2054 réponses à ce sujet

[kbct]

Ray, are you floating a trial balloon here? Because your statements makes it sound like BioWare plans to describe the current ending in more detail. As if the colors and god-child can be fixed with more information. From what I can tell, people want the colors and god-child removed from the story.

Can you please clarify your remarks.

[Nick_Nitro]

I think Ray's well within his right to say that the team's done a fantastic job - the whole series has been an experience quite unlike any other, and while some will undoubtedly dispute whether ME3 is the best of the series, Ray has a strong case to say that it is. Even without the ending controversy, the team has brought about conclusions to some of the most intriguing storylines within the series - the krogan genophage, or the quarian-geth conflict, just to name some examples. And while many will surely dispute this, I feel the ending was (while not perfect) acceptable, and ultimately, respectable. Bioware deserves credit for deciding to take the ending in a bold direction.

That being said, I don't believe the goals of Bioware and the interests of consumers are mutually exclusive. The ending can be preserved, and all that needs to be addressed is a more fleshed-out explanation for the conclusion (the Catalyst, the Reapers, etc.) along with conclusions to the stories of our teammates in the game. That, I believe, would demonstrate the kind of commitment to story which Bioware has always stood for - and which its fans have come to expect from it.

I'm glad that Ray and his people are working on achieving that; I hope they will maintain their artistic integrity while coming to address the challenges of an interactive medium that always involves us, the consumers.

[Squallypo]

Mizar_Panzar wrote...

From some of the leaked scripts and deleted scenes, I am convinced that the ending was rushed to meet a deadline. I'm glad that they are spending more time on it. And I will gladly spend 10$ on an ending better explained, more logical, and more related to player choices. Even if the current outcome (Shepard died, Mass relay gone) does not change.

Finally, thumb up for Bioware and thanks for the entire Mass Effect Franchise up to the last 10 minutes :-)

if they rushed as you state they might be why would you has to pay extra then ? makes zero sense from a consumer perspective.

Modifié par Squallypo, 21 mars 2012 - 06:39 .

[Nicky 192]

Thank you for the reply Dr Muzyka. I can't honestly though in all fairness recommend the game to my friends until the ending is fixed. I wont be buying any Dlc until we see the Dlc and this mess is resolved. When that happens and it becomes the "complete" game it should have been you can have my money again. I wont buy a first day release again though , that's for sure.

[GIVic05]

Maybe the artistic integrity is going in to their head because the Smithsonian now call their game art.

[mrpoultry]

Nothing short of changing/adding new endings AND providing closure will satisfy people most likley. Mass Effect team take a leaf out of DAO's book and doing something like that on top your own original endings. If you do that most likely people will be satisfied and prepared to buy more of your games in future.

Modifié par mrpoultry, 21 mars 2012 - 07:31 .

[Hurbster]

Are we going to have an awesome interactive comic to explain the endings ? Or maybe we have to buy a couple of novels to 'understand' what the devs were on about ?

[FixitBioware11]

Ray what we want is multiple endings, not closure or more colors! do your job and keep your fanbase happy and stop mentioning metacritic because we all know EA payed them off.

[Akodoreign]

Yes I want to agree 99% of the trilogy was some of the best writing / game play I have ever had. The whole Deus Ex Machina at the end left me deeply saddened. Thinking back; however, The ending would have still been fine if you would have included a DA:O type text wall or a Fallout style because of your decisions these things happened.... Would have left me sated at least... Thank you for a spectacular vision.. but please re evaluate the way the story stopped... (not going to use finished anymore... It just doesn't fit).

[-Skorpious-]

Sounds like we need to continue politely addressing our grievances with the ending in a respectable manner, while ignoring threads that make fun of Casey, Walter or Bioware as a whole. Ray has been the first Bioware employee to actually address both sides of the party - this is huge. Bioware is finally acknowledging that out concerns are completely valid and reasonable.

We need to replace the spamming of the forums with the hold the line posts, stop poking fun at the ending by associating them with colors, and refrain from constantly quoting "space magic"; that will do nothing but earn us scorn from Bioware. We need logical, articulated opinions ON THE ENTIRE GAME - Ray clearly indicated that being destructive earns us nothing.


Here is my (brief) opinion on the overall game -

Good -

Strong atmosphere. I loved ME3's dark and depressing atmosphere - it truly felt like the reapers were an unstoppable force that left nothing but hopelessness in their wake.

Amazing set-pieces. Considering that this is a non-spoiler section of the forum I can't go into much detail, but believe me when I say some of the moments in ME3 blow cinematic shooters like GoW out of the water.

Intense gameplay. None can argue that ME3 is the strongest game in the series when it comes to overall gameplay. The talent trees are diverse, the cooldown system makes caster classes like the Adapt a blast to play, and the amount of weapons are varied.

Emotional moments. Again, non-spoiler spoiler territory so I have to be vague. ME3 easily has more than a few moments that tug on your heart-strings (especially the moment with Char in my opinion).

Impressive character writing. Despite not liking Vega or EDI, I cannot say that they were written poorly. Plus, squadmate interaction aboard the Normandy was a nice little touch that wasn't necessary but very appreciated.

Everything comes together. ME3 does a terrific job of tying together all the loose plots and sub-plots of the ME universe. Not everything is resolved (Toombs, Parasini, Sidonis, ect), but many stories are concluded one way or another during ME3 (the ME2 squad cameos are notably impressive).

Bad -

Poor animations. Yes, the animations are still wonky. It was distracting at first, but the game was so damn fun that it was easy to forget while playing.

Sidequests lack depth. Very few sidequests in ME3 feature conversation, favoring mindless fetch quests instead. I understand this is a good system for building war assets, but it was disapointing overall.

The ending. *SLIGHT SPOILERS* Yes, you knew this was coming. I felt that the last 15 minuets was a complete genre shift for the series; no longer was I playing ME (previous games enforced the theme that the player can overcome impossible odds on top) but a completely different game. It was jarring. Not to mention the fact that several events made absolutely zero sense (the star-child's reasoning for the reapers, the synthesis ending, the Normandy abandoning Shepard on Earth, ect).


PS - Bioware, we are so vocal because we care about your company and the games you produce. Most of us adore ME3, but feel the end invalidates the efforts of not just ME3, but the entire series. We love Mass Effect - we just want it to receive the ending (and reception) it deserves.

Modifié par -Skorpious-, 21 mars 2012 - 06:53 .

[Alchera7]

SPOILER ALERT

Spoiler

{Most of us already have figured out that the ending is indoctrination. But now we are all pumped for what happens next when Shepard finally regains consciousness after taking that gasp of air (which only shows up if you resisted indoctrination)! }

Modifié par Alchera7, 21 mars 2012 - 06:45 .

[Cell1e]

Shadeling wrote...

Muezick wrote...

I'm posting this because I think it's an interesting point.

Anonymous wrote...

They're getting really, really good at making non-statements now. That this exists is a very good thing, it's showing that BW is on edge now and they're desperately trying to contain the raging mobs. Don't let this fool you, though, it was cleverly written and worded so that it sounds like they're going to do something about it without actually promising anything. In other words, it's yet another PR trick. Hopefully people will be smart enough not to get fooled by this at this point. I'd post this in that BSN PR thread but I have no intention of buying ME3.

This anon has a good point. The whole point of this letter is to calm people who are raging down without actually giving the ragers what they want.

It's why i'm weary of it.

I agree that the Anon makes an excellent point. I'll be waiting to see the results rather than take a PR letter at face value.

Me too!

[Straw_foot]

Glad for a real addressing of our issues, even if a lot of it seems non-committal and deflective. They could add endings without changing the other ending, but idk, everything after you collapse on that platform and get lifted is really silly. Even if it weren't full of plot-holes the entire scene is a non-sequitur.

Modifié par Straw_foot, 21 mars 2012 - 06:46 .

[Raizo]

Wow, I don't know what to say to this. Thanks I guess.

Truth be told I wasn't expecting Bioware to fix the endings at all. I'm a gamer in my 30's and I have a very old school approach to games and gaming in general ( I come from an era where there were no patches for games or dlc content ) so I always assumed that it was too late to do anything about ME3's endings.

While I would love a 'happy' ending what I really want is for Bioware to properly explain what happens when you choose each ending and I would like more closure for all the races in the ME Universe like do the Asari reclaim thier homeworld, if you saved the Geth what happens to them when you pick the destroy ending. What happens to all those aliens who were fighting for earth after the Mass relays are destroyed, what happens to Shepard's squadmates and where the hell is Joker trying to fly to.

Edit.

Thanks Ray, it nice to finally get a straight answer. 

Modifié par Raizo, 21 mars 2012 - 06:48 .

[sgt_melin]

Im glad that they did respond at all. To bad they lissen to mutch on review, they are not allways right. But polls and forum and more from angry and upset fans are the only one they should lissen to. and many player had all ready said, 99% of the game is great. the last 1% ...we don't like a little bit of at all. the ending. so for me and for many more, change the ending, and we are happy as a child on christmas. And i hope you just not trow in some carton movie to explain stuff and keep the ending as it is...we should still be angry and upset for that.

[TSC_1]

While I'm thrilled that Dr. Muzyka has spoken to Bioware's customers directly, the blog post does leave me a little worried. It seems to imply that Bioware is going to try to "explain" the current ending rather than do away with it in favour of new endings, or add new endings in such a way that the original ending can be ignored entirely. If Bioware intends to explain rather than replace or supplement, I'm going to be entirely unsatisfied.

I want the option of playing through ME3 without ever seeing what currently happens after Anderson dies. The ending is so bad that no amount of explanation can salvage it.

I'd also like to say that, while it isn't strictly necessary, an ending where Shepard lives and reunites with his crew and LI in a galaxy where the mass relays still exist would go a long way toward making me a happy customer.

[Iceman22012]

I haven't finished the game yet, but so far have loved it for the most part. However, how you pick up the side missions is horribly designed, (no conversation means you can pick them up while running back to drop something off without knowing or caring about they had to say because you don't have to listen) the menu to chart them is now a joke, the dialogue wheel has been stripped, and enemies have gps aiming with grenades. The face import issue is insane to have even been am issue to start with, but by replacing the old slider value in 2 with the new one in 3, I got my shep back. Squad AI is on my list, followed by the grenade issue. Anytime my squad is aiming at shadows they can see through the ceiling, of the opposite room we're fighting in, and therefore not helping me at all....that's a problem. Mass 2 had a ton of good dlc, I'm hoping mass 3 follows its lead.

[Mythosaeon]

I can understand where Dr. Muzyka is coming from, to do anything less than support the Mass Effect teams efforts when they are so under fire would be soul crushing for moral at Bioware.

At the same making statements that the "artistic integrity of the game" will be upheld(ie. no 'new/changed endings') and remedial clairifications and little closure epilogs will be provided to misguided fans, to convince them how wrong they are about Mass Effect 3, will be received as very high handed and utterly unacceptable.

Unfortunately this seems a storybook no-win situation, all the choices are impossible and Bioware's reputation with a large number of fans looks just like the bleak endgame of Mass Effect 3 - total ruin and forever changed.

[RiouHotaru]

OdanUrr wrote...

"Building on their research, Exec Producer Casey Hudson and the team are hard at work on a number of game content initiatives that will help answer the questions, providing more clarity for those seeking further closure to their journey."

That tells me that the ending we got is the one they intended us to have. I'm sure someone will spin it differently though.

That was always my assumption.  The endings we got are exactly what they planned, and that they were planning on giving content to explain and add context.  Really, nothing he's said runs counter to what a lot of us already knew.

Still, good to hear it said.

[SalsaDMA]

They would have to redo the whole ending, including the final mission to actually deliver what was promised. Somehow I don't see that happening after reading his response.

Even more worrying, is the defense of the 'artistic quality' the ending consists of. Are we to asume that Bioware themselves are proud of that ending and this is the kind of artistic quality we are to expect in the future as well from them?

Sorry, but with emnations like that from your company about where you are heading with your approach to creating games (which includes turning the game into almost a linear shooter, rather than actually being a rpg, even going so far as to hamstringing some of the residual rpg elemsts that were still left) I just don't foresee myself being interested in your products in the future. What you are telling me your 'artistic vision' entails (unless a direct customer backlash hits you, forcing you to reconsider on a title basis) is just not something I am interesting in paying money for in the future.

It was a nice journey while it lasted, and I have had much fun with Bioware games in the past. But your changed attitude in what you want to create or what you think is quality is just not the products I would want from you. There's a myriad of other developing teams producing the same kind of games, which I can get easier (without Origin) and cheaper while having an artistic vision of what quality entails that is closer to what I can agree with.

[Ieldra]

Dear Dr.Muzyka,

I appreciate your letter to us, the players of Mass Effect 3. While I hesitate to put too much hope into it at this time, I appreciate that the ME3 team is working on something that will affect the ending of Mass Effect 3 - in some unspecified way.

Thus, I will take this opportunity to present my views on the endings of ME3, a game which is otherwise, though not without flaws, full of exemplary storytelling the likes of which I have never seen in a video game. In the following paragraph I will try to walk a line between constructive criticism and passion, since not only do I have a passion for the ME universe, I also feel that being somewhat passionate is appropriate when talking about art in a more general sense.

The current ending of Mass Effect 3 is an ending that - there is no way to pull this punch - ruins dreams, as this review put it so utterly appropriately. Through five years and three games we became invested in the world of Mass Effect, attached to it all the hopes that we, as SF fans, project out to the stars, only for them to be turned to ashes by the ending of Mass Effect 3, leaving a taste of decay in our mouths (the review's words again, so utterly apt).

The current ending of ME3 is not hopeful, it is full of despair. Everything we were invested in is gone, and no substitute we could attach to had been built up throughout the story, leaving us in an emotional void, devoid of any catharsis, closure or hope. The "hopeful" imagery at the end did not work as intended at all, being full of unfortunate implications, conveying the sense that the writers had a sadistic pleasure in torturing their players, and reminding us of everything that was gone. Being told it is hopeful does not help. We do not feel it. If the writers wanted us to feel it, they failed. Hopeful, that would have been images of people all over the galaxy, crawling out of the rubble and starting to rebuild. Hopeful, that would've been a "20 years later" image of a starship entering the Sol system, bringing greetings from long-lost allies. Two or three of such images would have made a world of difference.

In addition - as a more personal remark - this pastoral Garden Eden image we've got, in some cases complete with Adam & Eve, is an appeal to a romanticism that I, both as a non-religious person and as one steeped in Enlightenment values, do not just not feel. The notion that I should find *this* hopeful is outright offensive. "Back to nature and start over", regardless of the choice I make, tells me the writers do not want to give me a choice that appeals to my values, a fundamental flaw of any role-playing game. That has never happened before in the trilogy and forces my Shepard, as my avatar in the ME universe, to act out of character. Even the description of the Synthesis, an ending that would appeal to me, betrays the underlying transhumanist theme and mangles it with logic-defying notions (hybrid DNA) and nonsensical eschatological imagery ("final evolution of life"), leaving a caricature that some players, not being familiar with the underlying theme, can only describe as horrific.

When it comes down do it, I can live with the final choice. But give me a choice about destroying the universe. Give me a coherent reasoning I can make an informed decision on. Give me an option to challenge this starchild, who for all I know, is much more of the ultimate villain than the Illusive Man ever was, and who I can never, ever - not in a million years - accept as some kind of divine authority whose words I have to simply accept as truth. Forcing my Shepard to do so destroys him as a character. Give me an additional option based on my rejection of its reasoning. And above all, give me closure. Tell me what happens to the galaxy Shepard has left. Show me, in the end, when Shepard meets his fate, that his sacrifice was worth it.

These fundamental things I would like to see changed. Everything else, the many little flaws others have pointed out, are nothing more but symptoms. I want an ending that keeps my hopes, my dreams alive, even if the character representing them is gone from the universe.

Please make it so.

[omegasama]

Maybe it is time to start seeing us fans as consumers, and your "art" as a product, because that is what we are and that is what this game is.

And consumers have the right to demand a fix to a flawed product. The moment you start taking money for something it becomes commercial and all "artistic integrity" is gone. The moment you start reproducing something it becomes a product, and your "fans" become customers.

I think it is time EA and BW and other companies starts to realize that.

[onelifecrisis]

"genuinely surprised"

They obviously didn't read these forums at all since the release of ME2...

[Paco_023]

PR damage control again... seriously people, the only reason they keep mentioning how strongly the team feels for the game and how passionate they are is this: They want to humanize themselves and make us to feel bad about hating what they created. They want us to stop damaging their business, which is what this whole controversy is doing, they wouldn't throw free stuff at us and announce pricecuts if it wasn't.

75 professional reviews with a PERFECT score. Is this guy for real? Gaming journalism is a joke! No one who is not payed to do so would EVER give a game/movie/play a perfect score.

''maintaining the artistic integrity of the game.''
Artistic integrity? You outright TELL us to buy more DLC after we finished playing the game and you want us to believe you have integrity? "No we can't change what we have written that's a breach of our artistic integrity. Btw buy our new dlc it contains a new character for your squad"

Also, urging us to spread the word on how we feel about the game as a whole. Really? You give us one of the most underwhelming endings I have ever experienced in a game and you urge me to gloss over that part when I tell my friends about your game? Not a chance.

Even if the indoctrination theory is correct there's still only one ending with three different colorschemes. Alot of things in the game would make more sense but it doesn't change the fact that the endings still bring zero closure and only serve to sell more DLC and if that is the case I will forever boycott Bioware and any game published by EA. It breaks my heart because I loved your earlier games to death but I can't support what you've become. 

Modifié par Paco_023, 21 mars 2012 - 07:09 .

[morrie23]

Don't set your hopes too high folks: