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[Lurchibald]

Artistic Integrity?

Casey Hudson on the ME3 "endings"

Interviewer: ....Is that same type of complexity built into the ending of Mass Effect 3?

Casey Hudson: Yeah, and I’d say much more so, because we have the ability to build the endings out in a way that we don’t have to worry about eventually tying them back together somewhere. This story arc is coming to an end with this game. That means the endings can be a lot more different. At this point we’re taking into account so many decisions that you’ve made as a player and reflecting a lot of that stuff. It’s not even in any way like the traditional game endings, where you can say how many endings there are or whether you got ending A, B, or C.

It’s more like there are some really obvious things that are different and then lots and lots of smaller things, lots of things about who lives and who dies, civilizations that rose and fell, all the way down to individual characters. That becomes the state of where you left your galaxy. The endings have a lot more sophistication and variety in them. It would be interesting to see if somebody could put together a chart for that. Even with Mass Effect 2’s...

 

The "endings" we actually got 

[Kyrick]

So in other words,

"We're making downloadable content. Buy it. Don't listen to those 'people' who are complaining about the ending. They're nobodies who don't understand 'art'. Just look at the critics we're in bed with! They gave so many wonderful scores and you'll see them all again at our future release parties, sipping the good stuff and laughing with us at the gullibility of our 'fans'.

Oh yeah, you nasty people on the forums, we're going to be policing you now! We will not stand for people being nasty about our masterpiece of a game! No more saying mean things like, "The ending isn't a real ending, it's horrible" or "Make a new ending or we won't buy more stuff from you Bioware!". That's just mean and unconstructive and we have directed our moderators to delete all that stuff so it can seem like everybody loves the ending and there are no complaints. So there!"

The death knell for my support for Bioware was given by Ray Muzyka this morning. His response displays the absolute lack of humility, self-reflection, and arrogance that seems to pervade the gaming industry as a whole. Hey Ray, we might not be as rich as you, nor have a mouthpiece as widely read as the New York Times, but we're the ones that have enabled Bioware to go from a struggling niche market player to a full on powerhouse of the gaming industry. Your response to the overwhelming dissatisfaction with the endings is to essentially tell everybody that they're wrong and that they need to buy more stuff to support the franchise? Well, not going to happen buddy. I'm done with Bioware and, given this statement, it seems that you are too. At least for using the studio as anything other than a copy of Funcom, producing 'just good enough' rubbish that you can fleece your consumers with before you frantically run off to the next project to just barely do in an acceptable way.

[DoctorEss]

Well, I wonder if he'll be just as "surprised" when the game sees returns and hate equal to DA2?

[Evil_medved]

I told you all, they just suck at writing, no secret plans, no conspiracy theories.

[Capeo]

AlienSpaceBats wrote...

It's nice to hear an official response, though it does seem to confirm that the endings were written "that way" on purpose and seemingly invalidates the indoc theory.

Not "seemingly".  It does.

Watch.  We're probably going to get a comic or something 

[beccathelion]

I am so tired of games as "art." Yes, it's an artistic endeavor, but when you have a game whose primary function is to have you essentially CREATE YOUR OWN STORY VIA CHOICE, when people aren't happy with the ending, to turn around say, "Uh, it's artistic integrity; it's actually our choice" is nothing short of mind-numbing. I'm in the writing field; some of my closest friends are successful novelists; I get artistic integrity. What I don't get is how they were genuinely surprised at the ending reactions...

[Hicks233]

Taleroth wrote...

Thornquist wrote...

I cant see how anyone will be upset over that response.

Bioware truly cares about its fans, anyone saying otherwise needs a reality check.

They do care about their fans. But it seems to ignore many of the concerns, nontheless. It focuses on talking about artistic integrity, closure, clarity.

What about the deceptive promotion of the game? What about the inconsistent themes? What about the lack of "possibility space?" Something this very same man once claimed Bioware tries to give the players.

Pretty much this.

[GB-Kakuzu]

I like how he says "However, most folks appear to agree that the game as a whole is exceptional, with more than 75 critics giving it a perfect review score and a review average in the mid-90s."

Critics have to give a rating of the game based on more than just the ending.  It doesn't change how bad the endings are, and that the endings completely ruin your experience.

Secondly, given the amount of people that have actually bothered to come out and say that they can't stand the endings, I would say that "most people" don't like them.  You have to consider these things when looking at the numbers:

• Not all players care enough to raise an issue about it. This does not mean they like the endings.
• Even less people care enough to go to a forum, make an account, register
  their game, read through a bunch of stuff, then state their opinion.
• Not everyone has finished the game.
• Not everyone has a facebook account.

Given the amount of people that have actually taken the time to come out and express themselves, I would say Ray's assumption is wrong.

[Xandax]

Mass Effect 3 concludes a trilogy with so much player control and ownership of the story that it was hard for us to predict the range of emotions players would feel when they finished playing through it.

No it doesn't.
If the indoctrination theory is correct - the game is not concluded (biggest anti-indoctrination argument IMO).
If it isn't - the game world might have blown up, but the game isn't concluded either.

And the game was still marketed - and is to this day - vastly different from both of these endings. Shape up Bioware. Talk is cheap.

Modifié par Xandax, 21 mars 2012 - 03:42 .

[dorktainian]

The only way I can think of equating my feelings on the ending is as follows.

You go into a cream cake shop and see the most astounding cream cake ever created. This cream cake is the mother of all cream cakes. The assistant tells you that this cake will be the best cake you have ever eaten.

You then watch shopmaker make you up one of these cakes special. Your gastric juices doing cartwheels in anticipation of getting your hands on this cake.

Now you buy this cream cake and take it home. You put yourself a cuppa on and settle down to eat said cake, only to discover to your horror that the shopkeeper has cheated you by switching cakes, and that this cake is in fact made of cardboard with a note stuck to it saying 'Well it looks like a cake doesnt it?'.

[Ultra Prism]

That screen pissed the hell out of me ... I am seriously where are the cutscenes showing galaxy prospering thanks to Shepard's sacrifice or LI mourning for his/her loss of Shepard ... geez its nuts

[antony.daley]

Lets get this straight, and from the hundred and hundreds of forums posts and reviews I have read they all say the roughly the same.

The story IS fantastic.
The gameplay IS good (not the best from a ME game IMHO)
The music and overall artistic field to the game, the views, the sights and sounds were amongst one of the best in a game todate. Onapr with BE3 which visually and audiowise was superb and the best todate.

The fans of this game LOVE the game.

The problem is the ending as it is - leaves nothing in terms of closure and takes away ever sense of choice we ever had. Which in turn makes the game borderline unplayable - I for one have over 300hours on the previous 2 games, Ive read the books and comics. This game now has no desire to be replayed. The endings will all feel the same and I find out nothing of every choice I made.

We can swallow the need to play a few hours worth of multiplayer to get the "most complete" endings available to us. What we can't swallow is the fact that the ending doesn't make sense, and when we try to make sense of it every plot hole imaginable seems to shine through. This doesn't take away from the fact that the first 99% of the game WAS fantastic and does DESERVE the fantastic reviews. The ending which very few critics mentioned almost undoes all of this good.

The few critics that covered the ending say the same thing - This game IS worht playing. It IS fantastic.

What it doesn't say is you will either feel heartbroken or have no desire to paly the game again. if you do it won't be the same.

[Nefelius]

Come on guys, chill.
He said that they understand the issue and are willing to address it.
That means they are open for dialogue, no need to start the hate all over again.

[Emphyr]

Not one word ore even apologies to the hugh crowd of  ppl that were with them from Me1 and still cannot import the face save's from Me1->Me2 into ME3..
that topic has 86k views!

Unaccepteble to me!

Modifié par Emphyr, 21 mars 2012 - 03:42 .

[manbot69]

I'm glad they finally said something but I still don't understand the " game is an art" defense. Why does it being an art suddenly excuse it from criticism if anything it just invites more. Only thing that confuses me more is their confusion over the fan reaction. That being said I'm glad something is least in the works but given how much it took to get to this point I'm extremely cautious of the end product.

[Cloaking_Thane]

I thnk this means epilogues

[anlk92]

IsaacShep wrote...

There you have it people. They WILL change the endings. He said game content. Not Twitter/Blog explanation/fix, actual in-game content we will hear more about in April. Of course they won't change the entire thing, but the endings won't stay exactly the same as they are. We're happy right?

Personally, I expect the Normandy & teleporting squadmates to be fixed/explained, possibly also the return of Investigate options during the Catalyst conversation.

Yeah probably something very much like that. Although I don't think I will be comfortable with any ending that still has the Normandy scene in. They have to work very hard on that to have it make some sense. It's best if they give us a way around it other than alt+f4.

[MuckrakerElder]

Plot holes aside, I get the feeling that there is a large disconnect between what Mass Effect means to the creators, and what it means to us. It feels as if they focused more on the deeper philosophical underpinnings of what Mass Effect is all about, and we (the fans) focused more on the development and relationships of the characters. It just seems that they felt that the larger scope of Mass Effect was more important than what happened to the individual characters. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how I feel.

[Fear_me_leader]

It is all part of there plan to play innocent, they planned it all from the beginning and "the truth" is real

[Corrik Ronis]

I don't care for him throwing up the "artistic vision" shield. We know for a fact that this ending was not originally planned and was actually a last minute decision. Which is fine, I've had to cut and/or rush things in projects before, it happens. But if in your rush to meat the dead line you don't do the best job, don't claim "artistic vision" when you get criticized. Because let us look at the best case scenario here and say that it is "artistic vision". Well then that means that Bioware's "artistic vision" was always to lie and misrepresent facts to the customers and fans. They knew what the ending was going to be like and told us otherwise. And it was their "vision" to have such a poorly written and plot hole filled ending that goes against everything stands for and was sold on. Hmm yeah that doesn't sound too good. I'd rather them come out and say the truth than give some PR nonsense.

Anyway, guess we shall have to wait until April to see more. Don't get complacent, hold the line.

Oh and still no word on the face import issue? Really?

Modifié par Corrik Ronis, 21 mars 2012 - 03:43 .

[Oakenshield1]

I didn't like how he's defend their "artistic integrity" but I do appreciate the response. It was more like, "Just because we have good press reviews doesn't mean we can stop listening to the fans," the exact opposite of Casey's response which was more like, "Yo. I gots a bunch of tens so **** off."

[VAIOMANIAC]

I am not even sure what to make of this it seems to be more spin.
I am starting to loose hope about the whole ting really.

[lex0r11]

i dare them to announce it april 1st.

[Nykara]

Fear_me_leader wrote...

It is all part of there plan to play innocent, they planned it all from the beginning and "the truth" is real

I was starting to think I was the only one left.

[prsquared]

Sorry, not buying this. Nothing he said sounds genuine. Some of it is even hilarious.
"Mass Effect 3 concludes a trilogy with so much player control and ownership of the story..."