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Talk with Geoff Keighley, Author of The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3


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#401
Guest_Arcian_*

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Geoff, sincere thanks to you for taking the time to make this app. It has convinced me that BioWare is no longer a company worth supporting. In other words, you have saved me a LOT of future dollars. So once again, many, many sincere thanks.

#402
Wabajakka

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I'm surprised Mac Walters let you use that piece of paper which explained that joke of an ending. It looked insultingly unprofessional is that is what in fact created the ending.

Question though, is that piece of paper what was seriously used to create the premise of that confusing, plot-hole filled ending?

Also, what do you think of the ending? Confusing to you at all as to wtf even happens to 99% of the galaxy?

#403
Orxnge

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Are there any plans to release a version of the app adapted for the iPod? I know it's a really long read for such a small screen but I don't use paypal sooo I'm pretty much boned, and I'd really like to read about the team that brought one of the greatest sci-fi universes to life.

Thanks for taking the time to answer questions, Geoff! :]

#404
Vorodill

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Hi Geoff. Thanks for answering questions. I bought your app. Interesting. :D

I liked the anecdotes about the beginning of Bioware. Anyway, I would like to know : when will be the update and did you get to talk with the writers? Have a conversation with them? If that is the case, what were they talking about?

#405
GigaTheToast

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... Is he coming back?

#406
HackNFly

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The app was well worth the money. Humanized the Bioware team, but still didn't make the ending justified. I'd still recommend the app to anyone $3 for something that took me about 3 hours to get through is very justifiable.

#407
Darthlawsuit

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Geoff- Why did Bioware decide to take Harbinger out of the storyline? It was Established in ME1 that the reapers are independent and not puppets "We are each a nation, independent, free of weakness". After that Harbinger began to focus on Shepard and it was established that he is the leader of the reapers and the one that you needed to stop.

Then Bioware pulled a 180 and made reaper along with all reapers mere puppets. They became irrelevant and then threw in a star child as their replacement, some random idk wtf kid that has no significance in the story. Why did you throw out the established storyline and enemies for some character that was never seen before the last 5 minutes of the game?

It seems like the worst decision you could make. That is why we have all this outrage.

Modifié par Darthlawsuit, 25 mars 2012 - 08:11 .


#408
Darthlawsuit

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GigaTheToast wrote...

... Is he coming back?

If he lives on the East coast its 4AM. I think hes sleeping

#409
LGf

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Hi if u don't mind i want to know your personal opinion as a professional journalist.
Don't u think that shepard sacrifice was cheap ? I mean whole game we r getting signals that will happen. During conversations,dreams etc. When starchild told me what my choice r: sacrifice, sacrifice or sacrifice (with slight chance that u get alive if u survive citadel explosion yea GL). I was like "god damn this is really cheap like low budget movie"

#410
lanep25

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@Geoff - 1. What is your favorite Harbinger line in Mass Effect 3?
2. What was your (honest and truthful ) reaction when you finished your Mass Effect 3 game? Describe some of your feelings associated with that reaction.
2a. If you felt unhappy about the ending, what specific things were you unhappy about?
3. Do you feel sorry for color blind people who only get one ending when playing ME3?
4. Have you received any information on why Bioware thought it would be a good idea to only change colors for the 3 same endings?
5. Has Bioware explained how it is that synthetics have DNA?

#411
locsphere

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Okay first of all Hello,

So here is the deal with some of my critiques of the game and its ending. As a writer I understand you would want to deviate yet combine certain ideas to make them unique.

So lets start on what the first two games sold us.

Never Believing in a no win Scenario: Shepard has over come a great deal of many things and never through out this series did I see a hero, that I could immerse myself in. I was able to guide him down a path and I wanted to see my decisions play out.
-Was saving the Rachni Queen a good Idea? Having to save her twice... Not so great in fact was really angry this was a side mission to gain a war asset.
-The collector base destroying this crucial base to the reapers and what is the ramifications of its loose
- Curing the genophage was it a good idea?
- Saving L2 Biotics from ME1 allowing for more funding to help them

Then we have the endings. Sir, I cannot tell you enough what a displeasure these endings were and you as a writer, must hate hearing this, and I am sorry. But the fact here is, You want us to believe that Synthetic Beings were created, because an organic race at some point decided that synthetics would always rebel and kill organics. So Synthetics would be created to kill organics and store them in reaper form.

This is not a good way to end or even come close to ending this story. Through the past 2 games you made us believe that not only was proper decision making good for final conflict. We also started to believe that these so called reapers weren’t as invulnerable as they seemed.

We wanted to fight Harbringer, we wanted to hit the reapers at least hard enough to make them retreat and rethink this whole killing life every 50k years. The bottom line here is a god child is not the answer to this series. OR any series to ever come out of gaming

Killing off the hero... This has been done so many times as a form of artistic expression it has in my opinion become todays main stream. But here is something you need to consider. By asking Shepard to die you are in essence, asking us to die. To feel the weight of that death and of course say goodbye. But as a Soldier myself I can tell you there is no greater pleasure than life than coming back from a war front and laying your weapons aside. Or maybe continuing the fight for another day.

The bottom line here is, we should have been able through proper decision making to get an ending where Shepard can at least live because like ME2 we made the right decisions.

Why I think this: I have seen enough death in my travels to tell you that when I choose a form of escapism, That is one dam thing I don't want to relive. EVER. Sure I might pick up this video game knowing it is make believe and I like a game where the good guy wins all of the time. Because in this world… the real world do you know who wins? The villains… ALWAYS

Try fighting in a war to come home and hear about how everything you fought for was for nothing. Civilians saying 9/11 was an inside job and politicians resorting to talking points when we are in so much debt and they can't make a decision on how to deal with it. The rich crying they don’ want more taxes while the poor starve and most people in a recession can barely put food on their table . Watch your friends come home in body bags or missing pieces of themselves in mental and physical capacities. Banks that have raped the public, that have chosen money over people. Foreclosure rates and jobless rates sky rocketing, My mortgage almost 100,000 dollars below what I have paid for it. The devaluation of the dollar and the wars being mismanaged to a point that people can no longer stomach them. I also have to live with the thing’s I have done. So when I finally get to sit down at the end of a long day. I choose certain forms of escapism and sure I don't mind the artistic side of loss and portraying that to a person. But you should never and I mean never. Kill the person that player has been working on so hard. Because you are asking me to die. Destroying any way of escaping for a short time from the nonsense I mentioned above.

This being said, the aftermath of all this, we saw politics in gaming. No one able to stand up and address the fans. IGN came out and insulted their subscriber base. While others were quick to discredit people who had a gripe. Siting game companies who lost their objectiveness and ignoring fans because they are “Entitled” Capitalism is the United States Creed and most of North America and Europe enjoy this platform. Part of this platform is being able to speak up against what they view as poor business practices. We see, you resorting to the action our politicians take and now even our own entertainment companies can't even own their mistakes. As if they ever could. But BioWare is a name that people thought they could trust. Whether the rumors about EA castrating you are true or not. Did not matter when your fans were ignored.
Call this Art call it what you will, but if you as an Artist think that you have made a master piece I am here to tell you that know artist that is in touch with art, would think that these are acceptable as a way to close out an epic series. This is an embarrassment in my opinion, and I am truly done with your stories and your art if you can’t figure out how to end a story.

I don't care of you change the endings. But the next time you sell us a game that is based on choice and those choices mattering in the end, you darn well better do what you say. you should be having focus groups on this stuff. What your consumers want. Because in the end it may be art. But if its art that no one likes. No one is going to be visiting your museum. Or in your case no one is going to keep buying from you. In your business, this is not only dangerous, but you might be getting a little taste of that thing called a recession the rest of us have been dealing with... Something EA has no problem doing. Because your statements screamed its art and asked us to appreciate it even if its bad.
Just self reflect, look long and hard at these endings and ask yourself if they are fitting.

#412
lanep25

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SomeKindaEnigma wrote...

Shaun72 wrote...

@Geoff: You can ignore all of the comments about the app being free or asking why you are charging for it. Those people are confusing you for a Bioware dev and not a journalist. They are actually talking about future ME DLC, not your app update. In other words.....many people seem to be allergic to READING THE OP.


That, or they just need to go to the center for kids who can't read good.


LOL Oh god, I haven't seen Zoolander for a while now! Tme to crack it open to get my mind off ME3...

#413
Tehzim

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Hey Geoff, just a one quick question:

Knowing what you do about the development of games and specifically the process for Mass Effect how difficult do you think it would be to make a change to the end of the game? Is it fixable by DLC or would it involve a lot more resources?

I was thinking specifically of adding a set of procedural cutscenes like for the Suicide Mission in the second game so you could see what happens to your assets. Is this even feasible?

Thanks again for adding the professional perspective.

#414
sammysoso

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Hi Geoff!

First off, I would like to thank you for all the effort that went into Final Hours, it was definitely worth the purchase.

I would like to get your impressions on how the the team felt about ending the series the way they did. What I mean is was the nature of the ending (pretty ambiguous, more high-concept science fiction) seen as something that would probably disappoint some people. Knowing how other science fiction that had gone that route had been received in the past, such as the Matrix trilogy. These types of things tend to be pretty polarizing, was that ever brought up?

Anyway, thanks again for the wonderful app

#415
Darthlawsuit

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When they were planning Mass Effect in the very beginning they wanted all the science to be realistic and believable. Why did they depart from that during the last mission in the game?

#416
JeanLuc Awesome

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Aerevane wrote...

Why do banana's have a curve?


The reason bananas are curved has to do with how they grow. Bananas grow in bunches known as “hands.”! The ability to do this is pretty neat, and it’s known by the complicated-sounding term“negative geotropism. Most likely, the reason that bananas have evolved to have negative geotropism is that it allows them to reach out towards the sun and get more light!

B)

Modifié par JeanLuc Awesome, 25 mars 2012 - 08:44 .


#417
Jadebaby

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lol I think he's asleep people.

#418
dakka dakka

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IsaacShep wrote...

Hawke_12 wrote...

Mesina2 wrote...

Deventh wrote...

Is the indoctrination theory true?


No.


Proof?

Common sense


common sense led me to the Indoctrination theory

why the wierd camera angles?

Why does Shepard have a wound from where he shot Anderson?

Why are there trees behind Shepard AFTER he gets struck by Harbinger and they weren't there before?

Why is the Star Child logic so flawed?

Why does Shepard simply accept it?

Why are his eyes the same color as TIM and Saren in both Control and Synthesis and not Destroy?

Why does Shepard wake up in the rubble on Earth in the best/hardest to get ending?

answer is simple......Indoctrination. It is the last great test that Shepard had yet to fully face, he bested Reapers in physical fights but had yet to fight them mentally. It is the only theory that answers all questions.

Or do you really believe Bioware is that stupid?

#419
Bakakenny

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Geoff,

I hadn't heard of your "Final Hours" apps until now, but this is a great idea! Great job! However, while I've been able to read the story, I do have a few problems with the app.

*Note - I tried sending you a message for support through your contact page, but I get an error after hitting submit.  Wall of text below!

I have the latest version of Air installed (I updated it after purchasing the app). Antivirus auto-protect and firewall is off. I am connected to the internet, and I've checked incoming/outgoing traffic on all ports on my router just in case you're transmitting through a port that is being blocked. However, nothing showed up as being blocked...so here we go!

- Most of the video doesn't play: I don't know if it's just not loading, or if the app is having an issue. If I maximize the video player, and the app fails to play, then I have to close the program via task manager (or right-click > close in the task bar), because the cancel button (the big blue "X") doesn't do anything.

- None of the "Polls" work! It just says "Internet required", but I'm obviously online and doing stuff. As I mentioned above, router logs show nothing going in/coming out from the app. I get a title bar for the polls, but the content area inside of them is white...nothing there.

- Your "Tweets" box on the "About the author" page says the same thing - "Internet required".

Do you have any fixes for this? I would love to enjoy the app in the way that it was intended, but so far all I get are a bunch of pictures, a few videos of Casey Hudson talking about himself (in the "tinkerer" section), and that's it. Oh, the "About the game"'s section on the love interest (where you choose male/female shepard and the love interest decisions - nice catch on the way the LI is carried, btw!) works. So do the 360 degree spinning models. But not the video and audio...

Granted, $2.99 is by no means going to "break the bank", nor will it get me a Volcano Burrito from Taco Bell. And I'm not saying that your writing isn't worth the price...but since most of the cost of the app is presumably diverted to "breaking even" on the app's development costs...I'd say that you didn't get what you paid for, and neither did I.

I've tried this on Windows 7 Home Premium and Ultimate (PC and laptop, respectively).

Help?

- BK

Modifié par Bakakenny, 25 mars 2012 - 09:27 .


#420
MrDext0R

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GeoffKeighley wrote...


MrDext0R - I get what you are saying about resolutions for ALL your crew....But it's tough given all the characters in the world. People always complained about the "six" endings to Lord of the Rings as over indulgent, although I guess those were more "completist"? I personally would have liked to see more of Illusive Man in ME3 overall, but I'm not sure the "boss fight" would have really solved complaints about the ending.


Thanks for responding.

An boss fight wasn't that necessary (it would be only a thing which makes ME personal "happy"), so there are much more general things which are hard to understand. I think everyone wants to know what happens now to the races which helped you in your final battle. Like I said it is not clear what they've do now without portals or IF they even survived the explosions. So it is not only unsolved what happened concrete to your whole crew; it is also unclear what happened to the rest. It would be so much better if BioWare had told this instead of this strange Stargazer-epilogue.

Modifié par MrDext0R, 25 mars 2012 - 10:20 .


#421
kevlarcardhouse

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Orange Tee wrote...

I'm surprised Mac Walters let you use that piece of paper which explained that joke of an ending. It looked insultingly unprofessional is that is what in fact created the ending.

Question though, is that piece of paper what was seriously used to create the premise of that confusing, plot-hole filled ending?

I love how people just keep trying to force this narrative of two guys who worked their asses off for a decade making these games suddenly lazily putting together the ending with no input whatsoever.

That sheet is just the start of the creative process of ideas and isn't some gold standard for anything.  If it's "unprofessional" to write your initial ideas on a sheet of paper, I doubt you have any clue what you're talking about.  The same app has a similar piece of paper for the ending of the second one, and it's clearly just early ideas.

#422
DESTRAUDO

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Don't have any questions. Just wanted to say i applaud your balls of steel for making the topic and replying to all the comments.

You probably had a solid idea you were walking into the inferno.

#423
Ozzyfan223

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How do we know this guy is legit? I mean, can someone prove to me he is really him?

#424
Fiery Knight

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Ozzyfan223 wrote...

How do we know this guy is legit? I mean, can someone prove to me he is really him?


Read Chris' post in this thread.

#425
Nyctyris

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  A serious question (actually related=])

Do you feel that attitude in mainstream media towards the gaming industry has significantly changed in the past few years, and/or your general thoughts on the mainstream media's attitude towards games? I notice even Fox News is holding its tongue a little bit these days!


Thanks for the app, it was insightful and interesting. On a technical note though I couldn't get those "panorma" views to work, they'd flash briefly as a still and then the box goes grey. (Viewing it on a Win7 PC with Air).