120 réponses à ce sujet

[suusuuu]

Ryokun1989 wrote...

There are enough people who worked through the entire franchise. The series that is mass effect is a joint effort of many people. But come on 80 dollars for a game that is brilliant in many aspects but just has a stupid ending should not ammount to omg now everything sucks. Thats just an immature reaction, like saying you got a million dollar house but it totally sucks becouse it doesn't have an extra garage. I mean, it's just acting spoiled.

In my country, you can live an entire month on 80 dollars. It's a lot of money for some people. Giving them an ending like that for their money and after making  so many promises is like a slap in the face. I would return my game in a heartbeat if I could, believe me (Origin). I enjoyed the ride, but didn't expect retroactive bs like that. 

[Flashlegend]

Ryokun1989 wrote...

I really don't get the hatred for the ending. By literary standards it is so far ahead of other games.

I Strongly disagree.

http://social.biowar.../index/10022779

[Ryokun1989]

OblivionDawn wrote...

I'm so glad that there are so few people grasping for logic to support the endings.

Most of us see the obvious truth, the endings were plot-hole riddled crap, and it seems Bioware is starting to understand that.

Again please just say why then, and stop thinking everybody in the industry is out to get our money blablabla.

[Ryokun1989]

Flashlegend wrote...

Ryokun1989 wrote...

I really don't get the hatred for the ending. By literary standards it is so far ahead of other games.

I Strongly disagree.

http://social.biowar.../index/10022779

I don't agree with him for many reasons. But at least he gives reasons for why he thinks it's not good.

Like this one: 
[color=rgb(170, 170, 170)">2. ]Video games, like film, are a visual medium; the ending tells[/color] us what happens rather than shows us what happens. 

To me the ending works with the power of suggestion a lot, a game is more like theatre then like film. The action is now, live, and the camera angles are a mix of fixed viewpoints and visual trickery. In the theatre suggestion rather than showing is commonly used. Bioware actually uses metaphors in many ways to suggest what happens to us. This way there is no way in which the uber epic ending they could have made dissapoints, this way they leave it to your immagination. It is a bold choice, but one I love to see once, expecially regarding all the usual epic endings we always get.

Modifié par Ryokun1989, 16 mars 2012 - 04:21 .

[Dark Specie]

Dear sir, thank you a lot for your post. However...

I didn't pay nor put in hundreds of hours into for "a digital work of literature". I paid for a game, an RPG. I accept that in books, you don't get to choose nor influence anything. Same for movies. And many games too (shooters, strategy games etc). But in an RPG, you're supposed to be able to influence things, your choices are supposed to matter, etc...

[suusuuu]

Ryokun1989 wrote...
Well complain whatever you like but make your opinion count, not just some random attack, say why you don't like it. 

What are you talking about, this is what we are doing the entire time. We have enough arguments that I think we could publish a book by now The input from people who are okay with the ending or say that the ending is fine is getting quite annoying because you don't read the forum first, just jump in and say we don't have any arguments, we're mad about money (money is the smallest issue here BUT IT IS THERE -- we bought an incomplete product with MONEY, we didn't buy it with love), we're a bunch of crybabies that want a disney ending. Just stop, get out of this thread and read our arguments in the other threads first instead of telling us to stop random attacks and actually state why we don't like the game. There's at least 30 coherent threads about why we don't like the game that are not random attacks about money. 
BTW why do you even tell us to stop talking about money - money is the only thing that EA cares about, they don't care about how we FEEL. They care about how to get more money from us. 

Modifié par suusuuu, 16 mars 2012 - 04:20 .

[GreyhameBioware]

The ending in mass effect 3 feels like the ending from a completely different game thematically. It feels like they forced an ending on the story rather than let the story's ending update to what fit with the story. The ending doesn't provide any closure. Sure you solved some things, but what is your crew doing? How do people get home now that the mass relays are gone and FTL sucks for some of them? What the hell happened to Earth? Why the hell was the Normandy in the mass relay system? Where did they end up? Did the end up being stuck there? What did you choice at the end actually do (since without that, all the endings feel pretty much the same)?

Plus the logic used for the Reapers existence is convoluted and I can't even stay "What are you talking about?" and challenge him on it with examples that show he's not 100% right?

These are not the kind of questions you leave to the end of a story like Mass Effect. It's like ending Star Wars when Luke meets the Emperor and then replacing it with some overly philisophical ending that doesn't resolve the actual story at all and telling people to just imagine the ending where, for some reason, Han, Leia and Chewy end up crashing on some unknown planet in the Falcon with no idea of how they got there since last you know the Falcon was busy in a space battle, and Han, Leia and Chewy were stuck being arrested by the Imperials.

TD;LR, The endings don't work for me at all.

[FRancium]

I brokered peace among the geth and quarian for 2 games. Before the ending, I believed it finally worked, and that past problems were all from misunderstanding and fear. Then spacekid comes along, says it never works, and I have to choose between these 3, all based on the false assumption that organic and synthetics can't co-exist.

What did I just do?? I can't even question his stance!!

[Ryokun1989]

suusuuu wrote...

Ryokun1989 wrote...
Well complain whatever you like but make your opinion count, not just some random attack, say why you don't like it. 

What are you talking about, this is what we are doing the entire time. We have enough arguments that I think we could publish a book by now The input from people who are okay with the ending or say that the ending is fine is getting quite annoying because you don't read the forum first, just jump in and say we don't have any arguments, we're mad about money (money is the smallest issue here BUT IT IS THERE -- we bought an incomplete product with MONEY, we didn't buy it with love), we're a bunch of crybabies that want a disney ending. Just stop, get out of this thread and read our arguments in the other threads first instead of telling us to stop random attacks and actually state why we don't like the game. There's at least 30 coherent threads about why we don't like the game that are not random attacks about money. 
BTW why do you even tell us to stop talking about money - money is the only thing that EA cares about, they don't care about how we FEEL. They care about how to get more money from us. 

Well you don't but many do sorry about that though.

[Ryokun1989]

FRancium wrote...

I brokered peace among the geth and quarian for 2 games. Before the ending, I believed it finally worked, and that past problems were all from misunderstanding and fear. Then spacekid comes along, says it never works, and I have to choose between these 3, all based on the false assumption that organic and synthetics can't co-exist.

What did I just do?? I can't even question his stance!!

From the reapers to cerberus, from the geth to the genophage. That question about the organics and synthetics not being able to co exist is exactly  what it's all about. The entire cycle thing exists becouse of it, it is what the reapers are there for. To bring order to chaos. The reapers want to control us, and the counter attack is to control them. Both ways let us be slaves to the others. It is evident through all the lore in mass effect that the synthetics beings are constantly fighting against the organic beings, the reason AI is forbidden in the entire galaxy. The reapers are the epitome of synthetic life, it's man against machine here. It has gone so far that even most fans don't even see that the reapers are machines, people see the battle as something between two powers. Which is true but what these powers represent is what makes it so deep, that is not just something from the mass effect universe, but something that can be observed in real life.

[johnnybravo2]

you ask why:

well i will tell you:

if a company promises something and they dont deliver(like through out the entire series they say your choices matter, but they dont at the end of ME3) we have the right to respectively complain and ask for change.

[zimm2142]

You are entitled to your opinion, as we all are, but complete disregard fro the themes that have filled this game from the start, does not in my mind, work well. The plot holes are another matter as well. Your assertion seems to come down to the idea that if it is literary, then plot holes are ok. So I ask you, show me some gaping plot holes in anything by Dostoevsky for example. If you think Mass Effect is on the same level as the best of literature, you are, in my opinion, wrong. It is a good game, but it's nowhere near the level of, say, Old man and the Sea. Your language about characters "every character that shows up stands for a metaphor" evokes a particularly strong comparison to The Brothers Karamazov, so let us be clear, The Characters are not metaphors on the level they are in that book, the actions of each character do not show a struggle of ideas, each character representing one, or another.

The fundamental problem with any argument about literary merit, or such, is that they allow for a complete disregard of player choice, on the grounds that it makes a "better story"

Furthermore, your assertion "A good ending to a story isn't one that makes sense in every way and wraps up with everybody walking away happy" makes no sense. While plenty of great stories, do not end in a "happy" way, This argument claims, that to be a "good story" a happy ending is not possible, and questions can not be answered.

"It makes the story a shade of grey." Mass effect has NEVER been a shades of grey world, it was never written this way. If I want shade of grey in a game, I play The Witcher (which I also love), A game that is grey from the get-go, and does not spontaneously switch to it at the end.

Sorry for the incoherence of my argument, Painkillers after Oral surgery can do that.

[GreyhameBioware]

Ryokun1989 wrote...

FRancium wrote...

I brokered peace among the geth and quarian for 2 games. Before the ending, I believed it finally worked, and that past problems were all from misunderstanding and fear. Then spacekid comes along, says it never works, and I have to choose between these 3, all based on the false assumption that organic and synthetics can't co-exist.

What did I just do?? I can't even question his stance!!

From the reapers to cerberus, from the geth to the genophage. That question about the organics and synthetics not being able to co exist is exactly  what it's all about. The entire cycle thing exists becouse of it, it is what the reapers are there for. To bring order to chaos. The reapers want to control us, and the counter attack is to control them. Both ways let us be slaves to the others. It is evident through all the lore in mass effect that the synthetics beings are constantly fighting against the organic beings, the reason AI is forbidden in the entire galaxy. The reapers are the epitome of synthetic life, it's man against machine here. It has gone so far that even most fans don't even see that the reapers are machines, people see the battle as something between two powers. Which is true but what these powers represent is what makes it so deep, that is not just something from the mass effect universe, but something that can be observed in real life.

None of that is really deep IMO.

[trifecta739]

Ryokun1989 wrote...

First off, I was getting sick of reading all the negative feedback and dumb suggestions for the so called "true" ending that should have been made or what not.

Personal opinion and you're entitled to it.

Second, fans don't "own" the game's content at all, they are entitled to hating whatever they want but players who think media are created to solely do what the fans want are dead wrong.

True, but games are made for the people that play them. If people don't like something about a game that stops them from wanting to play them, then the game is not doing something correctly and should be changed accordingly.

That would just deliver plain old boring and forgettable work, becouse it will not surprise you in unpleasant ways which good stories need to do to stay interesting.

You'd be surprised the level of quality influence fans can have on things. I've seen my fair share of terrible fan fiction and incredible fan fiction. If anything, I can compare it to a website I used to frequent where fans made video game box art and the better ones were extremely superior to the official box art used.

Third, I just wanted to post a different view on the ending to counter all the hatred, becouse I thought the ending was brilliant.

Again, personal opinion. Whatever.

A good ending to a story isn't one that makes sense in every way and wraps up with everybody walking away happy.

Um. Yeah, actually, good endings kind of are. Explanation is needed in order for it make sense. Even more so when there are clear problems with what is being presented. And for the second bit: you really haven't been paying much attention to people, have you? It's not that we want a happier ending it's that we want a wider variety of endings. Get it right.

For me a good ending is one that makes you think and ask yourself: What did I see just now?

You still need explanations to be able to adequately interpret what you saw. Otherwise you end up saying we're stupid for coming up with an indoctrination theory by grabbing at straws emergency induction ports. We have very little information that concretely proves any theory. That's a problem.

This ending represents the essence of what the Mass Effect series is about in one last major choice.
 
The Mass Effect series is (supposed to be) about choice. This gives you 3 and takes no former choices into account when dealing with these 3 choices.

It blurs the lines of order and chaos, black and white, to convey its message of needed balance. It makes the story a shade of grey.

The only reason the ending(s) are blurred is because they are so similar. Seriously, watch this: www.youtube.com/watch

Storywise Bioware needed for it to be a bit vague after the reaper hit. By making it so that we do not know whether Shepard is alive, dead or harvested by the reapers, it lets us as players accept that Shepard is no longer Shepard. (some people call this "a dream" but I think it is more like a metaphysical reality)

Sounds like you're trying to justify the annihilation of Shepard's character with something that sounds vaguely like an explanation of character development. Again, Mass Effect set the standard for letting players go about character development. The game should not be forcing it on anyone.

By now every character that shows up stands for a metaphor, with Shepard being the metaphor that stands for humanity, that has to make its choice regarding its own future. The illusive man is the metaphor that stand for renegade that needs order to accomplish its plans. And anderson represents paragon that needs chaos to accomplish its plans. The lines are blurred now but one thing is obvious, inevitably chaos will need order and order will need chaos. Making synergy, which provides the balance between both, humanities next (and final?) step in evolution.

Fair enough, although this entire concept is presented in a horrible fashion.

There are three ways in which you can determine the fate of humanity and for all of them it is clear what they represent. One of the endings even ends with Shepard not dying. Yes the Mass Effect universe as we know it is at an end in all three endings, but that is not the choice we were asked to make.

This is Mass Effect. It should have been a choice we were asked to make. Why? Because Mass Effect was made based on giving players the ability to choose.

The real choice here is the way in which you as a player choose to advance humanity, and all three options have vastly different consequences.

Refer to the video link I posted earlier.

It is as if people that hate this ending so much expect the choice to have major influence on how the end video looks, but most commenters don't even think for one second what theoretically the different endings mean for us as a species. It is a shame that so many people fail to reckognize that the lack of exposition is what makes the ending so good, this is what lets the players think about: What will happen now? What will come of humanity this way? 

Once again, it needs explanation in order to allow for interpretations with solid evidence. Oh and without any form of epilogue, the choice that you make doesn't show off. It doesn't reward/punish you for your choice.

I really don't get the hatred for the ending.

Then read literally ANY thread regarding why the endings are bad. And I do mean "read."

By literary standards it is so far ahead of other games. It is short, powerfull, wraps up the entire ME universe in one choice.

Third time. Mass Effect is about choices. It always has been. It should never have been wrapped up so "neatly." If you can even call the ending a wrap-up.

And it left stuff to the immagination, which is something a lot of writers tend to forget. Sure you had your own ending in mind, but do people really want it to end on a bland happy go lucky note? Bioware wants us to think about this ending and what it meant, they said so themselves, and they achieved it.

I wanted it to end on a note that I made happen, that my choices forced upon me. Did I make good decisions? did I make poor decisions? I'll never know because I was forced to pick one of 3 choices that were in no way influenced by my previous choices.


I just really hope they don't change the ending, a lot of great stories have vague endings and sometimes it makes them all the better for it. To me, less (explanation) means more, with Mass Effect this is totally the case.

You should play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on the NES. Zero explanation. And though I agree there shouldn't be a patch for everyone to have the ending changed, there is NO reason you could argue against DLC for those that want new endings.

The game has a thousand varriables and instead of trying to weigh them all in (which would have never worked) the writers chose to resort to our immagination which is, as most creative writers know, the best tool you have as a writer.

It would've worked if they had gone with it because BioWare has proven before that they are amazing at incorporating variables.

Also, everything that happened after the big choice makes the choice less important. Bioware's writers cut everything to make the ending to the point and by doing so prevented it from becoming convoluted. This has to be praised, becouse writers writing within the Sci-fi genre and even within the Mass Effect universe itself have a risk to walk into this trap.

Convoluted? BioWare? They could've done it no problem if they had attempted it. It's not as though this was a tactical manuveur on their part.

Some of the best stories in history enraged their audiences when first published.

Could you at least list some then?

I think in retrospect the Mass Effect series will be seen as the first game that uplifted the medium to a digital work of literature. Good work writers at bioware, I am trully inspired by what you have accomplished with the medium.

Another opinion.

Signed,

A fellow game designer

Oh boy. I hope you only go on to make linear games in your future.

/dissected rant over

[Mars8309]

Heres my 2 cents... Since your a game designer... In what game would have Casey tell the gamers: "All the questions will be answered." or something like that. or might be lose ends tied into the end

So in space where theres no oxygen Sheppard is breathing.
Or how about any of the 3 choices it end with the Mass Relays being destroy'd...How does the allies get back to there homeworlds?
If taken the red choice of the ending it shows sheppard buried under rubble breathing. Are the Reapers dead? Did we take back earth? Is Anderson Alive? What happened to my squadmates? These are left unanswered.
How about the dark matter thing from ME2 that was dropped of that being tied into something.

How able to make peace wit the geth and the qurains and by choosing to destroy the Reapers... Its going take the Qurains a long time to get used to there planet again because the geth is destroy'd...that doesn't make sense either.

When i play alot of game the ends are tied into the choices made... on ME3 theres more questions than there are answers. Right after the ending.

Since your a game designer please answer the questions that i posted...make me understand what i missed.

[Wowlock]

Look. You got your ''deep'', ''meaningful'' ending. Be happy about it and move. on.

Those of us who are promised our own endings...we will hold the line.

And like many said before me, IF I would want to Imagine the damn ending, I wouldn't pay 80+ or hell +200 £ for this trilogy since I can create any damn story in my imagination. But that is not the point.

Point is there is the advertisement, the selling point and the promises that given to us that was supported by the game's themes and structure.

This ending ignores all of it. This is not a Virtual book, a movie or a TV series. This is an Interactive game with players at the helm to direct their experience.

And we don't want to CHANGE the endings. We want our OWN endings where we put an effort to get and not the trash that forced on us.

And please don't bring Bible into this, lets not start some stupid religion arguement here, I think we have enough problems.

[Narayan23]

Ryokun1989 wrote...

Well complain whatever you like but make your opinion count, not just some random attack, say why you don't like it. You are talking about content of the game, an argument about money regarding content is just useless. I don't care if I paid a million bucks and made a crapy ending, we should judge it on its merrits of being a bad ending not that it cost a million.

I personally felt it was a bad ending because for me it felt like shepard gave up. Instead of going out in defiance he went out worn out and broken. A shell of the man Shepard had been the previous 100 hours
I did not even mind the choices as such but the way it was presented just rubbed me the wrong way.
I personally prefered the first ending I had because my XBOX locked up after Harbinger shot me running towards the beam the first time when the screen went white and for a second I thought that was it. .
That would have been a better ending to me because at least Shepard went out without compromise,
I might have lost but at least it was on my own terms. and against impossible odds.

Aside from that the ending seemed rushed it's clear they ran out of budget or time why would they otherwise reuse the same movie . They had to resort to reusing assets while they should have been showing 3 different endings.The 1 movie they did actualy get done they did not manage to finish without huge flaws that anyone who is watching it with half a brain can pick up on without rewatching.
That's just a terrible mistake when you are finalizing a story.

Maybe i'm to harsh not sure but it's such a shame it was a wonderfull series.

I'm not demanding the ending to change but i still like to voice my opinion on it.
Like I said maybe they will learn from their mistakes you can't deny the that somewhere something went wrong because otherwise we would not be in this situation.

[Ryokun1989]

Mars8309 wrote...

Heres my 2 cents... Since your a game designer... In what game would have Casey tell the gamers: "All the questions will be answered." or something like that. or might be lose ends tied into the end

A lot of the big questions are resolved, to name a few:
- Reaper threat
- Quorian / geth conflict
- Genophage
- Rachniqueen
- Cerberus

And hey he is marketing his game, I only judge the game by what it has story wise, and what casey says is just something he said. Since he has different assumption of questions being solved they will never match with everybodies expectations on that subject. 
Even the fact that it has some loose threads is not terrible, many stories do, but the main conflicts are adressed in a good way.

So in space where theres no oxygen Sheppard is breathing.

Becouse that place was meant to be a metaphysical space, something that will probably defy the laws of nature. It is created to cary the plot device of metaphors, the characters are the metaphors for things like "the human race", "chaos" and "order". After the reaper hit everything changes, becouse bioware didn't want a clear cut ending, they wanted it vague so people would discuss a lot like is happening now.

Or how about any of the 3 choices it end with the Mass Relays being destroy'd...How does the allies get back to there homeworlds?
Perhaps not, do they have to? It is up to you to think about that. Perhaps earth is now home to many alien species. It doesn't matter that they left it out of the game, shepards tale is about the fight against the reapers and not what comes after, that is becouse if they told us we would just accept it and that's it. Now we will have to talk about it. They want to speak to our immagination, and perhaps create a framework from which they will someday make a new game.

If taken the red choice of the ending it shows sheppard buried under rubble breathing. Are the Reapers dead? Did we take back earth? Is Anderson Alive? What happened to my squadmates? These are left unanswered.
Well earth is taken back, the red choice represents the distruction of all synthetic life. But in the end organics will build new synthetics and thus the cycle will perhaps start again. Yes you defeated the reapers, shepard probably lives. But again this is after the game ends, the game is about the fight and how you get to the final battle. not about life in the galaxy after the fight. That last part is up to us. 

How about the dark matter thing from ME2 that was dropped of that being tied into something.

I don't know about that one, haven't thought about it, didn't miss it, but ofcourse in a story as huge as this some things get less important over time.

How able to make peace wit the geth and the qurains and by choosing to destroy the Reapers... Its going take the Qurains a long time to get used to there planet again because the geth is destroy'd...that doesn't make sense either.

Well it does make sense, the quarians have shown that synthetic life will rebel against organic life. You solved the problem but for how long? You were the balance that provided them peace for now, but perhaps in a few years the geth would rebel again. It is what is suggested through the lore, it is why the prothians didn't trust synthetics either and AI is forbidden in the galaxy. 

When i play alot of game the ends are tied into the choices made... on ME3 theres more questions than there are answers. Right after the ending.

A lot of games take the path that has been paved, giving people what they want, providing them with answers. Actually what I like about ME3 is that it doesn't do that for once. It ends the universe as we know it, while leaving enough material of thought. People will be angry over it for many reasons but bioware had guts doing this. And it's a move that is as controversial as it is daring and brilliant. Mass effect is about choosing the outcome of conflicts, the final choice represents the outcome of the entire conflict prevelant through the whole of mass effect. Are you control (paragon), are you chaos (renegade) or are you synthesis (a mix of both renegade and paragon). And by making that one choice determine a theoretical consequence it lets us decide wheter we did good or bad. It wasn't meant to be obvious or clear what was good or bad. Just as many choices aren't clearly good or bad. Paragon and renegade do not represent good or bad. They represent the thought out plan (order) and the swift unpredictable action (chaos). 

Questions aren't bad, as long as they are worth asking.

Since your a game designer please answer the questions that i posted...make me understand what i missed.

I do design games but hey, this is a creative industry, opinions differ to, it's not an exact science.

[Ryokun1989]

Wowlock wrote...

Look. You got your ''deep'', ''meaningful'' ending. Be happy about it and move. on.

Those of us who are promised our own endings...we will hold the line.

And like many said before me, IF I would want to Imagine the damn ending, I wouldn't pay 80+ or hell +200 £ for this trilogy since I can create any damn story in my imagination. But that is not the point.

Point is there is the advertisement, the selling point and the promises that given to us that was supported by the game's themes and structure.

This ending ignores all of it. This is not a Virtual book, a movie or a TV series. This is an Interactive game with players at the helm to direct their experience.

And we don't want to CHANGE the endings. We want our OWN endings where we put an effort to get and not the trash that forced on us.

And please don't bring Bible into this, lets not start some stupid religion arguement here, I think we have enough problems.

Jeez I am not even starting a religious argument >_< it was about storytelling. And really you can have your ending sure, but I am just asking why? Becouse it wouldn't make the game that much better. 

[Landline]

Ryokun1989 wrote...

I really don't get the hatred for the ending. By literary standards it is so far ahead of other games. It is short, powerfull, wraps up the entire ME universe in one choice. And it left stuff to the immagination, which is something a lot of writers tend to forget. Sure you had your own ending in mind, but do people really want it to end on a bland happy go lucky note? Bioware wants us to think about this ending and what it meant, they said so themselves, and they achieved it.

Yeah, that's everything that's wrong with the ending.

Three goddamned games played before this, and suddenly none of that matters. It all comes down to your final choice.

And how the hell is being short a good thing? This ending was five years in the making, it's not only the ending for ME3, but for the first and second games as well. It should feel like it's the result of everything you've done up to that point! It has nothing likeb that.

[Ryokun1989]

Ryokun1989 wrote...

trifecta739 wrote...

Ryokun1989 wrote...

First off, I was getting sick of reading all the negative feedback and dumb suggestions for the so called "true" ending that should have been made or what not.

Personal opinion and you're entitled to it.

Second, fans don't "own" the game's content at all, they are entitled to hating whatever they want but players who think media are created to solely do what the fans want are dead wrong. 

True, but games are made for the people that play them. If people don't like something about a game that stops them from wanting to play them, then the game is not doing something correctly and should be changed accordingly.

Yes and no, yeah games are made for an audience but artist should not have to conform to their general expectation, it's their right to ignore it. Fans are not entitled to anything in that respect.

That would just deliver plain old boring and forgettable work, becouse it will not surprise you in unpleasant ways which good stories need to do to stay interesting.

You'd be surprised the level of quality influence fans can have on things. I've seen my fair share of terrible fan fiction and incredible fan fiction. If anything, I can compare it to a website I used to frequent where fans made video game box art and the better ones were extremely superior to the official box art used. 

Sure there is great fan fiction, and it's a great source of inspiration. But demanding an artist change or add something against his will to his game becouse a group of people dislike the ending. This game was made with the vision in mind of a few good writers who took us along the entire ride. It's their artistic freedom to end the story the way they see fit.

Third, I just wanted to post a different view on the ending to counter all the hatred, becouse I thought the ending was brilliant. 

Again, personal opinion. Whatever.

A good ending to a story isn't one that makes sense in every way and wraps up with everybody walking away happy.

Um. Yeah, actually, good endings kind of are. Explanation is needed in order for it make sense. Even more so when there are clear problems with what is being presented. And for the second bit: you really haven't been paying much attention to people, have you? It's not that we want a happier ending it's that we want a wider variety of endings. Get it right.


No they are not, that's what most games do and we have seen many of those endings before and we know them by now. Bioware chose to create something to provoke our own thoughts and while I know that not all of you want it to be a happy ending, some of you do though. And sure a wider variety of endings could have been an option, it "could" have been, but they chose to narrow it down to one final choice. It is a choice that can be argued about, but it is not wrong, becouse it does wrap the story up and it doesn't ruin anything.

For me a good ending is one that makes you think and ask yourself: What did I see just now? 

You still need explanations to be able to adequately interpret what you saw. Otherwise you end up saying we're stupid for coming up with an indoctrination theory by grabbing at straws emergency induction ports. We have very little information that concretely proves any theory. That's a problem.

The ending doesn't take the time to explain all the stuff, that would be just rehash and fan service. ]They did good to cut that since that is not necessary to tell what they want to tell us. They leave us the pieces and they challenge us to fix the puzzle as we see fit. And please there are enough clues to what happens, why does everything have to be handed to you on a silver platter?

This ending represents the essence of what the Mass Effect series is about in one last major choice.
 
The Mass Effect series is (supposed to be) about choice. This gives you 3 and takes no former choices into account when dealing with these 3 choices. 

They do take into account what you did. They show you what the idea behind the paragon (control) renegade (chaos) concept is, they wrap up the game by letting you determine the fate of the galaxy by giving you the final choice. A choice that makes clear that there is no good or bad, a choice that shows that both are needed to survive this. A choice that ultimately shows that there are always other ways, but all of them come with pro's and con's.

It blurs the lines of order and chaos, black and white, to convey its message of needed balance. It makes the story a shade of grey.

The only reason the ending(s) are blurred is because they are so similar. Seriously, watch this:www.youtube.com/watch

Storywise Bioware needed for it to be a bit vague after the reaper hit. By making it so that we do not know whether Shepard is alive, dead or harvested by the reapers, it lets us as players accept that Shepard is no longer Shepard. (some people call this "a dream" but I think it is more like a metaphysical reality) 

Sounds like you're trying to justify the annihilation of Shepard's character with something that sounds vaguely like an explanation of character development. Again, Mass Effect set the standard for letting players go about character development. The game should not be forcing it on anyone.


It is not an excuse, it is exactly what happens. The entire sequence proves that. It defies the laws of nature thus making shepard not so much shepard but an entity that embodies what shepard stands for. And what he stands for is your choice. I mean for example the kid on the citadel is the catalyst. A catalyst is something that puts things in motion, something that couses change. He is the kid becouse shepard saw this kid as his driving force to save humanity it was his embodyment of a catalyst.
 
By now every character that shows up stands for a metaphor, with Shepard being the metaphor that stands for humanity, that has to make its choice regarding its own future. The illusive man is the metaphor that stand for renegade that needs order to accomplish its plans. And anderson represents paragon that needs chaos to accomplish its plans. The lines are blurred now but one thing is obvious, inevitably chaos will need order and order will need chaos. Making synergy, which provides the balance between both, humanities next (and final?) step in evolution.

Fair enough, although this entire concept is presented in a horrible fashion.


That is your opinion, but it is prevelant trough the entire lore, so it is hinted at multiple times.

There are three ways in which you can determine the fate of humanity and for all of them it is clear what they represent. One of the endings even ends with Shepard not dying. Yes the Mass Effect universe as we know it is at an end in all three endings, but that is not the choice we were asked to make.

This is Mass Effect. It should have been a choice we were asked to make. Why? Because Mass Effect was made based on giving players the ability to choose.


No it is not, the universe is not the story. It provides a context for the story. The end of the universe of ME means the end of the story as we know it. The story within the context was the fight against the reapers and how we get to that final battle and defeat them. Bioware is not creating a game that lets you tell a story, it is telling a story that branches and lets you choose how the character reacts to the story. You are shepard and everything he stands for, you are not the world, you can only influence what shepard does, if shepard can't save the relays nor can you. It is been so during the entire series.

The real choice here is the way in which you as a player choose to advance humanity, and all three options have vastly different consequences. 

Refer to the video link I posted earlier.

It is as if people that hate this ending so much expect the choice to have major influence on how the end video looks, but most commenters don't even think for one second what theoretically the different endings mean for us as a species. It is a shame that so many people fail to reckognize that the lack of exposition is what makes the ending so good, this is what lets the players think about: What will happen now? What will come of humanity this way? 

Once again, it needs explanation in order to allow for interpretations with solid evidence. Oh and without any form of epilogue, the choice that you make doesn't show off. It doesn't reward/punish you for your choice.


Well there is enough explanation right until the point whether shepard lives or not. But telling all the things that happen after the battle is useless to convey the message of the writers. They will perhaps hint at it in DLC or whatever. But I don't think it needs to be part of the ending becouse it doesn't have anything to do with the issue at hand.

I really don't get the hatred for the ending. 

Then read literally ANY thread regarding why the endings are bad. And I do mean "read."


I read many, and they HATE the ending, I mean sure you can not like it but there is so much anger about it. It doesn't make sense, becouse there is so much to like. I don't care about people not liking the ending but so many people rant becouse they didn't get "their" ending, bioware can't make a thousand endings. Not ones that are meaningful and to the point. Even if they could they wanted to tell this ending, and you can say a lot about it but it is really well thought over. They make a great attempt with this ending to adress our own immagination, something few games do, something that often only happens in theatre and books.

By literary standards it is so far ahead of other games. It is short, powerfull, wraps up the entire ME universe in one choice. 

Third time. Mass Effect is about choices. It always has been. It should never have been wrapped up so "neatly." If you can even call the ending a wrap-up.


The ending is all about choices and it wraps it up in explaining the concept of the choices, what they stand for, and what they generally do. They do this in ONE question, and it works, becouse if you look carefully it represents everything you have been doing before. Why the choices made you the kind of person you were is explained in the final choice.

And it left stuff to the immagination, which is something a lot of writers tend to forget. Sure you had your own ending in mind, but do people really want it to end on a bland happy go lucky note? Bioware wants us to think about this ending and what it meant, they said so themselves, and they achieved it.

I wanted it to end on a note that I made happen, that my choices forced upon me. Did I make good decisions? did I make poor decisions? I'll never know because I was forced to pick one of 3 choices that were in no way influenced by my previous choices. 


That's exactly the point I am making here. There is no good and bad. There is only grey, whatever you choose you never "failed" you made a decision. All decisions have pro's and con's. That's why paragon is not necessarily good but rather stand for"control" or thinking things over. And renegade isn't really bad but "chaos" or taking swift and unexpected action. They both need eachother as explained in the game. Like yin and yang. Thus the third option "synthesis", the melding of the two, stand for the best of both worlds. 
The other choices in the game just amounted to how you end at that choice there are no important consequences to that anymore, how you got your allies to work for you, or not, is what determines how you have played it and what future will work for you. That future is up for you to decide in the ending.

I just really hope they don't change the ending, a lot of great stories have vague endings and sometimes it makes them all the better for it. To me, less (explanation) means more, with Mass Effect this is totally the case. 

You should play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on the NES. Zero explanation. And though I agree there shouldn't be a patch for everyone to have the ending changed, there is NO reason you could argue against DLC for those that want new endings.

Well sure they can, and it's still their choice, but they made a great ending and they should not create a new one becouse fans say so that would be a dumb move. That would be the real moneygrab and it ultimately goes against artistic freedom. I want them to know that they didn't make a mistake or anything. Thats why I post here.

The game has a thousand varriables and instead of trying to weigh them all in (which would have never worked) the writers chose to resort to our immagination which is, as most creative writers know, the best tool you have as a writer. 

It would've worked if they had gone with it because BioWare has proven before that they are amazing at incorporating variables.

No really it would not, it would end up in many many different cameos and people would still be mad becouse they would have not seen "this" and not seen "that" consequence or things. Heavy rain's epilogues are a good example of forgettable things. Yeah they give players closure, but again, don't give players all the explanations and they start discussing over your ending and what they think happened. That last thing is ultimately more thought provoking than "closure" which is heavily overrated.

Also, everything that happened after the big choice makes the choice less important. Bioware's writers cut everything to make the ending to the point and by doing so prevented it from becoming convoluted. This has to be praised, becouse writers writing within the Sci-fi genre and even within the Mass Effect universe itself have a risk to walk into this trap.

Convoluted? BioWare? They could've done it no problem if they had attempted it. It's not as though this was a tactical manuveur on their part.


Yes it was a tactical manuevre, story wise they took the bald step and said, hey guys this is what it all means to us as the writers. This is what we want to tell you. Just showing multiple outcomes would be the easy and probably not as thought provoking way to go. Then the series was over, ok... Next?
Now we will think about it and a lot of people also like the endings so its not as clear cut that everybody dislikes the endings too. A lot of people don't like the endings becouse of different reasons also, they could have never corrected all of their issues anyway. Now they have a thought provoking epic ending. Instead of an obvious conclusion with logical consequences. It's their choice, but I think they made the right one, the one that hasn't been done a thousand times in games already.

Some of the best stories in history enraged their audiences when first published. 

Could you at least list some then? 

"Catcher in the Rye"
"Brave new world"
"Lolita"
"The Da Vinci Code"

Just like with ME groups of people disliked these stories and it's conclusions en masse for different reasons, still they are well remembered and respected.

I think in retrospect the Mass Effect series will be seen as the first game that uplifted the medium to a digital work of literature. Good work writers at bioware, I am trully inspired by what you have accomplished with the medium.

Another opinion. 

Signed,

A fellow game designer

[b]Oh boy. I hope you only go on to make linear games in your future.

Sorry to dissapoint you I work on branched story and concept most of the time.

/dissected rant over

Modifié par Ryokun1989, 16 mars 2012 - 06:39 .