459 réponses à ce sujet

[Shared]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Wowlock wrote...

''I guess what impressed and surprised me the most is how thought-provoking the ending was''

I stopped there...

You have your opinion and I respect that...

I stopped there.  Thanks!

Just answer one thing then. How will you explain that Shepard with the correct amount of EMS, survives reentry? Now thats a game breaker plothole if there ever was one.

[2_BR4ZIL_2]

majormajormmajor wrote...

Notice how all these pro-ending posts use the same language? "Thought-provoking", "memorable", "endless possibility."

Almost as if they had no originality of their own, or were working off a template...

Funny, because as far as i have seen, its quite true.

[slimshedim]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

I agree that the very final cutscene lacks variety.  But
surely your Paragon Shep and Renegade Shep will have wildly different
ways of getting to the last one minute of the game?

So basically you're agreeing that none of the choices you made matter in the end when BIOWARE stated multiple times that your choices do matter and there will be a large variety of possible endings, not just 3 different colors. Heck, even the ME3 slogan "Retake Earth" implies the possibility of retaking the goddamned planet and give players who want it the option of an ending where you actually saved the planet. It's neither "Try to retake Earth"  or "Fill the massive plotholes, the lack of explanation in our unimaginative oh so artistic ending and  answer all your questions by using your imagination" it's "Retake Earth".

Modifié par slimshedim, 19 mars 2012 - 09:34 .

[CaptainZaysh]

Shared wrote...

Just answer one thing then. How will you explain that Shepard with the correct amount of EMS, survives reentry? Now thats a game breaker plothole if there ever was one.

Are you talking about the last shot?  I know the indoctrination theory guys insist they've identified the rubble Shepard is under as coming from the streets of Westminster, but I didn't see that myself.  It's not like she was lying under a red phone box or something.

[StarcloudSWG]

I was left disgusted, enraged, AND depressed.

It's an unfinished ending. It's a non-ending. While I can accept that you found it to be acceptable, I found there to be too many holes.

The implications in that ending sequence were that galactic civilization was screwed. Your teammates were screwed. The people that youv'e met, that helped you, the fleets that aided you on the fight to take back Earth, were screwed. The Earth was screwed. Everyone on the Citadel was screwed.

The circular logic and "Pick A, B, C, it doesn't matter, you'll be committing genocide. Unless you choose B, in which case you'll be committing suicide AND changing people against their will. Through space magic. Because this is really a fantasy game, not science fiction."

This was not a happy ending for ANYONE. It was just a bitter, bitter ending.

Modifié par StarcloudSWG, 19 mars 2012 - 09:37 .

[CaptainZaysh]

slimshedim wrote...

So basically you're agreeing that none of the choices you made matter in the end when BIOWARE stated multiple times that your choices do matter and there will be a large variety of possible endings, not just 3 different colors.

I think they do matter.  My Shepard retook Earth in a different way from your Shepard's.

[Coolfaec]

 I bet this is one of the writer's duplicate accounts.

[LegatoSkyheart]

Then you must have played a Shepard that would go along with that ending. As I see it, there is a way to make the ending correct, but that would mean that you would have to play as a Shepard VERY SPECIFICALLY. So unless you play THIS Shepard all other Shepard(s) are incorrect and THIS Shepard is correct.
Which is wrong for a game that is all about Choice and the Consequences that come with it.
(I'm talking about making Shepard into a Tragic Hero which you can through out the entire series, but Shepard isn't always a Tragic Hero, and that's why people don't like the ending.)

[lltoon]

Can I point out my problems with the ending, CaptainZaysh? I want to humor Bioware's writing logic and discuss using the logic they supplied to me.

I don't understand the motives of the Reapers. They claim to be 'harvesting' life forms so that they don't wipe themselves out by creating AI. I don't understand the point of harvesting advanced life forms.
The beings they harvest has none of their culture, technology, or bodily image preserved when they are put into the Reaper shell. So in essence nothing about these species are preserved or even remembered. As far as we know, the 'harvesting' kills you (yes, they basically disintegrate you into a DNA soup) and then pump your remains through tubes.

Now you might say, "but the Reapers are preserving the DNA of organic species.". But to what end is that goal? What is the point of preserving DNA if the Reapers have no intention of recreating or cloning these organic beings in the future? DNA on it's own has no intrinsic value unless they are part of a functioning organic system. Reapers are not organic systems, they are basically floating DNA soup vats that preserves nothing of their species collective consciousness. So ultimately, the logic falls flat and is equivalent to killing endangered Siberian Tigers and putting the carcasses through taxidermy to 'preserve' them, because they were doomed to go extinct anyway.

How do we know Reapers are not of organic intelligence? They are referred to as AI repeatedly throughout the 3 games and they even have AI code that's directly interfacable with Geth binary code. The Reaper AI can even be uploaded to databases.

So once we've established that Reapers are AI constructs, doesn't this contradict the Catalyst's statement that synthetic life will eventually revolt against their creators and destroy all life? I mean, the Catalyst 'created' the Reapers and they have been incredibly reliable in following out the Catalyst's commands to 'preserve all life' as they call it for millions of years. Not to mention that they are prudent enough to leave other intelligent, but technologically primitive life forms alone, even though the Catalyst said that AI will destroy ALL LIFE, with no exceptions.

Another question that pops up is that the Catalyst said that all synthetics are destined to destroy all organics. How did it come to this conclusion? We can only assume that it's only seen this happen once during it's own cycle, but to extrapolate that because something happened once, that it will happen again all the time, is incredibly dumb. It's like rolling a dice and getting a six, then you run around telling everyone that when they roll a dice, they will get a six. It makes no logical sense. We are not given any information about this and we are given no reason to accept it's explanation at face value. It's bad writing.

Another problem is why does the Mass Relay need to be destroyed. It never needed to be and the Catalyst never explains why the relays needed to be destroyed.
Sure, you can say that "now all species can develop the tech along the path of their own choosing" but this line of thinking is fundamentally flawed. With the Reaper threat gone, why is there a need to give up Mass Effect technology? Technology on it's own are not inherently evil, it's how they are used that is evil. The Reapers use Mass Effect technology to 'trick' organics into developing along the path they desired, but with the Reapers defeated, there is no reason why continuing using the mass relay system would be in any way dangerous. They are essentially inert. This is the same case for the Citadel where it's signal was made inert and was continually used despite it being an obvious trap.

Secondly if you really believed that the races should be allowed to self-determination, then why not ask the races like we did the Geth?
Humans, would you like to live without mass effect technology? Turians, would you like to live without mass effect technology?
When you think about this logically, they would certainly say YES, KEEP THE TECHNOLOGY. Mainly because the galactic races place more importance in preserving the galactic infrastructure more than starting all technology from scratch. Even if for some wild reason they reject mass effect tech, they would still want the relays out of the Sol system to work so that they could at least all go back to their home systems. So the need to destroy the mass relays makes no sense and is unecessary.

On a final note, people may say "but the ending is meant for you to use your imagination". Which is also a big problem. I'd like to imagine the fleet all got back to their home systems safely, but the cutscenes show the relays blowing up. I'd like to imagine my crew getting rescued, but that isn't possible because I was shown the relays explosing. I'd like to imagine that the crew was resourceful enough to repair the ship, with EDI being able to provide detailed schematics with the remaining talented crew engineers, but I am shown a Stargazer clip showing their descendants have never been able to re-develop space travel, so that wasn't possible either.

At every turn where I try to use my imagination to customize and comprehend my ending, it gets funneled and limited by the scenes the game shows me. I don't understand the rationale of 'use your imagination, but you can't imagine this and this or this'. What's the point of using your imagination when the game severely limits how broady you are allowed to imagine?

All in all, the ending, the motivation and the philosophical points that were being made were ultimately very shallow. You are never encouraged to challenge your perception of what is right or wrong and are instead told to accept your fate in 3 different colors. It never gives you the freedom to question things like 'how would have things ended differently if I had pointed out flawed logic on the Catalyst's part? What if I rejected it's proposals? What if, I acually agreed with it? What if I was able to bring EDI or some Geth with me and show the advancements our cycle has made?
These are all deep questions, but the ending never entertains you on the subject and just tells you to shut up and go with it. That isn't deep or meaningful, it's some pseudointellectual nonsense pretending to be deep, but refusing to have it's concepts challenged.

I don't think I can list my points out entirely in one post, and I doubt you would ever read it, but for you who tl;dr:
The ending sucked even if you TRY to accept the logic Bioware has given to you for the motives. None of this makes sense and it certainly isn't philosphically deep by any stretch.

Modifié par lltoon, 19 mars 2012 - 09:47 .

[CaptainZaysh]

StarcloudSWG wrote...

I was left disgusted, enraged, AND depressed.

It's an unfinished ending. It's a non-ending. While I can accept that you found it to be acceptable, I found there to be too many holes.

The implications in that ending sequence were that galactic civilization was screwed. Your teammates were screwed. The people that youv'e met, that helped you, the fleets that aided you on the fight to take back Earth, were screwed. The Earth was screwed. Everyone on the Citadel was screwed.

This was not a happy ending for ANYONE. It was just a bitter, bitter ending.

I thought it was happy because we'd done what no civilisation had done before, we'd beaten the Reapers and broken a cycle of galactic extinctions stretching back millions of years.  Yes, we had to break the relay network in order to do it.  Yes, billions died and transitioning to a non-relay society leaves us with a staggering challenge ahead.  But it's our future, now, and I believe we can rise to the challenge, and I found musing about how we might rise to the challenge to be fascinating and uplifting.

[Shared]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Shared wrote...

Just answer one thing then. How will you explain that Shepard with the correct amount of EMS, survives reentry? Now thats a game breaker plothole if there ever was one.

Are you talking about the last shot?  I know the indoctrination theory guys insist they've identified the rubble Shepard is under as coming from the streets of Westminster, but I didn't see that myself.  It's not like she was lying under a red phone box or something.

No matter if we take the ending at face value, or if hes still in space, (which he isnt because theres gravity where he is) He/she has either survived reentry, or the explosion and is breathing in a vaccum. Theres only thoose two options. Neither of which is at all possible if the ending is what just as it is. But then again it could just be a rushed ending with no logic, sense or viability. But then it supports the ending(s) beeing crap because they are rushed.

[slimshedim]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Shared wrote...

Just answer one thing then. How will you explain that Shepard with the correct amount of EMS, survives reentry? Now thats a game breaker plothole if there ever was one.

Are you talking about the last shot?  I know the indoctrination theory guys insist they've identified the rubble Shepard is under as coming from the streets of Westminster, but I didn't see that myself.  It's not like she was lying under a red phone box or something.

Shepard survived re-entry in ME2 when he was spaced and already drifted into the atmosphere of that planet there. N7 armor made of space magic survives even that with the armored guy's tissue intact and ready for Cerberus to patch them up again. Script beats physics. You can't argue with art.

[Cyneburh]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

StarcloudSWG wrote...

I was left disgusted, enraged, AND depressed.

It's an unfinished ending. It's a non-ending. While I can accept that you found it to be acceptable, I found there to be too many holes.

The implications in that ending sequence were that galactic civilization was screwed. Your teammates were screwed. The people that youv'e met, that helped you, the fleets that aided you on the fight to take back Earth, were screwed. The Earth was screwed. Everyone on the Citadel was screwed.

This was not a happy ending for ANYONE. It was just a bitter, bitter ending.

I thought it was happy because we'd done what no civilisation had done before, we'd beaten the Reapers and broken a cycle of galactic extinctions stretching back millions of years.  

See, that's just it for me.  The ending cheapens the gravity and impact of this concept.  It's an intriguing, thought-provoking concept and I was really looking forward to its conclusion, but there was nothing in the Star Child's dialogue or the ending in general (in my opinion) that embraced or reflected the sheer vastness and complexity of those millions and millions of years.  An origin clarification would've solved that problem, and made a bittersweet ending all the more fitting.  Had we the players been given more of a glimpse into the past, other than of course what we've experienced with the Protheans or the little we know about their precursors, our views would've been expanded beyond the galaxy/time that we're so familiar with and wiling to defend to the death.  

The bizarre circular logic exhibited by the Star Child does nothing to broaden our horizons concerning the cycle.  It reaffirms that it needs to end--but since we are given an extremely vague explanation of its purpose and literally nothing of its origin, it cheapens the effect.  All we can see is what we're losing--not what could be lost (besides the obvious harvesting), and what others have lost in the past.  

That's at least one of my issues with the endings--apart from the plot holes that people have cited time and time again.    

Modifié par Cyneburh, 19 mars 2012 - 09:51 .

[CaptainZaysh]

lltoon wrote...

Can I point out my problems with the ending, CaptainZaysh? I want to humor Bioware's writing logic and discuss using the logic they supplied to me.

I don't understand the motives of the Reapers. They claim to be 'harvesting' life forms so that they don't wipe themselves out by creating AI. I don't understand the point of harvesting advanced life forms.
The beings they harvest has none of their culture, technology, or bodily image preserved when they are put into the Reaper shell. So in essence nothing about these species are preserved or even remembered. As far as we know, the 'harvesting' kills you (yes, they basically disintegrate you into a DNA soup) and then pump your remains through tubes.

"There is a realm of existence beyond your understanding."

Personally I believe that consciousnesses exist somehow after the processing.  Did you ever read the "It was lonely/It called to us" cut text from ME2?  If it's correct that Reapers are where souls of organic civilisations go to live in harmony forever then blowing them up is suddenly much more morally complex.

lltoon wrote...
Another question that pops up is that the Catalyst said that all synthetics are destined to destroy all organics. How did it come to this conclusion? We can only assume that it's only seen this happen once during it's own cycle, but to extrapolate that because it happened once, that it will happen all the time, is incredibly dumb. It's like rolling a dice and getting a six, then you run around telling everyone that when they roll a dice, they will get a six. It makes no logical sense. We are not given any information about this and we are given no reason to accept it's explanation at face value. It's bad writing.

I think it is talking about the theory of the technological singularity.  Basically because synthetic intelligence is only limited by processing power, then once AI has achieved self awareness then if it is left alone to grow its processing power then it is inevitable that it will supercede organic intelligence.  The path from there to being able to destroy us is quite obvious.  And once something is able to destroy us, given an infinite amount of time it will decide to do so.  So the theory is quite straightforward and I don't have a compelling refutation of it, even though I chose to destroy the Reapers.  We'll mess up the future on our own, thank you very much.

lltoon wrote...
Another problem is why does the Mass Relay need to be destroyed. It never needed to be and the Catalyst never explains why the relays needed to be destroyed.

Yeah, I think everyone would have preferred to lose the Reapers and keep the relay network if asked.  That's just not the choice we were given.  I'm fine with that.  I honestly didn't think BioWare had the balls to force us to make a sacrifice of that magnitude in order to win the war.  I respect them for it.  Freedom isn't free, and all that.

[slimshedim]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

slimshedim wrote...

So basically you're agreeing that none of the choices you made matter in the end when BIOWARE stated multiple times that your choices do matter and there will be a large variety of possible endings, not just 3 different colors.

I think they do matter.  My Shepard retook Earth in a different way from your Shepard's.

Sure, they're all war assets. Awesomesauce.

Yo dawg, I heard people in Africa are hungry and sheet, so i sent them a grain of rice, because it totally matters.

Luc0s wrote...

slimshedim wrote...

Shepard survived re-entry in ME2 when he was spaced

No
he didn't. Shepard died in ME2 and when his body entered the planet's
atmosphere it was pretty much burned badly. Jacob said it himself: "When
you first came in here you were nothing but meat and tubes."

Besides,
we don't know anything about the composition of the planet's atmosphere
where Shepard's body crashed on in ME2. We do know the composition of
Earth's atmosphere and we know for certain that Shepard could never
surive re-entry. His body would burn completely.

You can't argue with art.

Yes you can.

Yeah, the planet was called Imaginationland and the atmosphere was totally made of cotton candy and rainbows. Look, he obviously had a trail like a shooting star and that's a hint that the atmosphere must be somewhat similar. But that's totally not the point and I don't question it since it didn't ruin the series or shape it in a negative way.

No you can't, because there will always be a moron claiming that something completely retarded is art, hence cannot be criticizsed. You can dislike it, but that's about everything. Heck, there was some artist a couple of years ago who took a dump in a Mc Donald's paper bag and sold it as "artistic sheet" and guess what happened: Somebody said it's art and bought it for a sheetload of money!

At least that guy advertised it as what it actually was.

Modifié par slimshedim, 19 mars 2012 - 10:03 .

[lltoon]

slimshedim wrote...
You can't argue with art.

People tend to misunderstand art and assume that art and the industry that hires artists don't have standards.

I do quite a bit of art myself as a hobby (mostly on the subject of cartoons) and
there is such a thing as badly drawn and badly conceived art.

Even getting hired in the industry requires you to make art to some standard that is acceptable. The gaming industry or the animation industry hire artists and illustrators based on the quality of artwork (basic anatomy, color theory etc etc..) and how the artist understand their audience and knows exactly what type of reaction they want to get out of the audience.

For example, in the realm of pin-up art this is what is considered a reasonably good piece of art:


and this is what's considered a bad piece of art:




Same thing goes for sci-fi, (if you want to call it art.)

This is awesome:

Theconcept is quite original, and entertaining. It lets you play with your
imagination to interpret the reasons on why or how this poor fellow
became a zombie. In that, it's just an interesting concept to look at. Even if you don't agree with my analysis, one thing is true with this image: It fulfilled the client's vision of what he wanted to be seen.




This,
on the other hand, isn't art to me. It's a lazy concept where some
brushes were slapped onto a stock image with no imagination that went
into it. It's commonly known that if you want to make art, you have to love the product you are producing, you have to enjoy making the art. This image below just tells me that the artist was not bothered with creating a Quarian face, and saw it as a chore, something that needed to be got out of the way as fast as possible.



I can go on forever pointing out how Mass Effect 3 is full of bad artwork
from a storytelling perspective and from an illustrative perspective.

The only good point I can give to ME3's art is for the concept art book,
but those illustrators are hired on commission basis and most of their
amazing artwork are often scrapped and thrown away, which I think is a waste.

Modifié par lltoon, 19 mars 2012 - 10:01 .

[CaptainZaysh]

slimshedim wrote...

Sure, they're all war assets. Awesomesauce.

Yo dawg, I heard people in Africa are hungry and sheet, so i sent them a grain of rice, because it totally matters.

It's a software program.  How exactly do you propose it measures the contribution of a military asset, other than by assigning it a numerical value?

Modifié par CaptainZaysh, 19 mars 2012 - 09:56 .

[michael99887766]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

So from the spoiler group, and watching YouTubes after the game had launched, I knew what the ending was.  About an hour ago I played it for myself, with my one and only Shepard, the one I've had right from the start.

And, wow.  For me, it was beautiful.  Seeing the culmination of the million steps it took the galaxy to get Shepard in the right place with a handgun just blew me away.  I think the trilogy was a stunning piece of work and that Mass 3, including the controversial ending, was easily the best game in the series.  

When it comes to the criticisms, I'm really not seeing them myself.  I can see why lots of people wouldn't like them, but the idea that they are objectively bad is nonsense.  The only problem I see with the narrative is how the crewmembers who were with you in the rush to the Conduit got back to the Normandy (in the event you see that ending).  I wonder if it would have been clearer to have whomever was with you defending the missile launchers to have died holding the line.

I guess what impressed and surprised me the most is how thought-provoking the ending was.  I'm left wondering what galactic society will look like when we make it back out to the stars again.  Anything seems possible, like it did for me right at the beginning of the series, which was an incredibly exciting ending for me personally.  Thank you, BioWare, that was one hell of a ride.

Pretty much everything is ultimately subjective. But there are elements of the ending which are objective facts, and which most people would (admittedly subjectively) acknowledge as bad. For instance:

1) The use of the almost exact same cinematic in every ending is objectively repetitive and lacks variation
2) There was an objective lack of real choice, and impact from prior decisions, given what happens to the relays etc. This is rather annoying since we were promised variation and consequence.
3) The catalyst AI is objectively a brand new character added in at the last minute, and he objectively has limited connection with the plot so far. Many people would, albeit subjectively (but in large numbers/proportion), consider this bad storytelling.
4) There are gaping plot holes which are objectively gaping plot holes. Like how the crew flew away etc.

But saying "it's subjective" is a bit of a cop out IMO. The end could just be "and Shepard woke up and realised it was all a dream, and really he was an accountant with a boring but financially rewarding office job in London" and it would be hard to say, really, truly objectively, that the ending was bad. Just that the vast majority of people thought it sucked.

[CaptainZaysh]

michael99887766 wrote...

The end could just be "and Shepard woke up and realised it was all a dream, and really he was an accountant with a boring but financially rewarding office job in London" and it would be hard to say, really, truly objectively, that the ending was bad. Just that the vast majority of people thought it sucked.

Bingo!  That's exactly the point I was trying to make.  So how do you hold both that belief and the belief that the ME3 ending was objectively bad?  The two aren't compatible.

[Gruzmog]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Gruzmog wrote...

I think that if you only have one character and take the ending at face value it can be ok. You would have to not be bothered by the plotholes, (catalyst is the citadel? why did he not open the citadel relay ib ME1 then,

Because the Protheans sabotaged the Citadel.

Not really. the protheans modified the signal that would promt the keepers to activate the relay
1. The citadel would not need keepers to activate the relay in the first place if it is an AI
2. If the citadel was a living being it would know what the protheans did
3. Even in the event that the signal was also needed for the starchild to count to 50.000, the mere presence of sovereign should have been enough to make it open the relay on its own.
4. Computer coding as a reason to stop this is invalid, not only would an AI be able to brake that easily, but as there are sections of the citadel were noone ever comes cept for the keepers the control system for the relay should not have been touched in the first place.

Seems to me that during ME1 they had never thought to make the starchild the citadel and they did not consider ME1's events and lore when deciding upon it for the final game.

Gruzmog wrote...
teleporting crewmembers,

Yeah, covered in my OP.

No problem if you are not bothered by that, alot of people here have expressed that they are so it remains valid.

Gruzmog wrote...
organics versus synthetics being the main issue etc.)

It's the main issue for the Reapers, but you can't be annoyed that they're invading for reasons you dislike, right?

Nothing any reaper said up untill this point hinted at this. So even if the writers can decide that is their main goal, with good writing it would have been foreshadowed.

Gruzmog wrote...
But most of us have a wide variety of characters, all with different ideals, worldviews, personalities and backgrounds. We were told our choises would matter and that the endings would differ more then ABC.

I agree that the very final cutscene lacks variety.  But surely your Paragon Shep and Renegade Shep will have wildly different ways of getting to the last one minute of the game?

There are different ways of getting to the ending, but the ending makes alot of you're accomplishments moot. Like Wrex being stuck on Earth and the Quarians being stranded almost at maximum distance from their homeplanet. That aside the war assets were badly implemented. You always make it to the citadel even if you screw everyone over on purpose and only with the final decision the game checks statisics.
The crucible is vulnerable as hell, it should never make it to the citadel in some endings.
I struggled to get alot of ground support, vorcha, mechs, krogan, they are not there
Reapers are vulnerable when they land, as there shields are down. Any reaper landing after the battle had started should have been shot to pieces, or should have atleasy been attemted to be shot to pieces.
and there is much more.

Instead of making actual sense, the war assets become an arbitrary number that determines the effects of the crucible and wether or not you get all options. This does not make any sense as most War assets were not engineers at all. You collected a statistic instead of assets for the final fight.

The whole premise off the final battle is faulty, unless the fleet is winning anyway, the crucible would never make it to the citadel as it takes only one shot from any reaper to destroy it. If they were oblivious to the importance of the thing ok, but they were told what the plan was.

Seeing all this, I can only conclude that the ending was objectivly bad writing. That you don't see it as such is fine. But there is too much not making sense for me to state it in another way.

Modifié par Gruzmog, 19 mars 2012 - 10:07 .

[Silent Rage]

Trolling people on here is way to easy. Hes never gonna starve.

[lltoon]

I'm a little disheartened that I was ignored after I spent quite a bit of time explaining why the ending seems to have illogical motives and problems expressing itself philosophically.

I'd have thought that since you enjoyed the ending as 'thought-provoking' you'd eagerly engage my post in some thought-provoking discussion of my points, rather than ignoring me and only replying to posts that are short and easily dismissed by yourself.

Modifié par lltoon, 19 mars 2012 - 10:08 .