649 réponses à ce sujet

[The Razman]

I've seen people say that there would be no problem with just having a happy ending as one possible ending. This is incorrect.

The nature of a game, or at least how we play games at present, is that we will always try to "win". Even in a story-based game like Mass Effect, we will take what we perceive to be the "best possible ending" and take that as the "winning" one. If you have a happy ending ... people will take that as the best possible one, completely negating the point of having an unhappy ending at all. There's no real bittersweet feeling if you can simply choose to turn it off and have a happy situation instead. We've already seen this in ME3. The "secret ending" has been seized upon by many people as being the "perfect" one. If you give gamers a sniff of an ending that works out better for the player's goals than the others ... they'll take it as a loosely defined canonical one.

If you want to have an emotional, bittersweet ending ... you can't have a button which says "press here to have a happy ending instead".

EDIT: Sidenote - This is only a response to people who say "why can't we have a happy ending?" Not to sound harsh, but I really don't care about anyone who's going to come in and say "But it wasn't that it wasn't a happy ending, I didn't like it because ...". This thread wasn't for that.

Modifié par The Razman, 20 mars 2012 - 05:31 .

[Mr.House]

This is a game about choices, not to mention the original perfect ending, the hardest to get was indeed a happy ending. So yes there is no reason why there can be no "happy" ending,

[kbct]

What if a happy ending caused Mass Effect 3 to sell twice as many copies?

[Haasth]

I don't care for a happy ending.
I just want one that makes sense and doesn't involve Space Magic.

Mass Effect 3 doesn't have an ending. It has a series of ridiculous gibberish filled with plot holes and oversights.

[The Razman]

Mr.House wrote...

This is a game about choices, not to mention the original perfect ending, the hardest to get was indeed a happy ending. So yes there is no reason why there can be no "happy" ending,

I don't really understand what you just said.

You can have a happy ending, or you can have no happy ending. You can't have both. It's the nature of games and gamers ... we're not playing a story, we're playing a game, and we want to "win". Winning in the way we think about games and a bittersweet narrative ending are not compatible.

You can't have a bittersweet ending be a choice. The whole point of an emotional ending to something is that it involves something you don't want to happen. Nobody wants what happened at the end of ME3 to occur. If they have the option to simply not have it occur, and have a happy ending instead ... they will do it. And then the sad ending loses all its emotional power.

Modifié par The Razman, 20 mars 2012 - 05:25 .

[Overule]

I disagree. If the sum of your decisions over the course of three games gets you a bittersweet ending you have no recourse but to swallow it. Experiencing a non bittersweet ending then requires restarting from game 1 and making drastically different choices and thus having a drastically different experience.

Or that would be the case if we got what we were promised where choice/variety was concerned.

You want a bittersweet ending to be the norm? Alright, how's this for a compromise: have the game devs arrange it that anyone who's ONLY played Mass Effect 3 by itself can only get a tragic ending. They might cry foul "why am I being punished for not playing the previous 2 games!?" to which I would respond "why should you get satisfaction equal to my own for 1/3 of the invested time?"

Besides which, that'd be a sound buisiness strategy for EA! Then they've given anyone who got involved in this installment incentive to back and purchase the other 2. BECAUSE THEY KNOW THEY'LL GET A BETTER EXPERIENCE OUT OF IT.

Modifié par Overule, 20 mars 2012 - 05:34 .

[Nab20]

I don't necessarily want a happy ending. I just want a satisfying conclusion. The ending of metal gear solid 3 was not happy but it was amazing and very sad. I was not like ''wtf is that ??'' I was just sad but very happy at the same time. This is the kind of ending I would like.

Modifié par Nab20, 20 mars 2012 - 05:32 .

[Pkxm]

The problem is not whether it is a happy or sad ending, it's about being a bad/nonsense/stupid ending to a long journey. 3 games, over a hundred hours, thousands of choices and many characters and relationships. It felt like to me, in the ending I got, that shep was just thrown away..rushed off to an end with his squadmates somehow teleporting onto the normandy leaving his ass behind after being nearly obliterated by a reaper blast, then crash landing on a tropical planet and acting like nothing happened. Then some really cheesy stupid old man and kid scene..and then a "sheps a legend now, buy more dlc!"

yeah that was a horrible ending for shep. I hope indoctrination theory is true, very easy fix for this

[Simotech]

because there's no ending

[Gibb_Shepard]

The Razman wrote...

I've seen people say that there would be no problem with just having a happy ending as one possible ending. This is incorrect.

The nature of a game, or at least how we play games at present, is that we will always try to "win". Even in a story-based game like Mass Effect, we will take what we perceive to be the "best possible ending" and take that as the "winning" one. If you have a happy ending ... people will take that as the best possible one, completely negating the point of having an unhappy ending at all. There's no real bittersweet feeling if you can simply choose to turn it off and have a happy situation instead. We've already seen this in ME3. The "secret ending" has been seized upon by many people as being the "perfect" one. If you give gamers a sniff of an ending that works out better for the player's goals than the others ... they'll take it as a loosely defined canonical one.

If you want to have an emotional, bittersweet ending ... you can't have a button which says "press here to have a happy ending instead".

Completely untrue. My canon playthrough for ME2 has 4 squad mates dead. Why? Because it delivered the story experience i was looking for with this particular Shepard. It provides the customisation of the story and character that we want as players.

[QueenMirage]

I dont need a happy ending to be satisfied with the conclusion. What I do need to be satisfied, is and ending that makes more sense; fills the plot holes, and doesnt feel rushed. Its was as if they had reached their time limit for the game, and just slapped something together, figuring it would some how make sense.

[sillyrobot]

The Razman wrote...

I've seen people say that there would be no problem with just having a happy ending as one possible ending. This is incorrect.

The nature of a game, or at least how we play games at present, is that we will always try to "win". Even in a story-based game like Mass Effect, we will take what we perceive to be the "best possible ending" and take that as the "winning" one. If you have a happy ending ... people will take that as the best possible one, completely negating the point of having an unhappy ending at all. There's no real bittersweet feeling if you can simply choose to turn it off and have a happy situation instead. We've already seen this in ME3. The "secret ending" has been seized upon by many people as being the "perfect" one. If you give gamers a sniff of an ending that works out better for the player's goals than the others ... they'll take it as a loosely defined canonical one.

If you want to have an emotional, bittersweet ending ... you can't have a button which says "press here to have a happy ending instead".

Within the genre that Mass Effect started (i.e. Space Opera* a la E.E "Doc" Smith, Joseph Campbell, et al.) you can and mostly likely should have a "protaqgonist wins though at a cost to society and friends".  There isn't too much room in that genre for dark-grim-dark endings.

In much the way the player can view the ending to ME1 as bittersweet (two members under your command die as well as 1000s of miltary and 10,000s of civiilians on the Citadel with the potential to have the Council killed and the Asari main dreadnought destroyed as a sacrifice to ensuring success).

ME2 can be bittersweet (potential renunciation by love interest, loss of potentially many under your command and the loss of all colonists you swore to recover). 

To my eye ME3 just looks bitter.  Any game where my character would eat the end of his gun rather than choose an option doesn't offer much "sweet". 




The definition for Space Opera I'm applying here is "colorful, dramatic, large-scale science fiction adventure, competently and sometimes beautifully written, usually focused on a sympathetic, heroic central character and plot action, and usually set in the relatively distant future, and in space or on other worlds, characteristically optimistic in tone. It often deals with war, piracy, military virtues, and very large-scale action, large stakes" presented originally by Hartwell and Cramer.

[raider_1001]

Discussing whether the ending happy or not is attacking the straw man, and this is why:

raider_1001 wrote...

Well, ignore all the nerd talks and pseudo-science, there are four factors in dominate the endings scenarios given the plot in ME3:

A: Cycles breaks or not
B: Shep lives or not
C: Humanity survives or not
D: Mass Relay survives or not

Now, this combination of the 4 factors should result in 16 unique endings. Given the constraint that the destruction of relay will stop the cycle, eliminating 4 non-plausible ending combinations would still result in 12 unique endings. Now if Bioware wanted the ending to be dark, which means you can't have all four factors to be true, then you should still have 11 unique endings. Even if Bioware is really lazy and can only have one of the factors set true in the ending, you should still have the choice between only allowing Shepard live, only breaks the cycle/destroy the relay, and only spare humanity.

The real problem with ending is that it has almost no connections with the plot.

Modifié par raider_1001, 20 mars 2012 - 05:46 .

[FRANCESCO84Inn]

i man, i need i want heppy ending because my Fem Shep need come on Thessia whit Liara for give support in the recostruction and for create a family, yes i need a Shepard and Liara baby :-)
i need reunion whit my squas my friends, i need image a new adventure of the Commander,
in the Galaxy have some not discover planet, i have inactive Relay, and its possible have some new hostile organic spices.

[OdanUrr]

Any sentence that starts with, "You can't..." referring to a game where your choice should matter, will make little to no sense.

Modifié par OdanUrr, 20 mars 2012 - 05:47 .

[bleetman]

Can't say I agree. Partly because sad endings lose their emotional impact pretty much the minute you've done them the first time, and partly because I don't pick my ingame decisions (which as far as I'm concerned should dictate which ending you get far more than they currently do), including the final three choices, based on which one is the percieved "better" choice. I go with what my character would do. It's the same reason I've had characters snuff it during the suicide mission in ME2, long after I'm aware of the mechanics of how to survive them. It's why I've had Wardens sacrifice themselves, long after I've worked out the means to have everyone walk away breathing and happy.

Besides, as far as I'm concerned I don't particularly want a "happy" ending for myself, but I do think it needs to be there. The current situation - ignoring the pathetic five second teaser clip dependant on whether or not you played God damn multiplayer or not - is one where Shepard dies. In every scenario. That's not sacrificial. That's not 'emotionally powerful'. That's just railroading the player down one path and expecting them to be upset by it. Self sacrifice is meaningless when it's forced. When it's not - when characters, including your own, die as a consequence of your decisions along the way under circumstances that could've been different if things hadn't been quite the same along the way - that's when you get emotionally powerful scenes.

You want sad endings that make the most of the tragedy? Have a 'happy' ending be possible as well.

As far as why people apparently latch onto that quick teaser of Shepard maybe surviving as the "best" ending, I'd assume it's because, out of the three, it's effectively the only one that has even the slimmest ray of hope. The others are just overwhelmingly grim. That's not a bittersweet ending, that's just pointlessly melodramatic.

Modifié par bleetman, 20 mars 2012 - 05:51 .

[MDT1]

Indeed we can't have an happy ending, billions already dead, worlds in ashes, dear friends lost. Whatever happens in the ending it well be bittersweet considering the losses on the jorney.

[RocketManSR2]

kbct wrote...

What if a happy ending caused Mass Effect 3 to sell twice as many copies?

EA's accountants would have a "happy ending." 

[Robhuzz]

MDT1 wrote...

Indeed we can't have an happy ending, billions already dead, worlds in ashes, dear friends lost. Whatever happens in the ending it well be bittersweet considering the losses on the jorney.

This. Thank you for beating me to it=]

[Alexraptor1]

Earth reduced to rubble.
Palaven reduced to rubble..
Thessia reduced to rubble...

Three civilizations utterly destroyed and billions of people dead.... unless time travel is suddenly dumped in there is no way the ending can be anything but bittersweet.

The amount of damage that the reapers inflicted on the galaxy is something that the galactic community wouldn't recover from for centuries at the least, even without the mass relays destroyed ending.
Even then nothing will EVER be as it was in the ME universe under any circomstancce.

[Erode_The_Soul]

Honestly, my thought is that if a happy ending wasn't a possibility, and what they always intended was a bittersweet ending, then they shouldn't have set the "happy ending" precedent with ME2. In ME2, based on my choices and level of preparation, I could come out of a suicide mission with myself, my team and my ship fully intact. I went in to ME3 thinking something similar was acheivable.
When I hit the end, I felt as though I failed in some way. And, to me, that is a major probem. Hours upon hours spent in three games, and at the end of it all, I feel like a failure. To me, that's not bittersweet, that's depressing; and that's not how an ending should be.

[The Razman]

Erode_The_Soul wrote...

Honestly, my thought is that if a happy ending wasn't a possibility, and what they always intended was a bittersweet ending, then they shouldn't have set the "happy ending" precedent with ME2. In ME2, based on my choices and level of preparation, I could come out of a suicide mission with myself, my team and my ship fully intact. I went in to ME3 thinking something similar was acheivable.

I concur. In fact, I made a thread not so long ago on that very topic.

Bioware may have realised the precedent they set in ME2 and tried to break it, to give the trilogy more of a punch at the end.

[Siegdrifa]

OP.
Register your copy and bring it to ME3 spoiler section.
Discussing anything related to the ending is highly sensitive to spoiler income for people to make their points toward your claims.

[SgtHydra]

I am firmly against anyone who wants a "happy ending" where Shepard survives and everyone has a big dance party.

I'd much rather have a touching epilogue that reveals how each character went on with their lives without Shepard, but still touched by his influence, for better or worse.

Does Garrus become the leader he always had the potential to be? Does he become a hero in his own right? Does he choose the path of the paragon or renegade? Or does he fall into despair and apathy, wasting his remaining days as a merc or C-Sec Officer or vigilante on Omega? If RI, will he ever forgive himself for losing the one person who he could truly be himself around, scars and all, or does he move on and find happiness in his work or with a second love?

Does Tali ever recover from the death of someone who has been like a second father to her? Or has his death allowed her and her people to seek their own path free of the Council’s lapdog (i.e. if you were an annoying ****** to Tali during the trial and favored Legion over her in their argument)? Will she become a great leader of the Quarian people or was her actions on Haestrom only a prelude to the hardship the Quarians would suffer under her mismanagement? Will she just become another mechanic on Rannoch? Or will she venture out into the stars, finding her homeworld less than what she thought it would be? If RI, will she ever have the slightest hope of recovering? Will she mourn for the rest of her life, use work to dull the pain, or will she realize Shepard’s greatest gift to her was the future of her people?

Does Ashley accept Shepard’s death or will this be the loss that finally breaks her? Will she be content with the fact that Shepard gave his life for the galaxy or will she become embittered that the Council did not take his warnings seriously? Will she dedicate her life to becoming the kind of soldier her “skipper” would have been proud of or will she plot from the shadows like Saren before her?

Will Liara abandon her status as the Shadow Broker or will she embrace it? (And so on and so forth)

Look at every character and see how Shepard’s influence over them would give them a happy ending or a sad ending, along with whether or not they would take his death well.  Sometimes tragedies like this just kill people inside and they end up drunkards. Sometimes people live great lives but end up being shot by an assassin. And sometimes people live great lives and die with no regrets. That’s life.

ME3’s lack of an epilogue is the greatest farce in gaming history. It rivals Diakatana.

It doesn't actually end at all. It just sort of stops, as if we've run out of film.

Modifié par SgtHydra, 20 mars 2012 - 06:02 .

[mr_luga]

I'd be rather upset with having a super happy ending my self where everyone just get away from the huge war with the reapers with some scratches.

I didndt expect that, nor do I acually want it. I just wanted a conclusion, to see what would happend with the rest of the galaxy after the war, an epilogue, something that makes what i've done through all 3 games feel worth my time