And for whatever reason, they had to scrap the plans and cobble something together. Such a shame too, and I would love to know the real reason behind it.

Can't say for certain, but if I was a betting person I would put my money on EA's involvement having something to do with it.

Of course, this is pure conjecture - but reading the quotes made by the team in the build up, its the only thing that makes any kind of sense to me. And they cannot come out and tell us what has happened, so they have to stick by what we have and play the PR game.

Such a massive shame, as I was a huge fan of Bioware and the ME series.

I see what you're saying but if that were the case tough why not ask EA for more time to perfect ME3's ending? Why risk your reputation just for the sake of meeting a deadline?  Why risk your entire fanbase just or the sakeof profit? The ending is just insulting and goes against every promise the devs made to us. I just can't see any justification for Bioware. Even if EA whad been pressuring them to release the game or to alter the endings to make way for futre dlc, Bioware should have placed their feet frimly on the ground and refuse to release a game that would fail to meet fan expectations. Sure this would have caused a delay but I'm perfectly fine with that so long as the game delivered. This is just unbelievable.

[xaurabh123]

WHATEVER.....THE ENDING IS BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD

[noivoieidoi]

3DandBeyond wrote...

Then there is Synergy/Synthesis.  This is another seemingly logical choice, that isn't logical at all.  In magically uniting all synthetic and organic life into one mish-mosh, you might think to be strengthening them, but in essence you also weaken them both.  You destroy what makes a human, human, taking away the self of the sentient organic life form.  That's not to say that inorganics don't have a sense of self, but it is the way they determine it that is different.  The inorganic had to tell itself that it was unique.  The organic lifeform KNEW it.  This is the sense of self.  It's an unforced view of what you are.  The synthetic is weakened in that there would naturally be a decay within-age, wear, intake and output would be far more present concerns.  And there would be this omnipresent sense of sameness amongst all life.  Individuality might exist, but in order to be expressed it often needed an organic to point it out.  The Catalyst even states that this means the end of evolution.  And that means the end of learning, knowledge, adaptation, growth, progress, development of higher ideals (yes, along with some lower motivations).  It means the end of life and the onset of stagnation.  Since the organic part of such a synthesis would eventually have to die, it ultimately seems to me to eventually lead to the all synthetic race. It's possible they could procreate, but that seems unlikely since evolution comes along with procreation-the mix of DNA changes things. 

Although I've found some weak points there, I fail to see how this ending doesn’t make sense from what's written above. However, the analysis is interesting, asks a great question about the ending and really worth thinking of a world where evolution stopped. I believe there isn’t enough data for making any educated guess. We’d first need to know more (or have a vague idea, at least) about the universe(s), about its (their) beginning and ending and about its (their) meaning. The dark matter and the dark energy are just two examples of how tremendously important answers are yet to be found regarding the way the universe works. The string or M theory are still just mathematics and philosophy. Time flow and time travel are just theories. Even gravity, something we used for millenia, is still vastly unexplained and we've just started to build quantum computers, although we've been applying the theory for 7 decades already, since the first nuclear bombs and plants. I'd like to come back to that in about one billion years. Or less, if I don't live that much. Anyway, although I like to think of me as an informed person, the idea they tossed there, out of the blue, puzzles me: why would this be the last step in evolution?

It was the human (organic) quotient entered into the equation that destroyed the flawed, circular logic

Yep. This is the whole point of adopting a new solution. The organics did something for the first time since the Catalyst started counting. This was the result of their interaction with the synthetics in this specific cycle, on the foundation the Protheans built in the previous cycle. This result also changes the Catalyst (the construction of the Crucible commenced in the previous cycle). From this point begins the unknown. The Catalyst offers 3 ways to deal with the old solution (end it). Each way opens a different path to go on. But there is no actual 'ending', the ‘solution’ is yet to be found after choosing one path or another. Given the dramatic consequences of each choice, it might take millions of years for the galaxy to recover, find its way on the premises set by Shepard’s choice, and eventually reach a point when looking back in time the analysts could say ‘that or that was the solution’. This seems to be one of the crucial points many people seem to understand (the open endings are often mentioned), yet choose to 'not understand' or completely disregard when it doesn't fit their criticism. The other 'choice' in the same sentence (‘circular logic’) has been properly debunked already.

[Ryzoe]

Chrislo1990 wrote...

I just can't get my head around how Bioware had the  audacity to release  a game that  ruined the integrity of an entire franchise! It's been about a month since I beat the game and I still can't get over the sorrow it has brought me.  Mass Effect is my favorite game franchise of all time. I fell in love with  its deep interactive storytelling and emphasis on player choice. To see such a masterful franchise conclude in such an atrocious manner is insulting both to me and the franchise itself! One would have thought that more care would have been taken in developing the final chapter. Players expected choices to have weight and meaning to them. They expected their decisions to result in wildly different outcomes grounded within reason. Bioware devs have gone on record not only once but multiple times promising full player control over Shepard's fate. They promised variety but what do we get instead? We get an ending that not only defies the logic but also invalidates ME3's predecessors. Our decisions prove meaningless. Player control is reduced to nothing more than choice between different colored explosions filled with plot holes. That to me is unforgivable. 

Guys the extended cut dlc won't save ME3. The endings are just so ridiculous and implausible that further "explanation" will make them seem even more implausible. No amount of clarification can undo the fact that Bioware took away player choice in determining the end of Shepard's story. No amount of clarification can undo the fact that past decisions had little to no weight to them. Bioware  knows  this all to well and yet they refuse to add additional endings to rescue their OWN franchise! If this isn't a clear sign of  carelessness towards their games and their fanbase, then I don't know what is. Artistic integrity is no excuse for lying to us about a subpar product and then throwing all of our feedback right back to our faces. How dare you Bioware? Lord knows we've all contributed to this thread out of our love for Mass Effect. When the call for feedback was made,  we answered immediately, pouring both our hearts and minds in our desperate attempts to save Mass Effect from it's developers own mistakes! Now you have the stomach to tells us bluntly that you won't change the endings out of a sense of artistic freedom? Who do you think you're fooling?

Guys please continue posting your thoughts and  hold your wallets with future dlc. If Bioware wants to stick to the artistic integrity card, then let us show them that ME3  is a product first and foremost. Let us hold our money until said product meets our expectations. Let's see if they'll stick to their artistic integrity when profits start decreasing dramatically.

You want to see something truly truly mind blowing, go back and play Mass Effect 1 and play the saga all the way through, watch how many changes have occured since. I just found a couple of plot holes playing the first one, like how the Citadel is both the Conduit and the Catalyst. The fun thing is, in the first mass effect, it was a big plot reveal for me that the Conduit was the Citadel, but in ME3 the mystery was just replayed. After uniting the Turians and the Krogan I had already come to the conclusion the Catalyst was the Citadel.

  You witness all the small changes like how Geth Colossus and Armaturs(sp?) were scrapped when they could've been a big help in ME3. I mean, about time I played the second game I was already dissappointed in all the things they had removed, like having to purchase different markets of weapons to get them sold on your ship, having to buy different biotic amps and omni tools to upgrade along your journey. All they different types of rounds they had, you had to pick and choose your ammunition before going into a battle sometimes.

 The remove alot of stuff in the transition of ME1 to ME2, making certain rounds just available in your power wheel when I believe it should've just been customizable via the equpiment screen, it was better that way. I mean I can see the whole idea of using the omnitool to install your desired rounds but it just didn't seem as fun. The fact that you didn't have a multitude of weapons with different stats to choose from, only a few uncustomizable weapons you just had to settle with. DOn't get me wrong, I love ME2. It just seems like they took away alot of what made the first game fun. I miss having to explore the worlds in order to find materials. Having to do teh extra work and roll up on a compound surrounded by rocket turrents and snipers.

  And to me ME1 customizations are way better than ME3 customizations, all though you didn't get to see many changes to the gun, it's almost the same. You just decide if you want more capacity, or more power. Only difference in the two games is you get to see certain changes happen with certain upgrades on ME3. They've added and subtracted alot of the biotic powers, like I don't believe Barrier was in ME2. ANd ME3's carnage was a shotgun power back on ME1.

  Just watching all the subtle changes, it just feels like it was going down hill from the start, and while I still love the etire Mass Effect series, it's not surprise to me how the ending turned out. Compared to the first, the 3rd is just not as ambitious as the first two. And I think "You know, with all the choices made in the first 2 games and all the people you've met over this adventure, maybe ME3 just has alot of data on it from many different possibilities."

   But I refuse to bleieve that, there was alot to improve on, after all this time why did they still use the same motion from ME1, why does Fem-Shep have the same motions as male-shep. And honestly the romance scene from the first Mass Effect is better than both followers. And yeah, I'm aware more information requires more space, but it's Bioware and we're bioware fans to the max. ME3 could've been 6 disc long and $170 bucks, I still would've bought it if it was as ambitious as the first.

 But yeah, thats my ramble.

[Stygian1]

I just listened to Jack's cut conversation with her students--WHY BIOWARE!? why cut something as awesome and powerful as that to give us the poop we were given...

*gag*

[MrDan]

this is priceless: http://www.forbes.co...o-game-history/
but keep going guys, they are still listening;)

Modifié par MrDan, 24 avril 2012 - 09:21 .

[3DandBeyond]

noivoieidoi wrote...

.....

Ok, sorry I can't quote all that.  I'm just going to reiterate something that has been discussed in another thread.  I don't mind investigating and learning things.  I don't want to have to have written my Doctoral Thesis in order to play a video game.  I am all for a game, a book, a movie, spurring speculation and drawing on real knowledge and all, but I do not want to have to explore the complete works of Stephen Hawking to come up with a theory for why the ending to a game is what it is.  I'm not looking for simplistic, necessarily, but simpler, more in line with all that has come before, character-wise, enemy-wise, and what just plain works in the cadence and pattern of good story-telling.

The ending got side-tracked into some other incomplete theory.  Even if it made good sense to explore all that other "stuff", there is just no way the Cliff Notes' version could work as the ending of a video game series.

The whole concept of the created rebelling is a hypothesis suggested by many scientists, but it is a hypothesis used to create a cautionary tale-a tale of why not to screw things up.

The idea of synthesis, abandons what makes humans/organics uniquely them.  It abandons growth, advancement and all in all rejects them, even while uniting the ultimate expression of both.  Synthetic beings that are self-aware would reject it, as would organics.  Krogans want to have their children.  Liara wants to have her blue children.  Joker loves EDI for what she is, and she him for what he is now, not as what he could become, some Frankensteinian combination of their uniqueness.

Yet, even if these things could have been great story lines, they were not great story lines.  They were slapped together and stuck on the end of the game.  You start off playing ME1,2, and 3 and then all of a sudden you are playing some different game altogether.

[darkway1]

MrDan wrote...

this is priceless: http://www.forbes.co...o-game-history/
but keep going guys, they are still listening;)

LOL.....yeah...that's just the advert guy's on auto pilot.....they sorted out the review scores,the artwork,the quotes,the slogans all before the fan backlash.......any normal company would have pulled such material but like I said,mindless auto pilot???
I honestly belive that Bioware/EA just don't know what to make of the fans reaction.......at first it was taken a stroppy gamers outburst,then an insult to creativity and some where after that it started to slowly sink in.........the ending really does SUCK.

[Lord Bicen]

MrDan wrote...

this is priceless: http://www.forbes.co...o-game-history/
but keep going guys, they are still listening;)

That remain's to be seen. Im not holding my breath for that Extended Cut DLC. It was a B-S ending, and Spinkling Powdered sugar on **** doesnt change the fact that it's still ****.

All their PR up till now and their responses to their fanbase has stopped short of nothing more than a middle finger Flip off. From the ending of the game which they promised that they wouldnt do, they Did. and the Ending that Casey Hudson Himself said was going to be done was exactly what wasnt done.

And thats just insulting that they try to spin their ****storm responses from the fans into an advertisment to try to sell more copies of that turd burgler ending that ruined the whole replayability of the saga! when you know thats the end why go bag and RELIVE the goddamned heartbreak because a company we trusted failed to deliver a finished product.

"I'm Casey Hudson, and im the Biggest Liar in the Galaxy!"


I'm still waiting to be impressed...

[csb1968]

After 2.99 games, BioWare was on the verge of something great.

Then they dropped the ball. Unlike some, I don't think it was corporate  greed, boardroom shenanigans or the like. I think the core visionaries  of the whole Mass Effect milieu tried to reach for a grandiose larger-than-me-the-individual ending, hoping I would wrestle with a philosophically greater issue. It failed worse than a gate getting hit by an asteroid.

There is a well-done user-made video that explains why the ending is broken without nasty finger-pointing or verbal rancor. To it I can only add this:  Everything Shepard (and thus I) have done (including surviving death
itself in ME2) has been about survival and saving -- not only the galaxy, but myself and those I care about.

Currently, how the galaxy is saved is hugely contrived. There is no foreshadowing (other than "find the Catalyst!"), there's no set-up and no emotional investment ... and I (and a huge number of others) are left unfulfilled. And yes, to whatever extent, angry.

The very last scene, the unknown man with the kid does a bit to save the ending (please save some similar scene in the Extended Cut). A huge part of me wants that to be my distant descendant, that though I may have died in some distant dusty age, the name Shepard lives on ... not only in some cosmic legend, but in living beings that take pride in the name that has been handed down generation after generation (which means I -- as female
Shepard -- gets to live to have at least one child ... but without morning sickness and the ultimate-joy-with-attending-pain in the delivery room).

Hint to anyone from BioWare (if they even read this): Mass Effect as a milieu doesn't need to end (setting aside a plethora of prequel ideas), what about post-Reaper recovery -- not necessarily in a standalone game, but perhaps in an MMO? You don't need to have the ride-into-the-sunset ending, but you don't have to kill or maroon (what, no more ME gates?!) the whole galaxy either.Hopefully the Extended Cut isn't merely a patchwork let's-explain-what-we-meant ending, but more an ending (as the video explains) in keeping in the 2.99 games that preceded that whoa-drop-me-right-out-of-immersion ending.

What is truly sad is that BioWare did so much right in ME3 (as they had in the two previous games), I cried when Mordin died, Wrex and Eve ... and many other scenes left me choked up or filled with happiness (the Quarian/Geth peace and Tali framing out a future home with her hands). The writing and game-play were stellar, more than I had hoped for in a third installment.

Damn you BioWare you were soooo close! Like the video states: you get a redo. Please  make it count. -- Cora

Modifié par csb1968, 24 avril 2012 - 10:07 .

[noivoieidoi]

3DandBeyond wrote...
The bottom line here is the game is not a book.  The game was not supposed to have a 3 choice ending.  Even with 3 choices, you get basically the same ending.  You just get to decide how things get messed up is all.  And it's not the ending, not even close to being the ending we were told we'd get.

Many people were surprised to find out that they basically couldn't control how this particular game ended. I didn't play many games where the player was given a choice, so I guess it's far from being a rule. This usually happened in RPGs, but with the second instalment the role-play element lost its importance and the game became kind of an interactive movie. I wasn't that surprised at how it ended. Moreover, I've only paid attention to the 'take Earth back' thingy, because I'm not really fond of games like Crysis and I'd really hate to have another alien shooter. When I was sure I'll still have galaxy travel (I hoped for exploration too, but...) I relaxed and stopped watching their videos and reading their interviews. I guess I'm no true and loyal fan. But I wasn't disappointed either

[No_MSG]

It's nice of Bioware to throw a bone to the people who enjoyed the endings, or just thought there wasn't enough there. Those of us who think a giant Deus Ex Machina is the worst way to end a series, well, we get a giant middle finger.

[noivoieidoi]

3DandBeyond wrote...

I don't want to have to have written my Doctoral Thesis in order to play a video game.  I am all for a game, a book, a movie, spurring speculation and drawing on real knowledge and all, but I do not want to have to explore the complete works of Stephen Hawking to come up with a theory for why the ending to a game is what it is.  I'm not looking for simplistic, necessarily, but simpler, more in line with all that has come before, character-wise, enemy-wise, and what just plain works in the cadence and pattern of good story-telling.

Yet, even if these things could have been great story lines, they were not great story lines.  They were slapped together and stuck on the end of the game.  You start off playing ME1,2, and 3 and then all of a sudden you are playing some different game altogether.

With this I agree. Next time they should make up their minds when they start writing the scenario. My guess is they went for a larger audience at some point and then mixed things. It's easier and cheaper this way than working on two titles.

[Kunari801]

Will the EC "Fix" the ending? No, not really, that can't be done without a complete rewrite of everything post Anderson death. Working within the confines of what we've been told could be in the EC what could make the ending palatable for me are:

1- Make star-brats arguments logical at least (I'd rather him removed totally)
2- Expand and differentiate the endings, what happens in the aftermath, how does the galaxy rebuild.
2a- If Shep can survive Destroy, can the Geth? Can EDI? What does Synthesis really imply? How much control would "Control" really give us? Is is permanent or temporary "control"?
3- Delete the crash scene and give real closure with those we care about, LI, Crew, and Friends. What becomes of them? Are they rescued off that plant before they starve? (See the Epilogue thread in the my sig for an idea of what I want.)

I'd like to see "Control" split into two: 1- A way to just kick the Reapers out (even if it just resets the cycle) but have Shepard lives and 2- Shepard joins the Reapers for permanent control.

I'd like to see "Destroy" split up too, with high enough EMS you can choose to kill the Reapers and yourself (Thus saving the Geth & EDI) or sacrifice the Geth & EDI to save yourself.