133 réponses à ce sujet

[Militarized]

Before I write this I'd like to point that I know everyone is trying to avoid "slandering" key people like Hudson and Walters but I feel like I have to get this off my chest and ask a question from everyone, and I really hope it's brought up at PAX by someone. 

It just clicked in my head a little bit ago, that the "LOTS OF SPECULATION" notes we raged over a couple days ago were penned in November according to the Final Hours App... correct? If that's true, then that would mean Walters had no idea what to do about the ending at the time when Mass Effect 3 was already supposed to be released. IT WAS ALREADY SUPPOSED TO BE ON THE MARKET... it was delayed, what? 6 months? For "technical" and "polish" issues was it not or did I read that wrong when it got delayed? 

How in the HELL, in the design process, did he not have an ending made by that point? I really, really want to know because I had finally calmed down about ME3's ending and this clicked in my head. He worked on ME2, isn't the entire beginning design process concept art and writing the story? Including the ending? Didn't he already have an idea of where to go after ME2 since he was made lead writer halfway through it?  Shouldn't have Hudson the "Leader" mentioned the fact of "Yo, we should probably have this fleshed out BEFORE the game is supposed to be originally released so we have time to work on it?" When I write papers for my classes I have an end goal, a thesis that I plan on solidifying with the conclusion at the end of the paper. How did he not have that for the ending? Is that why it seems so out of place?

I'd understand if the ending felt rushed technically, but it is obviously rushed in it's writing as well. Bioware was selling us their PR talk about not having an A B C ending while they knew they didn't even have a PLAN for one? 

In short... how is this possible? Is it true they have an ending up their sleeve and his last minute notes were about how to deceive people? "LOTS OF SPECULATION?" Fun for everyone while they polish away at the ending he had planned the entire time? Or did he fail miserably at his job as the Lead writer? Does that intern mean Hudson failed as the Lead Producer in not whipping his writing team into shape? If Walters couldn't come up with anything WHY DID HE NOT DELEGATE IT TO SOMEONE ELSE? Hubris? Vanity? Am I ignorant of how things work in assuming you should have your art/story at least somewhat fleshed out before working on the more technical bits of the game? 

I do not view this as slander, I view it as honest questions we should be asking... have at everyone. 

Modifié par Militarized, 21 mars 2012 - 06:47 .

[The Angry One]

I don't know but somebody dropped the ball here big time, that they thought we'd ever accept this garbage as the ending to a trilogy 5 years in the making is a sick joke.

[Xandax]

It does put in perspective how little you can trust *anything* Bioware says about their games.

Modifié par Xandax, 21 mars 2012 - 06:16 .

[Militarized]

I couldn't think of a better title, I started seeing red by the time I was at the end of writing this... if anyone has some more attention grabbing ideas for that I'd be willing to listen, I'd like people to really contemplate this. Especially people showing up at PAX.

[thesnake777]

OP I have no idea. They should have pushed it back further if in november they were revising the script.

[Dreogan]

It's really simple. Something on paper sometimes works a lot better than something on the screen. They threw something up on the screen, it didn't work out, they tried to make it work, they ran out of time AGAIN, and we ended up with what we have now.

Modifié par Dreogan, 21 mars 2012 - 06:38 .

[Vaktathi]

 Even better the interview he did for 360 magazine (that just came out) where he spells out what he thinks/likes about the endings and almost point for point it's diametrically opposed to what is actually in the game (e.g. "I didn't want it to just be magic in space"), at the point the interview would have been done knowing full well what shipped with the game. 

Modifié par Vaktathi, 21 mars 2012 - 06:23 .

[Darthlawsuit]

That... makes sense. Even in my design classes we have to write out a plan for the design/program/object in advance. We know how it will start, how it will be used, and what the end purpose of it is. If you don't have a purpose/ending you get a failing grade.

[Tangster]

Walters, as a character writer is excellent, he did a fantastic job with Garrus, Wrex and Aria.

However I felt he was out of his depth as lead writer and seemed to ignore overarching plot points. Patrick Weekes however did a fantastic job with the larger sub-plots such as the genophage cure and the geth war, which worked beautifully within both ME3 and the ME franchise.

I agree that there must've been someone who flagged the ending up as "err, can't we do better than this? It doesn't really do the series justice." I suspect that the response was probably, "No time, get it done now. Then get to work on that Omega and MP DLC. Moneymoneymoneymoney".

[Lozark]

Yeah, it's just incredible.  We have proof that every single part of the writing team can write and can write well and yet none of them bothered to write an ending.  Somehow the ending to ME3 still happened.

Cynically, I think that what might have happened is that they just didn't care. ME3 was going to be the last game in the series, so they shrugged and figured that anything would do. Maybe they were banking on us all being sold now and forever on Mass Effect and that we (the core base) would still buy all the DLC anyway while the people who picked the game up on a whim would never even see the ending/wouldn't be invested enough to be angry that it was crap.

Off topic, but I've seen a lot of your posts, Militarized, and I'm glad that you're part of the movement.

Modifié par Lozark, 21 mars 2012 - 06:28 .

[Reptilian Rob]

Pride, plain and simple.

He thought what he wrote was brilliant, when in fact it was garbage.

[Amagoi]

What really dumbfounds me is he and Hudson seemed to genuinely think this was a brilliant idea. Really? Specualtion From Everyone? Like the first Matrix movie? That's your basis for the ending to a 5 year trilogy?

And I have to wonder if anyone on the writing team raised any objections. So no, Bioware isn't to be trusted to deliver what we took for granted. I always thought they would have fantastic writing in their games, and have been proven wrong. Whether Walters is embarrassed, who knows. I like to think so, it makes me smile.

[Vaktathi]

I'm sure some people tried to say something, certainly after they probably saw the assembled scene. I'd be surprised if "I tried to tell you..." emails haven't been going around.

[Shavyer]

Karl Pilkington could make a better ending than this one for god sake, i don't understand what happened...

[Axialbloom]

Vaktathi wrote...

 Even better the interview he did for 360 magazine (that just came out) where he spells out what he thinks/likes about the endings and almost point for point it's diametrically opposed to what is actually in the game (e.g. "I didn't want it to just be magic in space"), at the point the interview would have been done knowing full well what shipped with the game. 

Is this online?

[Joccaren]

Personally, I think they changed the ending some way through for some reason or other. Leaks? IDK. But it was changed.
All through ME1 and 2 there is evidence of a Dark Energy Subplot. That is completely dropped in ME3 - not even a mention of it.
Likely they had planned for a Dark Energy Ending, but changed it to singularity due to either majority vote in the design room, and/or the leak, and/or some other reason. After that, they rushed the ending in November. More time was needed to make it work, but sadly that time wasn't given. Not trying to sound boastful here, and I honestly don't know how busy it was for the writers leading up to the release, but there was a good few months before the game was released. I could have written an in depth plotline for the ending given a couple of months, or even just one. I don't get why it was so rushed, but if they release some good ending DLC I won't mind.

[devSin]

It doesn't seem possible that they didn't have a clear idea for the ending by early 2011, and I can't understand how they actually thought it was justifiable to slap the current sequence on at the end and call it a day.

It's profoundly disappointing, from a team that should have known better and was expected to do better.

[BlaiidDrwg]

They have stated that they have to have a game pretty much done 3 months prior to shipping so that they can spend 3 months certifying, shipping, printing, etc. This means done by Jan 6 ish. Consider the holidays right before that, that means they had about 1-1 1/2 months of time to work on the ending according to what OP is reporting. Hmmm.. the fact that war assets and multiple endings etc were cut makes a while lot of sense.

[recentio]

Having been involved in a few large-scale projects, I can tell you that it's not always the case that things will be rigorously and effectively planned in advance. If you have talented people, as BioWare does, you can often get away with it because your Aces will pull your a** out of the fire and sometimes come through with spontaneous brilliance that excessive planning might have stifled. By walking a fine line between careful preparation and on-the-spot execution, a team can reach (IMO) maximum potential. Still, this is a tightrope walk that not every project team should attempt.

Based on seeing patterns that resemble this before (or perhaps projecting because I think this resembles patterns I've seen before) I'm of the opinion that BioWare's ME3 team was harried with their backs to the wall at almost every level in the final months. Though something was scrabbled together, the fact that the influences jotted down "Brave New World" and "The Matrix [Revolutions]" are transparent in the final version imply to me that there was not enough time to fully develop the ideas that the ending juggles.

I feel this last-minute (by the looks of it) job is why the game does not build to the ending and hence why the ending does not 'fit' the game. Proper set up and continuity checking could have dealt with every plot hole and made this ending epically mind blowing. Instead the apparent thesis of the ending is not the same as the apparent thesis of the game.

Did they let it get away from them? Did they run out of time to do it right? I think so. Luckily, there's all the time in the world now. A six-month wait for a revised and expanded ending DLC would be welcomed with jubilee by a lot of customers. It's their chance to do everything they really wanted to do with it and blow us all out of the water. (Though I would suggest that "LOTS OF SPECULATION" is not a wise goal in a trilogy conclusion.)

Those are my thoughts looking on from the outside. Only BioWare knows what actually happened. I'm curious to know what stresses lead to this mess, honestly. It's probably an interesting behind-the-scenes story of its own.

Modifié par recentio, 21 mars 2012 - 06:38 .

[Militarized]

 

Axialbloom wrote...

Vaktathi wrote...

 Even better the interview he did for 360 magazine (that just came out) where he spells out what he thinks/likes about the endings and almost point for point it's diametrically opposed to what is actually in the game (e.g. "I didn't want it to just be magic in space"), at the point the interview would have been done knowing full well what shipped with the game. 

Is this online?

 

It is somewhere, I couldn't find it though sorry. I saw it myself, he literally says he didn't want to do something with space magic... I didn't have enough faces nor enough palms available to me. 

Joccaren wrote...

Personally, I think they changed the ending some way through for some reason or other. Leaks? IDK. But it was changed.
All through ME1 and 2 there is evidence of a Dark Energy Subplot. That is completely dropped in ME3 - not even a mention of it.
Likely they had planned for a Dark Energy Ending, but changed it to singularity due to either majority vote in the design room, and/or the leak, and/or some other reason. After that, they rushed the ending in November. More time was needed to make it work, but sadly that time wasn't given. Not trying to sound boastful here, and I honestly don't know how busy it was for the writers leading up to the release, but there was a good few months before the game was released. I could have written an in depth plotline for the ending given a couple of months, or even just one. I don't get why it was so rushed, but if they release some good ending DLC I won't mind.

Many, MANY people have written better endings that either throw the entire Catalyst thing out the window or improve upon it. Most include turning the kid into Harby because he's an asinine character introduction. We've only needed a WEEK... A WEEK, to come up with, what? 100+ new ideas on how to end the game? A giant flow-chart from reddit ( 
http://h9.abload.de/img/jhtqyrqxxg.jpg  ) to show how the endings could have incorporated ALL your decisions like they said it would? 

At this point I wonder whether any ending DLC he comes up with could improve upon it unless they get someone else to write it. 

Modifié par Militarized, 21 mars 2012 - 06:44 .

[Dracotamer]

Either way it's unacceptable.

[piehl]

How the ****ks 4 or so years not enough time? They could have even delayed it and id be ok. But this ending just shows me they didn't or don't even care. Probably less now that the backlash is so severe. I just don't see how uhm someone can keep making the statements they have been and look into the mirror at night. Personally id be disgusted with the non chalant effort and the lackluster execution of such a well respected and critiqued trilogy.

[tfKR3W]

[meme image and potential death threat removed]

Modifié par Stanley Woo, 21 mars 2012 - 04:07 .

[huntsman2310]

Keep in mind the original plot script was leaked, so maybe he was trying to salvage his writing about the endgame?

Walters should probably stick to a character writer, doing what he knows best.

[Texhnolyze101]

Hes a failure he should be embarrassed.