831 réponses à ce sujet

[malra]

I think your missing the point that they literaly took the ending from Deus Ex and put it in the end of Mass Effect 3. What do you call that? of course you may have w

[Eternalsteelfan]

Iefho wrote...

 Nice post.

In the same fashion:

http://social.biowar...index/9994083/1

I was actually just about to address the argument I've seen that Shepherd is somehow a tragic hero. OP to be updated briefly.

[BDelacroix]

What I gather from all the talk from the developers is they wanted an artsy ending and failed miserably. It is poor writing in an otherwise well written environment. They are getting precicely what they wanted at the expense of the reader (customers).

I highly recommended Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 to my friends. I retract that recommendation now and suggest not bothering with Mass Effect 3. I caveat that with the fact that up to the end of 3, it is fun to play and a good story. The end will ruin it all, though, having rendered the former parts moot, all for some artsy profound message (which nobody knows what is anyway).

On the good side we now know that good story telling in a game is possible. The field is open for someone to "do it right" next time. I hope I'm around to see that.

[BDelacroix]

Isn't there something in the suspension of disbelief that is broken if you break the rules of your own story world?

[Shepard3817]

Eternalsteelfan wrote...

djspectre wrote...

in response to the OP on page 1.....


1.The ending felt jarring only because you are looking at it in a limited context as well as not truly considering the medium. The entire trilogy was based on the fact that it was one giant story, not 3 segments chained together independently.

2.When it comes to make a choice as to how to end the story, it's easy to say "why do we have to have the choices explained to us?" but in a video game where (I played insanity on my first play through) where you can easily get bogged down in the details of combat and mission objectives sometimes you need a reminder.

3.Further, the idea of injecting new information at the end of a story may sound like a poor idea, but here is why it's often a good one.

Protagonists must change throughout the course of the story for it to have any meaning to the audience. Often times this change culminates with their final acts, sometimes surprising us with their resolution.

The fact that movies and novels often leave out these creative thought processes that the characters go through so that it's more stunning when we witness it doesn't work in video games because the player is in control of the story. In movies and novels we are being told, in games we are doing the telling.

The only way to convey this sense of spontaneity is through introducing new information.

Up till the end of ME3, we were presented with the obvious choice of destroying the Reapers or agreeing with the Illusive man to control them. Sure destroying them would be the logical choice.....if this were a novel or movie. But this isn't. It's a game that based it's entire plot around the choices you make as a player. I'm immersed in this universe, I WANT more choices. And until now, I only had two and this interesting 3rd one that popped up makes it more MY story and less like a movie or novel.

4. I've heard people say the ending was vague or unclear, that simply isn't true. The Catalyst explains the general outcome of each choice Shepard can make at the end. It never goes into details about every single affect of all your previous choices that might feed into it, but then again it doesn't and shouldn't have to. We make all kinds of choices everyday based on partial information. Why would Shepard be faced with anything less?

Further, the fact that we don't get an epilogue for every character might be disappointing, but in the context of storytelling, it's no necessary. Sure, as a fan, I'd like to see how it all panned out for all my favorite turians, humans, asari and salarians, but that would make the ending longer than Return of the King and my ass already hurts sitting in this chair for 40 hours mashing keys to keep husks from eating me.

5. The fact that people can't appreciate an ending that doesn't literally spell it out for them in graphic detail (which is actually hypocritical of the earlier sentiment made about how the exposition with the Illusive man was 'jarring' and unnecessary), is a symptom of individuals accustomed to being spoon fed their ideas instead of enjoying their own imagination is not a fault of the writers or the execution of that writing within the game.

The one point I will concede is that the entire thrust of this game was the fight against the Reapers, not Cerberus and not the illusive man. I found the interaction, even if it was only once, with Sovereign to be delightful and entertaining. It proved that it was in fact Sovereign pulling the strings in ME1 and not Saren.

The same could be said with Harbinger in ME2 and definitely had continuity potential in ME3, yet it was wasted and instead the villainy was muddled by the Cerberus plotline.

The switcheroo in ME1 where you find out who the real bad guy is was fantastic. An already difficult threat is suddenly replaced by an infinity more difficult one. But in ME3, the massive Reaper fleet was one-upped by a chain smoker.

While I feel that the ending of the game was perfect for the series, there will always be detractors and critics. Some say the ending didn't reflect or even care about their choices along the way, need to realize something: the game was always about choice, the ending reflected that motif.

All the other individual choices you made throughout the 2 previous games were simply to emotionally invest the person in the characters...to make you want to save the galaxy for their sake, for their friendship with you, for their love for you. When they died during your journey, it was supposed to be a reminder of how fragile life is and how important it is to succeed.

Whether you left ashley to die, got half your squad killed in the Omega-4, allowed Tali and Legion to have a love child, or let Garrus finally finish his calibrations wasn't supposed to have a direct impact on the final choice. The final choice always rested on Shepards shoulders squarely. And that is exactly how the game went out.

I'll try to address some of your points neatly. The numbers I added to your quote are my own for organization.

1. I'm not sure where you getting the idea that I'm limiting the scope of my critique to Mass Effect 3 as a stand alone game. I've repeatedly addressed issues in relation to the entire series as a whole.

2. The issue I raise isn't that we are given too much information, but rather this information is given to us as exposition instead of visuals.

3. The issue isn't with the introduction of new information, but the timing. The resolution is probably the worst time in a story to start adding new information.

4. I'd say this sense of vagueness and lack of clarity largely stems from what I've said about exposition vs. showing us. The exposition itself is also unclear at times and doesn't give enough information.

5. To say that those who oppose the ending simply don't appreciate it or "don't get it" is to be ignorant to all the many points raised by myself and others.

well said.

And a very good post, i've read it all, i think that someone before speaking of "artistic view" and "break the rules to make a great piece" should study a bit more, the canons of building a story have been developed in century of artistic work by writers and novelist, it's not something you can deal with in a poorly manner.

[Vhalkyrie]

Very interesting read.  Thanks for taking the time.

Throughout the game, I thought it was winding down.  I knew it was going to be a rough ride, and I'd lose some characters I cared about.  I expected Shepard to die.  I have no problem with no-win, tragic endings.  Planescape:Torment is one of my favorites of this type of game.  I agonized over whether to take Garrus and Kaidan with me on my final run.  I considered if it was inevitable that Shepard was going to die, it was comforting that Garrus and Kaidan would live on in the world I was fighting for.  I decided in the end to bring them with me, because there was no one else I'd rather go on a one way trip to hell with, and I figured they'd feel the same.

Then the ending came in jarringly abrupt.  The choices I was presented with meant that my hard work and tough choices in all 3 games to bring peace to the Quarians/Geth, returned the Quarians to their homeworld, and set right the wrong of the genophage was for nothing.  They were all going to be obliterated when the mass effect relays went supernova.  That is a no-win scenario that is not acceptable for a story like this because it invalidates everything I did.  I could have just chosen any squadmates instead of feeling nostalgic to bring Garrus and Kaidan with me, because the outcome was going to be the same no matter what.

I was expecting some cutscenes or some sort of memorial to Shepard at the end, but instead I was presented with a confusing crash on a tropical planet that looked like Virmir.  Garrus and Kaidan walk out of the Normandy?  That introduced new questions, like you say.  If they survived the beam and the Normandy picked them up while Shepard was in the Crucible, that needed to be explained.  How did the Normandy extract them without the Reaper cutting the Normandy in half?  Very unsatisfying.

While I'm confused with all this, I'm presented with another confusing cutscene with a grandfather and grandson talking about 'one more story about the Shepard'.  Then my N7 armor appears lying under rubble, taking a breath.  This makes the ending more ambiguous and uncertain.  All the wind down saying goodbye seemed to be leading to closure.  Then hanging threads appear at the last moment.

[Daithin]

Posting here becouse its a damn good read.

[Slidikins]

I wish there were more posts like this addressing the issues at hand. When I have time I'll definitely look through the entire thread for its insightful posts, but for now I have a question (that may have been answered):

A lot of hate stems from the whole "the endings disregard my previous decisions" complaint, which I felt was always the case in Mass Effect. You could choose Kaidan or Ashley, but in the grand scheme of things they served the same purpose in the story. You could destroy or preserve the collector base, but this just gets a nod from TIM in the next game. Regardless of your choices, the story continues to move on rails, occasionally bringing up your decision to keep you invested.

That being said, Mass Effect comes off as a choose-your-own-adventure book in digital form, where the final ending is set in stone before you even open it and you're simply given the illusion of changing things around. I feel that a lot of the rage comes from people who decided to read every page of the book instead of following its defined structure.

After rambling, my question is: Do you feel that people are more outraged by the lack of answers, or by the fact that the illusion has dissipated after seeing the endings?

[ABCoLD]

Another well considered analysis of the ending.

[Eternalsteelfan]

BDelacroix wrote...

Isn't there something in the suspension of disbelief that is broken if you break the rules of your own story world?

Yes, especially in science fiction. You set up the rules yourself when you create the story world, there isn't really a good excuse for breaking them.

Slidikins wrote...

I wish there were more posts like this addressing the issues at hand. When I have time I'll definitely look through the entire thread for its insightful posts, but for now I have a question (that may have been answered):

A lot of hate stems from the whole "the endings disregard my previous decisions" complaint, which I felt was always the case in Mass Effect. You could choose Kaidan or Ashley, but in the grand scheme of things they served the same purpose in the story. You could destroy or preserve the collector base, but this just gets a nod from TIM in the next game. Regardless of your choices, the story continues to move on rails, occasionally bringing up your decision to keep you invested.

That being said, Mass Effect comes off as a choose-your-own-adventure book in digital form, where the final ending is set in stone before you even open it and you're simply given the illusion of changing things around. I feel that a lot of the rage comes from people who decided to read every page of the book instead of following its defined structure.

After rambling, my question is: Do you feel that people are more outraged by the lack of answers, or by the fact that the illusion has dissipated after seeing the endings?

It depends on the person. There are plenty of reasons people are reacting as strongly as they are to the ending and for any given person it may be any combination of those reasons.

I tried to avoid discussing the gameplay aspects of the story in the OP, but I'll say it is a more than a little disappointing that a game series that championed player choice (so far as breaking ground with a system and storyline for importing decisions across games) and agency failed so hard when it came to the ending choice.

[Eternalsteelfan]

Eternalsteelfan wrote...

Iefho wrote...

 Nice post.

In the same fashion:

http://social.biowar...index/9994083/1

I was actually just about to address the argument I've seen that Shepherd is somehow a tragic hero. OP to be updated briefly.

Sixth point added to OP regarding Shepherd and tragedy.

[Vhalkyrie]

Slidikins wrote...

A lot of hate stems from the whole "the endings disregard my previous decisions" complaint, which I felt was always the case in Mass Effect. You could choose Kaidan or Ashley, but in the grand scheme of things they served the same purpose in the story.

It was a plot device so Shepard had to make a decision that all commanding officers dread to make.  Choosing who lives and dies.  You can chose only one, so who do you chose?  Having gone back and replayed ME1, it wasn't terribly well executed, but Bioware became a lot better at this type of tough choices later in the series.

You could destroy or preserve the collector base, but this just gets a nod from TIM in the next game. Regardless of your choices, the story continues to move on rails, occasionally bringing up your decision to keep you invested.

Destroying or preserving the collector base makes a difference in ME3 on the effective readiness.  I also felt this was an unsatisying way to reward the choice in the end.  I made a few bad choices in ME2, which lead to Tali dying during the suicide run.  I was so overwhelmed with grief, that like Superman wanting to save Lois Lane from the earthquake, I went back in time and fixed my mistake so I could save her.  ME2 had very dire consequences for squadmates during the suicide run if you made bad choices.  Wait too long to start the mission to save your crew after they are kidnapped?  The entire crew dies, and Dr. Chokwas blames you.  This was a consequence that made sense, even though horrible.

This is what I wanted and expected from ME3.

Modifié par Vhalkyrie, 16 mars 2012 - 02:34 .

[B1scuits]

 I'm Commander Biscuits and this is my favourite topic on the forum.




Very well written and thought out, bravo sir.

[Silver-Gryphon]

Thanks OP I think you have nailed exactly how I feel about the endings with your post agree with you on every point. For a game that prides itself on its story over pretty much everything else it was quite shocking to see the ball dropped so hard. TBH I dont care if it was intentional or not to make it 'artsy' (and I use that expression very loosely) its just bad storytelling and completely out of place with Mass Effects genre.

I'ts not that I didnt get it, I was expecting an ending to Mass Effect 3 not an ending to Dear Esther.

[Dormin]

Enlightening post, thank you.

[Midnight Eternal]

Shameless bump for JUSTICE & 5 stars.

Very well said, good sir. I have not your eloquence with words, hence I lack the ability to have stated it better myself.

[BigBubbaBacon]

"It gives me in the inclination that the ending really was just for publicity."

This makes me sad, and it really does seem to be the most likely reasoning. I'm almost certain that we'll get some tyepe of (paid) DLC to clear up the ending (which I will buy), which also makes me sad.

Modifié par BigBubbaBacon, 16 mars 2012 - 02:49 .

[Baronesa]

This thread is great and more people should read it

[ThePasserby]

Thanks for the point 6 update. I didn't realise it before, but I agree that Mordin Solus is a great tragic character, one with proper setup and resolution.

[Samuel_Valkyrie]

Good points, Eternalsteelfan. Little to add, I'm afraid.

[Lucubration]

 Long, but hits on a lot of good points.  Very well sums up why the endings were terrible, apparently by design.

Thanks, OP.

Holding the Line.

[Glondor]

Great, great post OP. I particularly like your analysis of why Mordin is a tragic hero and why Shepard is not.

[BigBubbaBacon]

Glondor wrote...

Great, great post OP. I particularly like your analysis of why Mordin is a tragic hero and why Shepard is not.

Agreed. But I still think that Shepard's death should have been a possible outcome.

Ending 1. The Reapers win and everyone dies.
Ending 2. The Reapers are destroyed and Shepard dies.
Ending 3. The Reapers are destroyed and everyone lives.

Modifié par BigBubbaBacon, 16 mars 2012 - 03:01 .

[Arcataye]

malra wrote...

I think your missing the point that they literaly took the ending from Deus Ex and put it in the end of Mass Effect 3. What do you call that? of course you may have w

Hey! It was better than this, atleast Jensen told us something about what happens next. Cyborg babies.
If you were talking about Human Revolution that is.

Modifié par Arcataye, 16 mars 2012 - 03:06 .

[Vhalkyrie]

BigBubbaBacon wrote...

Glondor wrote...

Great, great post OP. I particularly like your analysis of why Mordin is a tragic hero and why Shepard is not.

Agreed. But I still think that Shepard's death should have been a possible outcome.

Ending 1. The Reapers win and everyone dies.
Ending 2. The Reapers are destroyed and Shepard dies.
Ending 3. The Reapers are destroyed and everyone lives.

Agreed.  In ME2, it was possible for Shepard to die if you did no loyalty quests, and no ship upgrades.  But it is not the cannon ending (obviously).  It's uncertain whether ME3's ending is cannon no matter what, which feels very wrong.

Modifié par Vhalkyrie, 16 mars 2012 - 03:09 .