613 réponses à ce sujet

[MattFini]

My first DA:O playthrough saw my elf sacrifice her life for the good of everyone.

Unlike ME3, it was placed in a proper context BEFORE the final five minutes and, more importantly, it was MY CHOICE TO MAKE!!!!! But it still felt very heroic, and the epilogue that followed was fantastic stuff.

When it was over I felt exhausted, but satisfied.

Everything that ME3 wasn't. And actually, this thread has made me want to go back and play DA:O again.

[termokanden]

RVallant wrote...


Agreeing with astreqwerty, a game doesn't have to end on a positive note to be extremely well done. Sometimes, the world ends in a crapsack world where everything is for nought or little changes or you barely do anything at the end.

There's plenty of good games that end on a sour note.

Maybe, maybe not.

The problem as I see it is that your actions really don't matter. What's the point for example in uniting the quarians and the geth if you're going to kill all synthetics anyway? It seems like all of the subplots ultimately don't matter. And the 3 options you are given at the end of the game are just completely out of the blue, and the reasoning behind them contradicts what has been going on in the game.

But the one thing that always annoyed me about the Mass Effect story is how it builds up a whole galaxy full of interesting conflicts but it isn't really about this at all. It's just some stupid external, unknowable force that wants to annihilate everything. They could have told many interesting in the Mass Effect universe, but instead they chose to tell a story we've all heard before: everything is at stake, fight or die, blah blah.

Basically, I wish they had told a story that simply took place in the Mass Effect universe instead of blowing the whole thing up. To me it does invalidate pretty much everything we've been doing in the three games.

I don't want this to sound too negative. After all, I love MOST of Mass Effect (all three games really). But I always felt like the Reapers were the weak point in the story.

Modifié par termokanden, 17 mars 2012 - 02:04 .

[Encarmine]

AndersIsLush wrote...

Agreed. In DAO we had a choice at the end. Your PC dies, Alistair dies, Loghain dies or you use the dark ritual. The last one being something a lot of people loved.

In awakening we got to choose from saving vigil's keep or the city. If we managed to do all of the quests properly we couls save both.

Damn that game was epic, Loghain could redeem himself through death, you could go out like a legend, or make a dark pact to survive, Alistair can go and sacrifice himself for his Kingdom.

I played through awakening and then the one where i tracked down Mograin, and my warden went through the mirror with her and into myth to meet his child etc etc.

Ahh the days

[RedWulfi]

Encarmine wrote...

AndersIsLush wrote...

Agreed. In DAO we had a choice at the end. Your PC dies, Alistair dies, Loghain dies or you use the dark ritual. The last one being something a lot of people loved.

In awakening we got to choose from saving vigil's keep or the city. If we managed to do all of the quests properly we couls save both.

Damn that game was epic, Loghain could redeem himself through death, you could go out like a legend, or make a dark pact to survive, Alistair can go and sacrifice himself for his Kingdom.

I played through awakening and then the one where i tracked down Mograin, and my warden went through the mirror with her and into myth to meet his child etc etc.

Ahh the days

I know right. :'( im gonna go play now.

[termokanden]

Ahh the days? It was only a few years ago

[Rune-Chan]

Exactly.

If they ended ME1 on a note like this, it wouldn't be as much of an issue, we would know that it's not the end of the whole story, but to end the trilogy, the story we have all spent hundreds of hours on like this, was just plain idiotic.

Modifié par Machines Are Us, 17 mars 2012 - 02:10 .

[HTTP 404]

thanks OP! although I didn't mind the endings of me3, the lack of variety of how your choices impact the end really makes it hard to play the game again.

[Da Don Giovanni]

MattFini wrote...

My first DA:O playthrough saw my elf sacrifice her life for the good of everyone.

Unlike ME3, it was placed in a proper context BEFORE the final five minutes and, more importantly, it was MY CHOICE TO MAKE!!!!! But it still felt very heroic, and the epilogue that followed was fantastic stuff.

When it was over I felt exhausted, but satisfied.

Everything that ME3 wasn't. And actually, this thread has made me want to go back and play DA:O again.

Agreed.

[deaths origin]

major props for that guy i understand why bioware went over to ea but still this always happen to the small companys they get a AWSOME game series out but when they go over to a bigger company it gets ruined

[lex0r11]

just bump so more people can read.

i loved DA:O.

[Iztiak]

Bioware should listen to us... And their own very INTELLIGENT employees. Or former employees.

[Doctoglethorpe]

MattFini wrote...

My first DA:O playthrough saw my elf sacrifice her life for the good of everyone.

Unlike ME3, it was placed in a proper context BEFORE the final five minutes and, more importantly, it was MY CHOICE TO MAKE!!!!! But it still felt very heroic, and the epilogue that followed was fantastic stuff.

When it was over I felt exhausted, but satisfied.

Everything that ME3 wasn't. And actually, this thread has made me want to go back and play DA:O again.

Well said.

[Subject M]

Skyhawk02 wrote...

Yeah, we don't have enough games in the world that end on a positive note, we need more of those. Oh, wait, that's how most games end.

The option of a positive and hopeful ending for the main charcters and the world is what is needed. And it is needed for the reason he states.

[Andur4]

Totally agree. The series should have had the possibility of ending on a high note, depending on your choices, especially after building up the hope the Reapers could truly be stopped.

[Grasich]

It's a real shame he wasn't on the ME3 team. This man knows what's he's doing. DA:O had a fantastic ending.

[Subject M]

astreqwerty wrote...

Legend78731 wrote...

Brent Knowles, who was the lead designer on Dragon Age: Origins, and one of the old guard Bioware developers (Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights), and, when he quit Bioware, made the interesting observation that "Bioware is no longer the company I remember". He's talked a little bit about the ME3 situation on his blog, but they're mainly comments to other posts. Check it out at: www.brentknowles.com

One thing he did say, I thought I would share (if it's already been posted, I apologize), as it's a sentiment I happen to agree with:

"I read one recent blog post where the writer basically said "the ending was awesome because it was just like a movie" and I think she was missing the point.

It is a game. Not a movie.

And more specifically, its a role-playing game. The players are *part* of the game. Part of the process of building and experiencing the game, much more so than with most other forms of entertainment.

Entitlement is really a right, for the gamer, because they have participated, actively, in the game itself.

Again, I can't speak to the actual ending myself, because I have not played it but in general I'd say a Role-Playing Video Game Trilogy Ending should (try to) do the following:

1. Reward the player's choices throughout the series. The big stuff they did should be noted. They should *feel* like they had a unique impact on the world.

2. End on a positive note. This is really important for video games...life in general is full of s****y stuff happening all the time. When I invest a hundred hours into a game I need to walk away feeling like a hero.

When you waste a couple hours of a person's life with an artsy/depressing movie or short story or even a novel, it is more forgivable because the time spent is less. And presumably the consumer knew what they were going into when they started. Certain directors create certain styles of movie. Certain writers write specific types of fiction.

On the other hand somebody playing an epic role-playing video-game trilogy is going to *expect* to be the hero and save the universe. That's why they are playing the game. When expectations don't match reality, disappointment is created.

It might be an artistic/creative move to go with a different style of ending but I feel its the wrong choice, especially for a videogame *trilogy*. Make your middle game bleak if you want to, but end the series on a high note."

EDIT: Fixed the formatting of the quote, and for those looking for the original comment, it's in the following link. Scroll down a few comments to find it.

http://blog.brentkno.../#disqus_thread

i wholeheartly disagree...thats actually a very immature approach if you ask me..i dont support the me3 endings at all but i like my finales unique,clever and smart not the usual ****

As we use to say where I am from, there is no diametrically oposite relation beween 1. unique,clever and smart  and 2. the option of ending on a positive note. I do not understand how people can think that.

[TomekN86]

I agree with the OP. We play games because let's face it: how many of us will ever have the chance to save a planet let alone whole galaxy?.. Well I propably had one yesterday, but overslept... so I'm left with ME trilogy
Hold the line.

[DonJuan2000]

Well said, I'll buy your games !! :-)

[Subject M]

Wattoes wrote...

RVallant wrote...


Agreeing with astreqwerty, a game doesn't have to end on a positive note to be extremely well done. Sometimes, the world ends in a crapsack world where everything is for nought or little changes or you barely do anything at the end.

There's plenty of good games that end on a sour note.

It doesn't have to be fireworks and happyness, but the player needs satisfaction.  He needs to really feel like a hero.

Thats ending on a "positive" note, despite not necessarily being bubblegum happy, if that makes sense.

Its about delivering on expectations and foreshadowing in satisfying ways that are not cliche or feels out of place. 

Its about sticking to the story so far and present options and  developments that alines with it and the  accomplishments and choices of the player. 

Simple as that really.

Modifié par Subject M, 17 mars 2012 - 03:02 .

[tekkaman fear]

Sywen wrote...

I agree with this. It's why I can't play again. I didn't walk away feeling like a hero. Real life sucks enough. I don't need a game to remind me of that.

QFT!

[Necroscope]

Someone should ask him what he thinks his former employer will do now.

[The Angry One]

While he has not played it and rightly doesn't comment on the specifics, his outline on what should constitute the endings for an RPG are 100% correct.
If you do not reward a player for their contributions or punish them for their slacking, what's the point?
What pleasure is there to be had in that? Movies have railroaded endings because movies are railroads. Games are not.

This only serves to remind me how DA:O towers over the likes of ME3.
A game where your choices mattered right till the end.

Modifié par The Angry One, 17 mars 2012 - 03:05 .

[Subject M]

Encarmine wrote...

AndersIsLush wrote...

Agreed. In DAO we had a choice at the end. Your PC dies, Alistair dies, Loghain dies or you use the dark ritual. The last one being something a lot of people loved.

In awakening we got to choose from saving vigil's keep or the city. If we managed to do all of the quests properly we couls save both.

Damn that game was epic, Loghain could redeem himself through death, you could go out like a legend, or make a dark pact to survive, Alistair can go and sacrifice himself for his Kingdom.

I played through awakening and then the one where i tracked down Mograin, and my warden went through the mirror with her and into myth to meet his child etc etc.

Ahh the days

They did not just die, they were annihilated. My warden did not have anything against blood magic in itself, so he used it to save not only himself, but everyone as the dark ritual allowed everyone to continue in one way or another. The alternative was total annihilation for someone, which seemed monstrous. Anyway, back to topic.

[Jenaimarre]

Capeo wrote...

This is making me want to toss Origins in and start a new character.

Doing that first thing in the morning.

[Inujade]

DA:O Spoilers in the comparison to come!

DA: O is my favourite game ever, currently. The ending is one of the major reasons why.

In it, the comparative choice to the one we got at the end of ME3, was the dark ritual at the end of DA: O. Since I was romancing an unhardened Alistair my first playthrough, this choice was like a punch in the gut. But it didn't make me angry. It didn't leave me apathetic.

It was bittersweet in the actual definition of the term. The love of my character's life had a child with another woman; he had to give up his romantic ideal of only ever being with one woman (which stems from the character's greatest desire....to have a *traditional* family); she lost her best friend in the process (Morrigan leaving after). All heart-wrenching, but it meant nobody had to die. The alternatives were letting Alistair die for me, or dying for him. Different, personal endings with different, personal implications. No *pure* happy ending.

In ME3? A literal 'pick your ending' that develops from no choices at all. The Dark Ritual is affected by what gender you are, who you romance, whether or not Loghain is alive, etc. None of this in ME3. Just blue, green, and red, with nothing to logically lead to them.

The ending of ME3 is not bittersweet. One, it's too impersonal, with almost nothing to do with Shepard as a character. ANYONE organic could have been up there, and it would have been the same. Two, there's nothing sweet about it. At least in my DA:O ending, I could be comforted knowing the characters would have time to recover from what had come between them. THAT'S an opening for speculation; could they recover? Could they even stop Ferelden from entering civil war, when they could produce no heir? Would the God-baby ever be seen again?

And on that note: suddenly pulling the plug from any and all information is not 'leaving room for speculation.' On that logic, you could have just cut to black after the final battle in London and left it at that. "But nothing is explained!" "Well, now you can speculate!" No, now we can wildly guess, and that is not the same.

Brent Knowles knew what he was doing back then, and he knows what he's talking about now. I loved Mass Effect 3 to pieces, I still do...but this ending was a major oversight by SOMEONE, and everyone knows it.

Modifié par Inujade, 17 mars 2012 - 03:20 .