649 réponses à ce sujet

[The Razman]

MrAtomica wrote...

So your answer to a perfectly fitting question is "It would not work because other people might be suckered into choosing it?"

Hang on a tic.

Did you really just type something to that effect?

... no. No I didn't. I don't even see what you were trying to say with that quote, or how it remotely relates to what this thread said.

Since your arguement hinges on the notion that a happy ending would remove the impact from any bittersweet one, I have a simple response for you -- it doesn't matter. Why doesn't it matter? For the same reason that it didn't matter in Mass Effect 2; this is a video game. Video games are, fundamentally, designed to be won in some fashion. For
many, "winning" is achieved by a tangible sense of victory. Bittersweet can convey that feeling for some, but the number will quite obviously be smaller.

That's really the crux of why your opinion is wrong, and ever so slightly detestable. The concept that video-games are confined by their very medium to only be games, for which any attempt at conveying deep and complex emotions should be sidelined to stick to what games are "meant to do" ... be sandboxes for our fantasies which we can shape absolutely any way we want, where nothing bad can ever happen against our will and where the story and characters are completely and utterly mouldable to what we want.

If games never challenge us emotionally, then they're merely toys. And toys are for children. I'm not a child anymore, and I would prefer games started aiming for more complex emotional narratives. Bioware obviously tried to do that here, and I applaude them for it. Any argument that they shouldn't have tried because "it's just a game, and a game should just be something you can win" can be completely and utterly dismissed as an obsolete attitude.

[Xellith]

Mass Effect 2. You either made it in and out of the suicide mission and either lost people and even died or had a flawless run.

Mass Effect 3. You die.

/yawn

ME3 is a failure when you compare its ending to that of ME2.

Modifié par Xellith, 10 mai 2012 - 11:33 .

[The Razman]

Xellith wrote...

Mass Effect 2. You either made it in and out of the suicide mission and either lost people and even died or had a flawless run.

Mass Effect 3. You die.

/yawn

ME3 is a failure when you compare its ending to that of ME2.

Not so much.

[animadpig]

I don't care about happy ending. I just want multiple endings.

[cyrslash1974]

slyguy200 wrote...

The Razman wrote...

Xellith wrote...

Mass Effect 2. You either made it in and out of the suicide mission and either lost people and even died or had a flawless run.

Mass Effect 3. You die.

/yawn

ME3 is a failure when you compare its ending to that of ME2.

Not so much.

<_<
So?
How does this prove him wrong again?

Tell him that the ending is not logic...

[Reikilea]

It actually still irks me. I feel like all people wants is blue babies, marriage and all that stuff. I mean really? Why you cant have happy ending?

I thing people watch too much Hollywood films.

All I want is ending that would suit this amazing trilogy.

I guess is all about choices. I want choices. And for Normandy to crash on Earth. Some people can even have babies if that’s all they want.

But please no babies or overly sweet endings. Why happy ending. Bioware just wanted to teach us that victory doesn’t come without a price. And I do think that’s pretty revolutionary. For example, I don’t mind wiping geth in destroy ending. Its pretty logical actually as you are destroying reapers and geth are most likely equipped with the reaper code.
So no I rather want good ending instead on happy one.

[Dan Dark]

I've seen this argument before, and I still disagree. Your entire point boils down to, "If there is a "happy" ending, no one will choose anything else." I have two problems with that assumption. First off, what makes you so sure? The way I hear it, Dragon Age: Origins pretty much gave you exactly that kind of choice; sacrifice yourself, let someone else sacrifice, or find a way to ensure no one has to die. Now, granted, I haven't played the game myself, so I'm just..speculating...but I don't recall hearing too many people raging that the sacrifice options were made meaningless since there was an alternative option available. If anything, I've heard the opposite - I've hardly heard anything but good things about DA:O. That said, even though that choice was an option, not everyone chose it - and I think that is the main issue here; this is supposed to be about choice. You want the choice to have a bittersweet ending...and some people want to be able to choose a happy ending.

The only reason I am really seeing for why those two options "cannot" both exist is people trying to argue that, were such an option added, they would be making the "wrong" choice by choosing anything else. Which brings me to my second point... Who are you or I to tell players they made the "wrong" choice? In a series that has been built upon making choices, in such a way that every player's canon may be unique?

A happy ending is perfectly doable. It just needs to be done right. It can't be sunshine and butterflies - there would need to be drawbacks. There must be some balance between the pros and cons of each choice; I'll concede, I do agree with you on that point - it would be a bit odd if one were blatantly obviously better. But if "better" were purely subjective upon the player's individual perspective, if every option were written in such a way as to provide a satisfying conclusion?

TL:DR - You are wrong, OP. We CAN have a happy ending. So long as they can ensure that all the endings are well written and fairly balanced.

[MrAtomica]

The Razman wrote...

... no. No I didn't. I don't even see what you were trying to say with that quote, or how it remotely relates to what this thread said.

That is precisely what your words conveyed.

That's really the crux of why your opinion is wrong, and ever so slightly detestable. The concept that video-games are confined by their very medium to only be games, for which any attempt at conveying deep and complex emotions should be sidelined to stick to what games are "meant to do" ... be sandboxes for our fantasies which we can shape absolutely any way we want, where nothing bad can ever happen against our will and where the story and characters are completely and utterly mouldable to what we want.

If games never challenge us emotionally, then they're merely toys. And toys are for children. I'm not a child anymore, and I would prefer games started aiming for more complex emotional narratives. Bioware obviously tried to do that here, and I applaude them for it. Any argument that they shouldn't have tried because "it's just a game, and a game should just be something you can win" can be completely and utterly dismissed as an obsolete attitude.

I never gave any indication of what exactly I meant by a "happy" ending. You seem to believe that I desire one where everything goes just spendidly. That would be incorrect. I desire one where the relays are not arbitrarily wiped out, where my squad does not suddenly abandon their leader, and the Catalyst is incapable of being defied. This would obviously not remove any past events. Ergo, the "complex emotional" impact of the game is preserved as is.

It is also important to note that anyone asking for a happy ending is asking for an option, rather than an order. Again, our gain need not be your loss. You can still partake in all the bittersweet you wish.

Perhaps I misspoke when I used the word "win", rather than "resolution". Video games, as a significant investment of time, ought to convey the sense that what the player has done during the course of playing it has had meaning. It was worth something. Otherwise, we are wasting our hard-earned money on purchasing them, and our precious time in playing them. What has Shepard actually accomplished by the end of Mass Effect 3? Does his or her demise, the death of the Geth and EDI, and the stranding of our crew add complexity to the narrative? Not to me. Nor do they challenge me emotionally. At best, they ****** me off. I do not mean that in a philospohical way, either.

But all of this is completely and totally irrelevant to the topic at hand, since a happy ending would only be one option. Options, in Mass Effect, are an important part of the series. Why remove them at the end? To force me into going along with the idiotic notion that "All synthetics are inherently evil, and they all desire to end my life?" What a load of tripe.

Modifié par MrAtomica, 11 mai 2012 - 12:14 .

[The Razman]

MrAtomica wrote...

It is also important to note that anyone asking for a happy ending is asking for an option, rather than an order. Again, our gain need not be your loss. You can still partake in all the bittersweet you wish.

It's almost like you haven't read the rest of this thread ...?

You put in an off-switch for the unhappy ending, you rob it of its emotional power. You put in an option to save Aerith in Final Fantasy VII, you rob that of its emotional power. You put in an option to not have Eli Vance die, you rob it of its emotional power. The entire thread has been devoted to that single point; that our human nature is to shy away from negative emotions, and if we can flip a switch and say "It's ok, in another playthrough they're alive and well" ... then that character's death never has any emotional impact for us.

This was the whole point a month ago, and its the point now. This is why you can't have your happy ending running in conjunction with a sad one.

Perhaps I misspoke when I used the word "win", rather than "resolution". Video games, as a significant investment of time, ought to convey the sense that what the player has done during the course of playing it has had meaning. It was worth something. Otherwise, we are wasting our hard-earned money on purchasing them, and our precious time in playing them.

If you got emotions out of it, then its achieved its purpose. All entertainment mediums are simply emotion-mongers. Tying an entire medium down to one narrative style is a ridiculous arbitrary imposition, and one which we've frankly grown out of. Your attitude towards games as an entertainment medium might have been fine 20 years ago, or maybe even 10 years ago ... but we're moving past such obsolete views that games can't be anything more than toys which exist to give us happy fluffy feelings of fantastical power over imaginary worlds.

Not having power over the ending of a series which has given us so much choice is a wonderful twist, and if its pissed off people like you who believe that games are limited by their nature to doing simplistic narratives where you always have to get your way ... then I shall personally buy anyone I ever meet who works at Bioware a beer.

[Alien1099]

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".

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.

Uhh you can have any kind of ending you want to have. You can have monkeys fly out of Shepard's butt that kill the reapers and then take over the planet for an ending if you want. Of course something so stupid and out of place will ruin the game sorta like how Bioware decided to go with a ridiculous contrived ending.

[MrAtomica]

The examples of linear, non choice-driven stories are not applicable. Mass Effect is not Half-Life, nor is it Final Fantasy. It is a trilogy founded on choice, or at least the illusion thereof. You might believe that the current endings convey choice perfectly well, but I refuse to accept that.

As to the rest of this, I'm getting tired of arguing back and forth with you. You have your opinion, and I've read enough of your previous posts to know that I won't change it. Believe that this "twist" was "wonderful" if you so choose, I agree to disagree.

More than that, I have no desire to say. I find your use of thinly veiled insults and condescension tiresome.

[MsKlaussen]

The Razman wrote...

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.

You're saying then that the thread is not concerned in the least with the non sequitur that it's based on? And that attempts to show you your faulty assumptions are unwelcome? Okay.

Well, just so you know. The problem is not with what "a button" does, except that the button actually exists. By definition, a whole cannot be the sum of its parts if in the final analysis one can double click somewhere and completey run counter to every part collected.

And it is for this reason that your premise is suspect. First you saddle an ending where Shepard survives with a "happy" moniker, ignoring all the pain and tragedy lying around that makes survival the most bittersweet ending of all. There's a reason why authors reward evil protagonists in their stories with eternal life rather than the release of death. Living is worse.

Second, your concerns about players angling for happy endings to the detriment of the others are moot if the chances of gaining each ending really are made up of the choices made in the series. No better immersion than that. Just like in real life where you never know which of the myriad choices you make will be the one that writes your story. That's what was happening until this final game - and until now there was no more "can't" about surviving than there was about anything else. Nobody on March 7 spent $60-$80 understanding that survival was ruled an impossibility and was fine with it. Nobody except the liars.

[The Razman]

MrAtomica wrote...

The examples of linear, non choice-driven stories are not applicable. Mass Effect is not Half-Life, nor is it Final Fantasy. It is a trilogy founded on choice, or at least the illusion thereof. You might believe that the current endings convey choice perfectly well, but I refuse to accept that.

And so must always give us choice in everything, no matter what, or it fails? No. That's an arbitrary constraint you're applying with no logical basis, and you know that. There's a reason why none of the games in history which provide these heartbreaking moments which we all seem to concur are historic emotional gaming touchstones have the option to switch it off by choosing not to have it happen. Deny it all you like, but that's a fact.

I'm perfectly fine with you "agreeing to disagree", but please don't say that you're not going to discuss it because "you won't change my mind". Many people have changed my mind on here on many occasions. If you've failed to provide any logical argument, please don't blame the failure on me, thanks.

[KevTheGamer]

I am all for a bitter sweet happy ending. IE Shepard dies. Jack gets her hands on Miranda. And the Reapers get blown to high hell. I settled for the Reapers getting blown to high hell

[Kaelef]

Aren't happy endings illegal in most states?















My apologies.

[The Razman]

Kaelef wrote...

Aren't happy endings illegal in most states?















My apologies.

Shh. If nobody tells, nobody gets in trouble.

[Repearized Miranda]

The Razman wrote...

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.

But it was/is possible to lose everybody in ME2 as well. If not, why "If Shepard dies, Shepard's dead!" be one of the loading screen? And the only way to have that happen is to kill everyone else! Which is possible to do or "Squadmates who are dead won't return in ME3" wouldn't have been there either. Heck, people thought Miranda from ME2 was invincible, but no she is not (neither is she in three)

But we didn't know we could intentionally kill off characters. If we did, we didn't know how to do so initially - including Shepard.

I find it ironic, how the ME2 Epic Fail video is laughed at; however, you can muck up just as badly in ME3 and even ME - yet, not one person will probably laugh. It was as easy to fail in all three games as easy as it was to succeed, but every gamer plays to win - not lose! It's not found anywhere in gamer DNA!

Btw, the "precedent" set in ME2 was built around 12 people - 13, counting Shepard. Not those numbers times billions said in ME3 and talked about throughout the entire series unless the galaxy consists of about 20-30 people only.

It does seem like they flipped it; however, the thing regarding the breath scene for most upset is due to "First Run Syndrome!" And given the general feeling after the first run is over, is this surprising? It shouldn't be.

Modifié par Repearized Miranda, 11 mai 2012 - 05:52 .

[Nomen Mendax]

Dan Dark wrote...

I've seen this argument before, and I still disagree. Your entire point boils down to, "If there is a "happy" ending, no one will choose anything else." I have two problems with that assumption. First off, what makes you so sure? The way I hear it, Dragon Age: Origins pretty much gave you exactly that kind of choice; sacrifice yourself, let someone else sacrifice, or find a way to ensure no one has to die. Now, granted, I haven't played the game myself, so I'm just..speculating...but I don't recall hearing too many people raging that the sacrifice options were made meaningless since there was an alternative option available. If anything, I've heard the opposite - I've hardly heard anything but good things about DA:O. .

Opinions obviously vary, but I thought the endings for DAO were exceptionally well done.  I played it through three times and chose a different ending each time and felt all of them were the right choices for the characters I was playing.  But I think DAO is a far superior game.

[The Razman]

Nomen Mendax wrote...

Dan Dark wrote...

I've seen this argument before, and I still disagree. Your entire point boils down to, "If there is a "happy" ending, no one will choose anything else." I have two problems with that assumption. First off, what makes you so sure? The way I hear it, Dragon Age: Origins pretty much gave you exactly that kind of choice; sacrifice yourself, let someone else sacrifice, or find a way to ensure no one has to die. Now, granted, I haven't played the game myself, so I'm just..speculating...but I don't recall hearing too many people raging that the sacrifice options were made meaningless since there was an alternative option available. If anything, I've heard the opposite - I've hardly heard anything but good things about DA:O. .

Opinions obviously vary, but I thought the endings for DAO were exceptionally well done.  I played it through three times and chose a different ending each time and felt all of them were the right choices for the characters I was playing.  But I think DAO is a far superior game.

I don't feel the need to get into this, considering it's a discussion which has already taken place in this thread a month ago ... but regardless of whether you felt they were right for your character, all of the Dragon Age: Origins endings were utterly unemotional when it came to any kind of pain or heartache.

And that's fine. Endings don't need pain or heartbreak or bittersweetness. But if they're going to do it, they need to do it right. And this is a simple fact ... you can't have an off-switch for unhappy emotions in your game. It doesn't work, it never has, and there isn't a single example of it working in video-game history that I've seen so far.

[Nefla]

Haven't you heard? Confusing endings with no hope are the "in" thing.

[Landon7001]

@ The Razman...you're full of ****....the fact is bioware blatantly lied about the endings
get it....there was no endingS just a plot hole ridden, illogical ENDING singular that t
hey scrapped together....Im all for cerebral and intellectual, but the ening cant even follow its own logic "yo dawg i heard you dont wanna be killed by synthetics so some other snthetics are gonna come kill you every 50k ok"....this **** is compounded by the fact theres not EVEN an option for a happy ending, which would placate a lot off ppl.....and in a game so based in lis and emotional connections to characters AND choice its only logical that a happy ending would be in there somewhere

[Sal86]

The Razman wrote...

Nomen Mendax wrote...

Dan Dark wrote...

I've seen this argument before, and I still disagree. Your entire point boils down to, "If there is a "happy" ending, no one will choose anything else." I have two problems with that assumption. First off, what makes you so sure? The way I hear it, Dragon Age: Origins pretty much gave you exactly that kind of choice; sacrifice yourself, let someone else sacrifice, or find a way to ensure no one has to die. Now, granted, I haven't played the game myself, so I'm just..speculating...but I don't recall hearing too many people raging that the sacrifice options were made meaningless since there was an alternative option available. If anything, I've heard the opposite - I've hardly heard anything but good things about DA:O. .

Opinions obviously vary, but I thought the endings for DAO were exceptionally well done.  I played it through three times and chose a different ending each time and felt all of them were the right choices for the characters I was playing.  But I think DAO is a far superior game.

I don't feel the need to get into this, considering it's a discussion which has already taken place in this thread a month ago ... but regardless of whether you felt they were right for your character, all of the Dragon Age: Origins endings were utterly unemotional when it came to any kind of pain or heartache.

And that's fine. Endings don't need pain or heartbreak or bittersweetness. But if they're going to do it, they need to do it right. And this is a simple fact ... you can't have an off-switch for unhappy emotions in your game. It doesn't work, it never has, and there isn't a single example of it working in video-game history that I've seen so far.

Sorry, I know you said you didn't want to get into this but I feel the need to say that I couldn't disagree more. Did you make a playthrough where your LI sacrifices his own life to save yours? And you found that utterly unemotional? Was the warden funeral utterly unemtional for you? Because it wasn't for me.

This is the thing, you keep asking for a logical reason why we should get a happy ending when logic has little or nothing to do with it, it's about an emotional response. You feel that a happier option would invalidate the other options. I don't.

I'm not going to tell you that your emotional response (or lack thereof) is invalid. It's not. Your assertion that mine is is quite distasteful.

[JorieSilver]

Dan Dark wrote...

I've seen this argument before, and I still disagree. Your entire point boils down to, "If there is a "happy" ending, no one will choose anything else." I have two problems with that assumption. First off, what makes you so sure? The way I hear it, Dragon Age: Origins pretty much gave you exactly that kind of choice; sacrifice yourself, let someone else sacrifice, or find a way to ensure no one has to die. Now, granted, I haven't played the game myself, so I'm just..speculating...but I don't recall hearing too many people raging that the sacrifice options were made meaningless since there was an alternative option available. If anything, I've heard the opposite - I've hardly heard anything but good things about DA:O. That said, even though that choice was an option, not everyone chose it - and I think that is the main issue here; this is supposed to be about choice. You want the choice to have a bittersweet ending...and some people want to be able to choose a happy ending.

I actually clicked on this thread with the intention of saying precisely this. I have played DA:O, and I played it more than once with more than one character.

Part of what makes the ending work exceptionally well is that different endings seemed appropriate for different characters, without one seeming universally "better" than the others. Not that the shiny-happy-stars-and-rainbows ending didn't exist (because it did, at least mostly), but just that I could plausibly see each of my Wardens picking something different--and for certain characters, that ending was not available at all. Meaning my goody two shoes elf mage whose love interest had recently dumped her got a diffrent ending than my human noble with a sharp tongue and a future with that same love interest--who chose differently than my dwarf commoner with a totally different love interest and a very keen survival instinct.

Since this is the no-spoilers fourm, I'll just say that the Mass Effect 3 ending is hardly comparable to the DA:O ending at all, just in the sense that they don't resemble eachother at all. What DA:O does particularly well in the ending is the RP part of the RPG. The choices the PC makes at end-game have different logical and emotional conclusions based on the outcomes of major plot points throughout the game, and that makes for a satisfying RPG experience.

So DA:O proves the OP wrong. You can have a bittersweet ending and a happy ending coexist without negating the bittersweet one. The trick, I think, is to make the rest of the game relevant--and more importantly, to make your character relevant.