23455 réponses à ce sujet

[darkway1]

BlueStorm83 wrote...

darkway1 wrote...

Does it not seem incredibly stupid that no one understands aspects of the ending........can't Bioware acknowledge this........it's like trying to get blood out of a stone.......and your right 3DandBeyond,Bioware did indeed say that they wanted to discuss the ending once enough people experienced it.......lol.....this situation just gets more and more lame doesn't it.

"Wait until more people experience it" says, to me, "If we say NOW that we ****ed up, sales will stop altogether.  If we wait until sales stop first, well, what can happen to us then?"

When the comment was made the game hadn't been out for long......however time has passed and pretty much everyone has "experienced" Mass3,there are no excuses any more,Bioware may well hide behind the shield of artistic integrity but there's no reason why you can't talk or explain your "art"........in fact art is all about expression and communication..........sssooooooooo:unsure:......what's the ending all about Bioware????

[V-rcingetorix]

[quote]3DandBeyond wrote...

[quote]V-rcingetorix wrote...

[quote]3DandBeyond wrote...

_snip..again_


[/quote]

But of course....[smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/lol.png[/smilie][smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/angel.png[/smilie]

I appreciate your fiction.  Actually, I hoped kind of for something
similar if they decided to keep this god awful mess.  I saw a rejection
of what the kid says as creating an equation such as 1+1=3 which the kid
couldn't comprehend and would destroy him and the reapers.  Kind of the
kid expecting that a choice would be made and a rejection not fitting
any known formula-he could not comprehend such a thing.

The only problem was with your initial statement.  I absolutely do not want any
ending to hinge on multi-player.  I think the inclusion of a tie in
between MP and SP is for one reason only and I'm not generous in
thinking this-Bioware and EA saw profit in all those Spectre packs and
were "forcing" people to play it.

Remember Galactic Readiness is
determined by continued multi-player play (it's a percentage factored
in).  Total Military Assets are all those things you accrue in the game,
mainly single player, but N7 assets are MP teams promoted (you must be
online and connected to the EA servers for these to be added in).  EMS
is GR x TMS.  So, it's conceivable at some point in time for the EA ME3
servers to go dark and those N7 assets from multi-player will be gone. 
As will that galactic readiness rating.  So, if someone only can get
about 7300 in assets from single player (I think the max is somewhere
just shy of 8000) then cut it in half and you can't get the "best"
ending.  If they then use this in the EC as some basis for a clarified
"best" ending then I see it as a real problem.

Some people do not
have a great broadband connection, so they don't play MP.  Some just
aren't good at it or don't like it, or did not buy the game for the MP.

[/quote]

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

I
understand the direction from which you are coming; I'd love a
standalone single-player (didn't Bioware say we could "achieve optimal
paragon ending w/o mp?). But frankly, the chances of that happening seem
somewhat low, and I'm shooting for what is more likely to happen, kinda
like seeing a nice steak in the store, but getting the hamburger that
fits your budget.


Retcon, backtrack, or hem and haw all they
want; so long as Shep and co are alive, it's a better ending. Why kill
Shep whenthey didn't in the previouse two? Is there any popular movie
where the good guy dies, even for a good cause (within the constraints
of this genre)?

Star Wars- Luke lives, Leia lives, Han lives,
Obi-wan lives until he's a secondary character,  Chewie lives, Vader
dies, Emperor dies

Star Trek- mmm, Spock dies once, but that's corrected in the next film; Data dies..until a backup resurrects

Lord of the Rings- Gandalf dies/lives, Frodo lives, Aragorn lives

Battlestar
Galactica- (not really the same epicness as the others, but I'll throw
it in) pretty sure the central character lives in an
organic-I-still-need-to-eat-live-with-my-family kid of way.

Dragon Age Origins, Dragon Age 2- At least the option to live is offered, plus epilogue (DAO better than DA2, personalloy).


Maybe I'm addressing a point that can only be described as a tangent, but at the moment it seems connected to me.

Modifié par V-rcingetorix, 15 juin 2012 - 09:32 .

[Redbelle]

darkway1 wrote...

BlueStorm83 wrote...

darkway1 wrote...

Does it not seem incredibly stupid that no one understands aspects of the ending........can't Bioware acknowledge this........it's like trying to get blood out of a stone.......and your right 3DandBeyond,Bioware did indeed say that they wanted to discuss the ending once enough people experienced it.......lol.....this situation just gets more and more lame doesn't it.

"Wait until more people experience it" says, to me, "If we say NOW that we ****ed up, sales will stop altogether.  If we wait until sales stop first, well, what can happen to us then?"

When the comment was made the game hadn't been out for long......however time has passed and pretty much everyone has "experienced" Mass3,there are no excuses any more,Bioware may well hide behind the shield of artistic integrity but there's no reason why you can't talk or explain your "art"........in fact art is all about expression and communication..........sssooooooooo:unsure:......what's the ending all about Bioware????

I know, Release the trilogy as a boxset with............ A Directors Commentary! Valve did something similar with their games. BW fans too could know the inner workings of the writers mind.......... And I promise not to skip to ME3 and hammer through the game till the ending.............

[darkway1]

Redbelle wrote...

darkway1 wrote...

BlueStorm83 wrote...

darkway1 wrote...

Does it not seem incredibly stupid that no one understands aspects of the ending........can't Bioware acknowledge this........it's like trying to get blood out of a stone.......and your right 3DandBeyond,Bioware did indeed say that they wanted to discuss the ending once enough people experienced it.......lol.....this situation just gets more and more lame doesn't it.

"Wait until more people experience it" says, to me, "If we say NOW that we ****ed up, sales will stop altogether.  If we wait until sales stop first, well, what can happen to us then?"

When the comment was made the game hadn't been out for long......however time has passed and pretty much everyone has "experienced" Mass3,there are no excuses any more,Bioware may well hide behind the shield of artistic integrity but there's no reason why you can't talk or explain your "art"........in fact art is all about expression and communication..........sssooooooooo:unsure:......what's the ending all about Bioware????

I know, Release the trilogy as a boxset with............ A Directors Commentary! Valve did something similar with their games. BW fans too could know the inner workings of the writers mind.......... And I promise not to skip to ME3 and hammer through the game till the ending.............

.....I don't think I'm gonna be buying any boxset from bioware or anything else from Bioware any time soon.........there's a risk that any new Bioware game may be upside down and inside out.......if I complained my fear is Bioware will just ignore me and go silent.

Modifié par darkway1, 15 juin 2012 - 11:18 .

[3DandBeyond]

sonicchaos wrote...

sdinc009 wrote...

So this isn't a gripe more a personal opinion and I'd be interested to know who agrees and who doesn't. Anyone else feel like it shouold have been Shepard who gave the big speach to Victory fleet and not Hackett? I get that he's an Admiral, but Shepard brought this whole thing together, he's the one who personally intereacted with most of the people in this Armada, Shepard's the one it just seems to me that it would have been a much more pognient moment in the game. Any thoughts?

The same I told BlueStorm83 and the same thing I'm asking myself since that scene. Just who the hell does this Hacket think he is, taking all credit? Shepard is the damn hero, in fact he should be the Admiral, or even higher grade that should have been invented just for him. No, but in all seriousness, Hacket takes all credit on the Normandy in front of everyone, and Shep just gives a final speech in front of his fellows like he's upset Hacket stole his glory. At least that's how I felt that scene. It wasn't epic anyore, like ME2's speech was. That was the best speech since Braveheart.

I agree.  Hackett to me was always kind of a joke, especially since in ME1 Joker would say things like, "big suprise Commander..." and there'd be some stupid Alliance screw up Shepard had to fix.  Oops, we misplaced a nuclear device.  Or something like that.  ME2's speech and the fact you kind of felt like you directed some of it, was great.  This was Shepard's freaking story, in my opinion and not Hackett's and as much as I like Anderson, it wasn't his either.  At the end, that's also part of what pisses me off.  Again, I really like Anderson, but he gets one of the most poignant moments of ME3 and the last good thing int a swirly mess that's circling the toilet bowl.  And then Shepard is a babbling idiot. 

It's like at the beginning Shepard is a moron because Shepard needs to see the kid die to feel bad about Earth.  Apparently it wasn't enough that there's all these big metal thingies stepping on top of buildings with people inside.  Oh no, Shepard and the player need some kid to make them understand what's at stake.

And then, Anderson is put into the fight and Shepard is turned into an ambassador to the morons of the galaxy who seem to consistently over 3 games say they won't fight for their own preservation unless Shepard does something for them.

Then, after Shepard does all this crap-not only called upon as a superb military mind, but called upon to go on every freaking wild goose chase and take care of every idiotic mistake all these fools have made (oops, the Alliance may have left a nuke over there, so now we left one over here), but then called upon to enter the Conduit in order to start up the Crucible.  And for this trouble, Shepard, who's pretty much been doing everything, takes a back seat to some guy who's not really shown himself to be a real military genius, as someone pointed out about the Arrival.  As valuable as Shepard was deemed to be, since he could send some other team in to rescue the Doctor, you wonder why he'd risk Shepard on something like this.

[BlueStorm83]

--- I always liked Hackett. Not as a hero, not even as a leader. As a quest-giver NPC. He was very good at saying "Shepard, there's guys over there that need to be shot. Go and shoot them."

[3DandBeyond]

V-rcingetorix wrote...

I understand the direction from which you are coming; I'd love a standalone single-player (didn't Bioware say we could "achieve optimal paragon ending w/o mp?). But frankly, the chances of that happening seem
somewhat low, and I'm shooting for what is more likely to happen, kinda like seeing a nice steak in the store, but getting the hamburger that fits your budget.


Retcon, backtrack, or hem and haw all they want; so long as Shep and co are alive, it's a better ending. Why kill
Shep whenthey didn't in the previouse two? Is there any popular movie where the good guy dies, even for a good cause (within the constraints of this genre)?

Star Wars- Luke lives, Leia lives, Han lives,
Obi-wan lives until he's a secondary character,  Chewie lives, Vader
dies, Emperor dies

Star Trek- mmm, Spock dies once, but that's corrected in the next film; Data dies..until a backup resurrects

Lord of the Rings- Gandalf dies/lives, Frodo lives, Aragorn lives

Battlestar Galactica- (not really the same epicness as the others, but I'll throw
it in) pretty sure the central character lives in an organic-I-still-need-to-eat-live-with-my-family kid of way.

Dragon Age Origins, Dragon Age 2- At least the option to live is offered, plus epilogue (DAO better than DA2, personalloy).


Maybe I'm addressing a point that can only be described as a tangent, but at the moment it seems connected to me.

Well, actually you are pointing to two different points.  Many of us have tried to make the case that a hero lives ending is the more populist one and one that tends to draw more fans.  But, we also saying that realistically they could have accomplished more of a variety of endings if they weren't these choices made out of the kid's stupid logic.  Instead, all they had to do was to make the Crucible be some real sort of a weapon as people thought it was.

And then you could have endings that went all the way from total victory to total defeat with everything in between.  I've said it before, that I thought that a totally happy ending would be just as great as one where maybe even Shepard survives only to see the Reapers taking over everything and killing everyone.  Or Shepard dying and the Reapers being defeated.  But, I very much wanted one scenario to be as much of a total win as possible.  Shepard and LI and friends survive and Reapers destroyed.

I've pointed out that there are not too many blockbuster movies where the hero dies in the end and the viewer is left to guess what happens next.  In fact, I can't remember one.  There may be one, but if so, I didn't care for it, because I can't remember it.  And why do heroes survive in the end?  Because people like it and they pay to go and see such movies again and again and again.

As far as MP invading SP.  Nothing is a given here.  I've also said there is a discussion on just this subject going on over DA3.  People do want to play MP but do not want SP to hinge on things done in MP.  And the head QA guy for tech development said he was sure no such thing would be done, and figured it was a bug in ME3.  But the bug thing has been floating around for some time now, initially showing up in a tweet by one of the devs when someone was saying how angry they were about this MP/SP tie in. 

It is one of the things upon which I will base any subsequent purchases. 

Modifié par 3DandBeyond, 15 juin 2012 - 11:46 .

[3DandBeyond]

BlueStorm83 wrote...

--- I always liked Hackett. Not as a hero, not even as a leader. As a quest-giver NPC. He was very good at saying "Shepard, there's guys over there that need to be shot. Go and shoot them."

I don't hate him, but that's the point I think.  I don't see him as a hero or leader.  He's kind of there and as I said I found Joker's comments sometimes funny before Hackett would start giving out missions.

[BearlyHere]

darkway1 wrote...

BlueStorm83 wrote...

darkway1 wrote...

Does it not seem incredibly stupid that no one understands aspects of the ending........can't Bioware acknowledge this........it's like trying to get blood out of a stone.......and your right 3DandBeyond,Bioware did indeed say that they wanted to discuss the ending once enough people experienced it.......lol.....this situation just gets more and more lame doesn't it.

"Wait until more people experience it" says, to me, "If we say NOW that we ****ed up, sales will stop altogether.  If we wait until sales stop first, well, what can happen to us then?"

When the comment was made the game hadn't been out for long......however time has passed and pretty much everyone has "experienced" Mass3,there are no excuses any more,Bioware may well hide behind the shield of artistic integrity but there's no reason why you can't talk or explain your "art"........in fact art is all about expression and communication..........sssooooooooo:unsure:......what's the ending all about Bioware????

I expect one of the Cerberus cheerleaders to pipe up about how deluded we in the "minority" are  in 3...2...1

Seriously, there has been ample time now for nearly everyone who wants to play it to have played it. Anyone buying it now is probably part of the "wait until the price drops" crowd., and they're not likely to with all the negative publicity. So at this point all EA/Bioware has done is ****** off a lot of long time customers. This isn't like New Coke, where the customer is only out a few dollars. This is a major investment of our money, time, and energy, and for what?

But I'm becoming more convinced that Bioware is more interested in their "art" being delivered through dvds and novels and graphic novels than in gaming. Just my opinion.

[sonicchaos]

darkway1 wrote...

BlueStorm83 wrote...

darkway1 wrote...

Does it not seem incredibly stupid that no one understands aspects of the ending........can't Bioware acknowledge this........it's like trying to get blood out of a stone.......and your right 3DandBeyond,Bioware did indeed say that they wanted to discuss the ending once enough people experienced it.......lol.....this situation just gets more and more lame doesn't it.

"Wait until more people experience it" says, to me, "If we say NOW that we ****ed up, sales will stop altogether.  If we wait until sales stop first, well, what can happen to us then?"

When the comment was made the game hadn't been out for long......however time has passed and pretty much everyone has "experienced" Mass3,there are no excuses any more,Bioware may well hide behind the shield of artistic integrity but there's no reason why you can't talk or explain your "art"........in fact art is all about expression and communication..........sssooooooooo:unsure:......what's the ending all about Bioware????

we must stand as Marauder Shields stood for future ME3 players. that would be the reason. we did it so you don't have to.

[Andy the Black]

darkway1 wrote...

Redbelle wrote...

darkway1 wrote...

BlueStorm83 wrote...

darkway1 wrote...

Does it not seem incredibly stupid that no one understands aspects of the ending........can't Bioware acknowledge this........it's like trying to get blood out of a stone.......and your right 3DandBeyond,Bioware did indeed say that they wanted to discuss the ending once enough people experienced it.......lol.....this situation just gets more and more lame doesn't it.

"Wait until more people experience it" says, to me, "If we say NOW that we ****ed up, sales will stop altogether.  If we wait until sales stop first, well, what can happen to us then?"

When the comment was made the game hadn't been out for long......however time has passed and pretty much everyone has "experienced" Mass3,there are no excuses any more,Bioware may well hide behind the shield of artistic integrity but there's no reason why you can't talk or explain your "art"........in fact art is all about expression and communication..........sssooooooooo:unsure:......what's the ending all about Bioware????

I know, Release the trilogy as a boxset with............ A Directors Commentary! Valve did something similar with their games. BW fans too could know the inner workings of the writers mind.......... And I promise not to skip to ME3 and hammer through the game till the ending.............

.....I don't think I'm gonna be buying any boxset from bioware or anything else from Bioware any time soon.........there's a risk that any new Bioware game may be upside down and inside out.......if I complained my fear is Bioware will just ignore me and go silent.

To be fair any game from any dev could turn out lke that. And I don't think, given the royal deuce storm surrounding the Mass 3 ending, Bio will be trying anything so "artsy" again for a time. 

[3DandBeyond]

Andy the Black wrote...


To be fair any game from any dev could turn out lke that. And I don't think, given the royal deuce storm surrounding the Mass 3 ending, Bio will be trying anything so "artsy" again for a time. 

Well if that's the case then great.  I'm all for artsy, but there is now in fact a category for that.  And I'm all for set pieces that feature dark and brooding and incomprensible and thoughty.  No problem.  But consistency.  Don't start a game and make it clearly one thing and then at the end try to make it something else.

I could also point to Reaper tag and ask just how is that in keeping with deep and meaningful art?  It's like playing Asteroids with Reapers.  Yeah, what vision, what art.  Amazingly intellectual.

And when I again play Angry Birds (ok, that's brain deadening), I hope at the end one of the Birds will pop up and spout Shakespeare and I will be required to provide the end dialog from "As You Like It."  Because that is so in keeping with Angry Birds.

I once played a graphic adventure game based on SF, "For I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream."  I didn't expect to have Willy Wonka pop up and hand me a candy bar.

And in any game where people ridicule the main character for his/her dancing and a synthetic being (EDI) can make subtle jokes (when my hair's wet, I can't do a thing with it), and where another character can sing Gilbert and Sullivan, you don't expect David Lynch to pop out a Matrix ending.

They just tried to put too much into one thing instead of using the KISS method.  They had logical endings, logical ways to tie this all up and even if there weren't dozens of endings, they could have made some truly satisfying ones that fit the story so far.  All the things they had said in ME3 alone, set up the ending and all they had to do was get there.  Instead, they complicated it, for what reason?  I can find none that makes any sense.

[*Di]

BlueStorm83 wrote...

Di wrote...

I know Bio is no longer reading this thread. I know I won't say anything new on the topic. There's nothing new to say. ME3 has been both a brilliant thrill and a bitter disappointment.

I'm joining the discussion late because although I bought ME3 immediately upon release, I was plagued by the dreaded 99% and other bugs that were basically beyond my ability to correct. So I waited, kept trying, waited some more and eventually Origin must have corrected the bug because my game launched after trying to get it to work for two months.

It was a magnificent game... until...

After 8 years, hundreds of dollars, thousands of hours and indescribable emotional investment I discover that... none of it mattered.

No choices I made mattered. No war assets I collected mattered. No combat skill I honed mattered. Nothing that I had done from Eden Prime in ME1 to destroying the Collector Base in ME2 to gathering the forces of the entire gallaxy in ME3... none of it mattered. I was tasked to save a galaxy that developers would not allow to be saved..

And they always knew that would happen. They always knew that throughout all the years, all the dollars spent, all the hours played and emotional investment, we would not be allowed to succeed. How the hell could they think players would be okay with that? My belief is that they knew players would hate it, but did it anyway for shock value, publicity... and perhaps a giggle at our expense.

The Mass Effect trilogy was the finest, most exhilarating, the best RPG series I've ever played but...

I feel duped, betrayed and ridiculed. This is not something I'm inclined to forgive and forget.

---  Don't feel too bad.  They didn't know all along.  Some writers left, new ones came on, they altered the motivations and means of the Reapers here and there, and things got a little different.  I really feel that a combination of no oversight on the ending team, and EA rushing the game before it was ready, led to the endings that we have at the moment.

That said, I feel pretty much the same as you do.  Not only for the emotional crash, but because it essentially guts a universe that I admired.  I'm a bit of an amateur writer, and creating a new story is, to me at least, like creating actual life.  Asking any of my characters if they were real beings, they'd reply "of course."  I call fictional stories Tertiary Realities (As a Christian, I consider everything "real" to be a secondary reality, what with the whole God thing.)

That said, you're not alone in this, and there is a long shot that the Extended Cut will make things better.  A real long shot.  But hey, I got two five-high Straights in a row in the Witcher before, so I know that occasionally you beat the odds.

---  Also, I just read that Forbes article.  Indeed, it raises good points.  What I took away most is that we need to remain rational, determined, and expository.  Don't devolve into gut reactions.  We want to be a group, not a mob.

And yes, BioWare is certainly going into a PR Turtle.  That's not a good thing.  We're talking to each other, keeping us all well informed of all of BioWare's failings, and they're offering nothing to assuage our ire.  It's a shame, I'd like BioWare to show some class and stop trying to Ivory Tower us here.

Thanks for this response and for your thoughts on the matter.  Congratulations on being a writer!  I too am a writer, with 35 published works of fiction under my belt.  I think that's one reason I was so shattered that the holiest grail of a writer/storyteller... understand reader expectation and fulfill it... was so completely disregarded.

 When one pens a mystery but refuses to solve it, the reader expectation has not been met, and the reader feels betrayed.  When one pens a romance, but kills off a protagonist halfway through the book, reader expectation has been betrayed.  When one promises an epic adventure to save the galaxy, only to have a convoluted mish-mash that contradicts all that we've previously been told, then destroys the galaxy we were supposed to save, player expectation has been betrayed.

I've been disappointed with games in the past, and I will be again.  But I've never felt duped and betrayed by a game before.  It may seem puerile and juvenile, but that's how I feel.  I can't understand how any writer could have disrepected his audience in such a way.  It's almost like someone said, "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if we killed everyone off no matter what choices they made?  Everyone would be, like, so mad!  Awesome, dude!"

Ah, well.  On to something else.  

Modifié par Di, 16 juin 2012 - 02:27 .

[BearlyHere]

Be careful of mentioning the S game, DJ. I did in another thread and had my post deleted.

I dabble in writing too, and I have to ask if you have your ending in mind when you set out to write a new piece. I can't wrap my head around what I've read about them not having an ending as late as November and Hudson and Walters locking themselves away from the rest of the creative team and pulling a lost on us, but with an extra dose of deus ex machina and served in a martini glass with a rim of sh*t, artfully arranged and extra bitter.

[*Di]

BearlyHere wrote...

Be careful of mentioning the S game, DJ. I did in another thread and had my post deleted.

I dabble in writing too, and I have to ask if you have your ending in mind when you set out to write a new piece. I can't wrap my head around what I've read about them not having an ending as late as November and Hudson and Walters locking themselves away from the rest of the creative team and pulling a lost on us, but with an extra dose of deus ex machina and served in a martini glass with a rim of sh*t, artfully arranged and extra bitter.

Thanks for the warning.  I fixed it.

I always know how my books will end before I start writing them.  How will I know how to get where I'm going, if I don't know where that is?  I create a synopsis of major plot points, character reveals, build-ups, let-downs, more build ups, imminent danger, satifying solution and ending, all designed for the reader to know the character inside and out, care about the character, then put the character in various situations that will test them, endanger them, make them grow as people, and keep the pages turning.

Know what your readers want, know what your readers expect, then give it to them... in unexpected ways!

[3DandBeyond]

Here's an interesting question. Anyone read the details on the war assets in the tech lab? I was reading the Alliance assets and for the one fleet (can't remember which one right now, but it's the one I think you sacrifice part of if you save the council and Destiny Ascension in ME1)--anyway, for that listing it says they didn't have time to rebuild it before the Reapers came. Ok, wait, they had at least 2 years and then whatever time it was between ME2's beginning and ME3. No time to rebuild but they can build this super big "whatever it does" Crucible?

Ok, and anyone ever wondered about the name Destiny Ascension? Ok, the star kid says people's destiny is to be ascended.....hmmmmm.

[Landon7001]

@3DandBeyond dude I agree with virtually everything you say but you are ALWAYS on this thread.....

[Landon7001]

BlueStorm83 wrote...

--- I always liked Hackett. Not as a hero, not even as a leader. As a quest-giver NPC. He was very good at saying "Shepard, there's guys over there that need to be shot. Go and shoot them."

oh Gooood I HATED hackett for just this.....eeeeeeveeerry mission i had to listen to his slow, gravely voice. MY GOODNESS!!! NO. MORE. HACKETT. PLEASE........waaaay too much hacket in me 3.....

[jkflipflopDAO]

Chris Priestly wrote...

Please note, we want to give people time to experience the game so while we can’t get into specifics right now, we will be able to address some of your questions once more people have had time to complete the game. 

Can we please get into specifics now????? It's been way long enough. Your continued silence makes me hate you and Bioware more and more with each passing day. Just talk to us and answer our questions. That's all you have to do. Is that asking too much?

[sonicchaos]

jkflipflopDAO wrote...

Chris Priestly wrote...

Please note, we want to give people time to experience the game so while we can’t get into specifics right now, we will be able to address some of your questions once more people have had time to complete the game. 

Can we please get into specifics now????? It's been way long enough. Your continued silence makes me hate you and Bioware more and more with each passing day. Just talk to us and answer our questions. That's all you have to do. Is that asking too much?

I think we're all wasting time. They're not going to answer none of our questions. I think since Bioware was hired by EA, their vision has narrowed alot. They don't see us as customers, they only see their own reality through those horse goggles they're wearing, they big artists now, they no longer hang out with childish folk. Well then, C&C Generals 2 is coming soon I suppose, so we'll see. Oh, I know those aren't the same dev teams, but you know what I mean: things don't end here. Cause, you know, customers come and go, developers come and go, large corporations, such as EA, they stay. Remember Pandemic? Of course you do.

[3DandBeyond]

Landon7001 wrote...

@3DandBeyond dude I agree with virtually everything you say but you are ALWAYS on this thread.....

The curse of living in the country, working from home (on the computer), and preferring video games over other entertainment.  That, and I have a big mouth.

Modifié par 3DandBeyond, 16 juin 2012 - 12:05 .

[BlueStorm83]

Landon7001 wrote...

BlueStorm83 wrote...

--- I always liked Hackett. Not as a hero, not even as a leader. As a quest-giver NPC. He was very good at saying "Shepard, there's guys over there that need to be shot. Go and shoot them."

oh Gooood I HATED hackett for just this.....eeeeeeveeerry mission i had to listen to his slow, gravely voice. MY GOODNESS!!! NO. MORE. HACKETT. PLEASE........waaaay too much hacket in me 3.....

---  "Shepard, I need you to a planet called Plexigon and find me a bucket of pebbles.  Apparently I swallowed the last one I had.  I'd send one of the other, I don't know, 15 thousand teams I command, but your mission to save everyone everywhere isn't that important, is it?"

That said, I liked- nay, LOVED the unrealted side missions.  I would have liked Mass Effect 3 to wrap up in a way that the universe was left intact, so they could then release an experimental Mass Effect Framework "game" that was really just the game engine, art assets, character creator, and an Adventure Editor.  I would have LOVED LOVED ****ING LOVED the opportunity to craft my own NPCs, missions, record my own dialogue, and make customized levels and things.  You know, like Little Big Planet, but in the Mass Effect world and style. 

Everybody's missions could be found at random if you scan planets or listen for chatter on the net.  At the end of a mission you'd get XP and Credit boosts if you rate the mission on Quality, Difficulty, and Fun.  And why not make co-op missions with the same kind of dialogue-roll system from The Old Republic, where everyone picks their option of what they'd like to say, and whoever rolls highest for initiative gets to say their line and influence the story?

Before anyone says "That would be too hard for them to do!" I know it would be hard for them to do.  More to the point: if they DID do that, in an intact mass effect universe, and the adventure making tools were high quality and easy to use, would you give it a try?  I would.  They could even make their own missions for it that come out occasionally.

Also, it could have been a cash cow, if they had just had the foresight to wrap up the series without destroying the universe.

[BlueStorm83]

Di wrote...

BearlyHere wrote...

Be careful of mentioning the S game, DJ. I did in another thread and had my post deleted.

I dabble in writing too, and I have to ask if you have your ending in mind when you set out to write a new piece. I can't wrap my head around what I've read about them not having an ending as late as November and Hudson and Walters locking themselves away from the rest of the creative team and pulling a lost on us, but with an extra dose of deus ex machina and served in a martini glass with a rim of sh*t, artfully arranged and extra bitter.

Thanks for the warning.  I fixed it.

I always know how my books will end before I start writing them.  How will I know how to get where I'm going, if I don't know where that is?  I create a synopsis of major plot points, character reveals, build-ups, let-downs, more build ups, imminent danger, satifying solution and ending, all designed for the reader to know the character inside and out, care about the character, then put the character in various situations that will test them, endanger them, make them grow as people, and keep the pages turning.

Know what your readers want, know what your readers expect, then give it to them... in unexpected ways!

---  I tend to start a story with a definite start, a slightly more maleable conclusion, and a few vague ideas about what might happen in the middle.  Then I just let the characters' personality drive the narrative.  Wait wait wait, he wouldn't go EAST, he hates the countryside, remove the bit about the farmers, he's a city boy at heart, send him there, what's he going to run into when he gets there?  I have to say, I usually cut out lots of the stuff I had envisioned for the middle, but the beginning and the ending are pretty much set in stone.

I understand that a Videogame can't really be made that way, though.  Since you have different teams for different sections, you can't really cut a scene that isn't up to 100%.  What's so odd about Mass Effect 3, and even Mass Effect in general, is that the quality is a steady 100%, with a few sporadic dips into 95% territory.  And then we hit the ending and we're up to our ankles in 15% to 5%.  I mean, even from a technical perspective it was lacking.  The camera angle when Shepard grabs the carnifex post Harb-beam cut through the ground and showed gray void?  The Illusive Man's Shepard Control Power radiated black squiggles not from his body but just over the right side of the screen?  There's more.  The dialogue choices were stunted.  The detail work on the heaps of corpses make them look like crash test dummies.  The Catalyst is a reused model from the opening cinematics.  They barely recorded anything for any of the characters to say.  The things they DID say were short and not very expository.  The detail on the Crucible/Citadel merged sections are okay, but thay're just polygons covered in already existing textures.

They seriously, seriously make it look like they had something much MUCH better planned, but their time was cut short and it just had to release as it was.

I remember the Blizzard Glory days.  "It'll be done when it's done."  Once activision got their hooks into them, they released their FIRST definite release date before a game was done.  That game was WoW.  It launched with missing zones, broken classes, reused art, closed dungeons, unfinished quest lines, etc etc.  Blizzard was the DEFINITION of a studio that didn't put games out until they were perfect.  And then a Publisher changed their mentality just enough for quality to drop and unfinished products to show up.  BioWare had the same happen to it, at the hands of EA, and nothing a press release tells me will convince me otherwise.

[Helios969]

sonicchaos wrote...

jkflipflopDAO wrote...

Chris Priestly wrote...

Please note, we want to give people time to experience the game so while we can’t get into specifics right now, we will be able to address some of your questions once more people have had time to complete the game. 

Can we please get into specifics now????? It's been way long enough. Your continued silence makes me hate you and Bioware more and more with each passing day. Just talk to us and answer our questions. That's all you have to do. Is that asking too much?

I think we're all wasting time. They're not going to answer none of our questions. I think since Bioware was hired by EA, their vision has narrowed alot. They don't see us as customers, they only see their own reality through those horse goggles they're wearing, they big artists now, they no longer hang out with childish folk. Well then, C&C Generals 2 is coming soon I suppose, so we'll see. Oh, I know those aren't the same dev teams, but you know what I mean: things don't end here. Cause, you know, customers come and go, developers come and go, large corporations, such as EA, they stay. Remember Pandemic? Of course you do.

Not sure I follow, but EA wants to make money...lots of money...lots and lots of money.  They don't care about art, or letting Bioware create art...especially if it hinders in that endeavor.  With that in mind, EA would want the most generic ending that satisfies the broadest range of the fanbase, (i.e. epic final boss fight, ultimate victory, "happy-ending").

Something else happened.  A miscalculation?  Lack of oversight?  I really don't understand what...or see any positive benefits to the ending we got (not that there aren't any or it wasn't by design.)  Kill off your most lucrative franchise?  EA wouldn't want that.  Even considering the implications of MP and its future promotion/replacement to SPG's, an ending that kills off the hero and/or renders the galaxy an organic-synthenic paradise devalues such.  And they invested way too much money into both.  Why take part in the Galaxy at War when we know it ends so horrifically for our hero(es)?  Galaxy of War would have worked better if say the Crucible fired but only managed to destory Sol System Reapers, leaving the story open for another chapter or the "real end of Shep's journey."  I think you would have had many more people participating, if for no other reason than getting their ME fix until the next installment was released. 

None of it makes much sense.  They've lost some of their fanbase, a small percent perhaps, but nevertheless something they cannot afford with the current state of the gaming industry.  Regardless of reasons, I don't think they would do so intentionally.  I doubt they realized the sh*tstorm they were about to unleash upon themselves before ME3's release.  And I'm not sure releasing an EC that gives everybody what they wants could even fully repair the damage, and we know that's not what were gonna get.

[darkway1]

sonicchaos wrote...

jkflipflopDAO wrote...

Chris Priestly wrote...

Please note, we want to give people time to experience the game so while we can’t get into specifics right now, we will be able to address some of your questions once more people have had time to complete the game. 

Can we please get into specifics now????? It's been way long enough. Your continued silence makes me hate you and Bioware more and more with each passing day. Just talk to us and answer our questions. That's all you have to do. Is that asking too much?

I think we're all wasting time. They're not going to answer none of our questions. I think since Bioware was hired by EA, their vision has narrowed alot. They don't see us as customers, they only see their own reality through those horse goggles they're wearing, they big artists now, they no longer hang out with childish folk. Well then, C&C Generals 2 is coming soon I suppose, so we'll see. Oh, I know those aren't the same dev teams, but you know what I mean: things don't end here. Cause, you know, customers come and go, developers come and go, large corporations, such as EA, they stay. Remember Pandemic? Of course you do.

I guess the point of this thread is no different to how Bioware writers operate,sling an idea on the table and see who can rip it apart.......if the idea/thought stands solid then it's valid.Many people here have found issues with Mass3,they have debated them and many issues are indeed valid.
If Bioware wants constructive feedback then here in this thread is where you will find it.......the ball is very much in Bioware's court.......the more they fail to respond,the more they ignore the obvious,the more they taint and reshape their own brand/reputation.
Take a look at the Bioware Mass3 forum,the whole forum (not just this thread) speaks volumes,the Bioware mentality we have issue's with right now,is the same mentality that will create DA3.At the end of the day I want to buy Bioware games,I want to support the type of games they make and Bioware does not want the hassle Mass3 has generated......but presently Bioware seems hell bent on pushing all the wrong buttons.I don't feel that I'm being unreasonable,problematic or confrontational.........Bioware presented an ending,can they now please explain it????........it that such a ludicrous request??