218 réponses à ce sujet

[dognip5]

http://t2.gstatic.co...EDFCwukLhKXM9vQ

[Dreaming Dead]

Paxcorpus wrote...

http://i39.tinypic.com/1gnlw2.jpg

Confirmed fake.

Modifié par Dreaming Dead, 26 mars 2012 - 05:28 .

[MorSterling]

Did an EA bigshot incompetent son take over in the end to run the show?

Cause it is an epic fail.

[garf]

Skyblade012 wrote...

The more I look at the ending, the less convinced I get.  How can something this masterful be accidental?

It's not just a bad ending.  It's not just poorly written.  It is an outright destruction of everything that made the series.

Theme of unifying diverse cultures: Thrown away
Theme of overcoming unbeatable odds: Thrown away
Theme of forging one's own path in the galaxy: Thrown away
The Implacable and Unstoppable foes: Thrown away
The Mass Relays that are the basis of the entire franchise: Thrown away
The ability to argue with entities on Shepard's level: Thrown away

The list goes on and on.  If you were to give the series to a talented writer, and tell them "destroy everything that makes this series what it is", I do not think they could have done a better job.  I cannot think of a single theme, gameplay mechanic, character trait, or plot point that this ending does not outright junk.

And that's not even thinking about all the lies we were told, the 100% fabrications we were given by the developers leading up to release.

Is it possible to do something this wrong by accident?  Or did BioWare just really want to destroy the series?  Did they want to rebel against EA, show that they could screw up the franchise so bad that EA couldn't milk it anymore?  Did they get sick of the hype and obsession, and just want to kill the entire fanbase?  Did they just get sick of the IP and want to trash it and move on?

This is just too perfect to be unplanned.  This was deliberate and direct attempt to assassinate the series, and I have to say, it worked.

Well.. now that you mention it. We've been bringing up Sir Arthur Conan Doyle a lot. He Threw Holmes over the Reichenbach falls because he considered those stories hack work and wanted to devote his time to 'real' art.

Maybe Bioware had the same idea.

Marion Zimmer Bradley freely admits that 'World Wreckers' was attempt at the same thing. (even compared herself to Doyle) since her famous Darkover Novels began life as teenage ... well... nowadays we would call it blogging or fanfiction but it was her private work done on pen and paper.

So ... maybe... With Drew K. gone. Bioware's writers wanted to rid themselves of the Yoke of the ME universe. Makes as much sense as Indoc theory.

[Skyblade012]

garf wrote...

Skyblade012 wrote...

The more I look at the ending, the less convinced I get.  How can something this masterful be accidental?

It's not just a bad ending.  It's not just poorly written.  It is an outright destruction of everything that made the series.

Theme of unifying diverse cultures: Thrown away
Theme of overcoming unbeatable odds: Thrown away
Theme of forging one's own path in the galaxy: Thrown away
The Implacable and Unstoppable foes: Thrown away
The Mass Relays that are the basis of the entire franchise: Thrown away
The ability to argue with entities on Shepard's level: Thrown away

The list goes on and on.  If you were to give the series to a talented writer, and tell them "destroy everything that makes this series what it is", I do not think they could have done a better job.  I cannot think of a single theme, gameplay mechanic, character trait, or plot point that this ending does not outright junk.

And that's not even thinking about all the lies we were told, the 100% fabrications we were given by the developers leading up to release.

Is it possible to do something this wrong by accident?  Or did BioWare just really want to destroy the series?  Did they want to rebel against EA, show that they could screw up the franchise so bad that EA couldn't milk it anymore?  Did they get sick of the hype and obsession, and just want to kill the entire fanbase?  Did they just get sick of the IP and want to trash it and move on?

This is just too perfect to be unplanned.  This was deliberate and direct attempt to assassinate the series, and I have to say, it worked.

Well.. now that you mention it. We've been bringing up Sir Arthur Conan Doyle a lot. He Threw Holmes over the Reichenbach falls because he considered those stories hack work and wanted to devote his time to 'real' art.

Maybe Bioware had the same idea.

Marion Zimmer Bradley freely admits that 'World Wreckers' was attempt at the same thing. (even compared herself to Doyle) since her famous Darkover Novels began life as teenage ... well... nowadays we would call it blogging or fanfiction but it was her private work done on pen and paper.

So ... maybe... With Drew K. gone. Bioware's writers wanted to rid themselves of the Yoke of the ME universe. Makes as much sense as Indoc theory.

Precisely.

[papality]

garf wrote...

Skyblade012 wrote...

The more I look at the ending, the less convinced I get.  How can something this masterful be accidental?

It's not just a bad ending.  It's not just poorly written.  It is an outright destruction of everything that made the series.

Theme of unifying diverse cultures: Thrown away
Theme of overcoming unbeatable odds: Thrown away
Theme of forging one's own path in the galaxy: Thrown away
The Implacable and Unstoppable foes: Thrown away
The Mass Relays that are the basis of the entire franchise: Thrown away
The ability to argue with entities on Shepard's level: Thrown away

The list goes on and on.  If you were to give the series to a talented writer, and tell them "destroy everything that makes this series what it is", I do not think they could have done a better job.  I cannot think of a single theme, gameplay mechanic, character trait, or plot point that this ending does not outright junk.

And that's not even thinking about all the lies we were told, the 100% fabrications we were given by the developers leading up to release.

Is it possible to do something this wrong by accident?  Or did BioWare just really want to destroy the series?  Did they want to rebel against EA, show that they could screw up the franchise so bad that EA couldn't milk it anymore?  Did they get sick of the hype and obsession, and just want to kill the entire fanbase?  Did they just get sick of the IP and want to trash it and move on?

This is just too perfect to be unplanned.  This was deliberate and direct attempt to assassinate the series, and I have to say, it worked.

Well.. now that you mention it. We've been bringing up Sir Arthur Conan Doyle a lot. He Threw Holmes over the Reichenbach falls because he considered those stories hack work and wanted to devote his time to 'real' art.

Maybe Bioware had the same idea.

Marion Zimmer Bradley freely admits that 'World Wreckers' was attempt at the same thing. (even compared herself to Doyle) since her famous Darkover Novels began life as teenage ... well... nowadays we would call it blogging or fanfiction but it was her private work done on pen and paper.

So ... maybe... With Drew K. gone. Bioware's writers wanted to rid themselves of the Yoke of the ME universe. Makes as much sense as Indoc theory.

it doesn't not make sense, anyway

[Dreogan]

Skyblade012 wrote...

garf wrote...

Skyblade012 wrote...

The more I look at the ending, the less convinced I get.  How can something this masterful be accidental?

It's not just a bad ending.  It's not just poorly written.  It is an outright destruction of everything that made the series.

Theme of unifying diverse cultures: Thrown away
Theme of overcoming unbeatable odds: Thrown away
Theme of forging one's own path in the galaxy: Thrown away
The Implacable and Unstoppable foes: Thrown away
The Mass Relays that are the basis of the entire franchise: Thrown away
The ability to argue with entities on Shepard's level: Thrown away

The list goes on and on.  If you were to give the series to a talented writer, and tell them "destroy everything that makes this series what it is", I do not think they could have done a better job.  I cannot think of a single theme, gameplay mechanic, character trait, or plot point that this ending does not outright junk.

And that's not even thinking about all the lies we were told, the 100% fabrications we were given by the developers leading up to release.

Is it possible to do something this wrong by accident?  Or did BioWare just really want to destroy the series?  Did they want to rebel against EA, show that they could screw up the franchise so bad that EA couldn't milk it anymore?  Did they get sick of the hype and obsession, and just want to kill the entire fanbase?  Did they just get sick of the IP and want to trash it and move on?

This is just too perfect to be unplanned.  This was deliberate and direct attempt to assassinate the series, and I have to say, it worked.

Well.. now that you mention it. We've been bringing up Sir Arthur Conan Doyle a lot. He Threw Holmes over the Reichenbach falls because he considered those stories hack work and wanted to devote his time to 'real' art.

Maybe Bioware had the same idea.

Marion Zimmer Bradley freely admits that 'World Wreckers' was attempt at the same thing. (even compared herself to Doyle) since her famous Darkover Novels began life as teenage ... well... nowadays we would call it blogging or fanfiction but it was her private work done on pen and paper.

So ... maybe... With Drew K. gone. Bioware's writers wanted to rid themselves of the Yoke of the ME universe. Makes as much sense as Indoc theory.

Precisely.

This is conclusive proof of indoctrination.

Modifié par Dreogan, 26 mars 2012 - 05:33 .

[jimbo32]

Dreaming Dead wrote...

Paxcorpus wrote...

http://i39.tinypic.com/1gnlw2.jpg

Confirmed fake.

"Confirmed fake" by a BioWare employee doesn't necessarily make it so.

[huntsman2310]

No. It is really just horrid writing, or at least a thrown together jumble of concepts.

[webhead921]

 http://i.qkme.me/35d273.jpg


I honestly think they thought people would eat it up if they did something totally unexpected.  They tried way to hard to do something out of left field that it felt out of place.  They should have just focused on making a great ending instead of a surprising one.

[Skyblade012]

webhead921 wrote...

 http://i.qkme.me/35d273.jpg


I honestly think they thought people would eat it up if they did something totally unexpected.  They tried way to hard to do something out of left field that it felt out of place.  They should have just focused on making a great ending instead of a surprising one.

Yeah, but grabbing a random plot device out of nowhere is still unlikely to yield something so perfectly tailored to eliminate the franchise.

I mean, having it be impossible to defeat the Reapers, no matter how many resources you gathered, for example, would be just as surprising, yet be less damning to the series.

[recentio]

Two men alone, filled with pride, created an "intelligent" ending. Woe to a piteous soul as me, for I cannot fathom it's sweeping complexities! In shame, I withdraw to the Abyss of Imbeciles from whence I came, consoled there by the idiocy of theoretical computer science. O, we unwashed rabble, we children of the swamps who squint before the red/green/blue face of Apollo. O, flawless art that was rushed and hewn in isolation from the creative team that told the rest of the story. Give unto me thick-rimmed, black glasses, that I might become worthy.

/drama

Yeah, it's just bad. It hasn't survived a single scholarly deconstruction without being unmasked as tripe.

I can understand liking the ending. It's cool that some people do, and respectful disagreements can be very good for fostering discussions. I think I'm losing my temper, though, with those pretentious few who archly declare stupidity as the root of all discontent. I've found the "2deep4u" crowd a bit intractable to converse with...sorry if I indulged that frustration in this post. 

[AdmiralCheez]

webhead921 wrote...

 http://i.qkme.me/35d273.jpg

I honestly think they thought people would eat it up if they did something totally unexpected.  They tried way to hard to do something out of left field that it felt out of place.  They should have just focused on making a great ending instead of a surprising one.

Precisely.  The last five minutes of your magnum opus is not the place to try something new.  You stick with what you're good at, you show off your strengths, you deliver the culmination of everything that came before it.

Innovation is fun--and important--but it's smarter to save that sort of thing for new IPs/DLC.

An analogy because I'm tired and grouchy and don't want to write that English paper:

If you've made a fortune selling specialty chocolates, and there's a big candy-making convention coming up, you'd better bring your prize-winning truffles with you.  That new spinach quiche recipe you're testing out might be good, but seriously, you promised these people chocolate.  Save the quiche for later, or sell it on the side.  But the truffles had better be there, or you can kiss that candy-making reputation goodbye.

Wow I hope I don't read this again when I'm awake.

[AdmiralCheez]

recentio wrote...

Two men alone, filled with pride, created an "intelligent" ending. Woe to a piteous soul as me, for I cannot fathom it's sweeping complexities! In shame, I withdraw to the Abyss of Imbeciles from whence I came, consoled there by the idiocy of theoretical computer science. O, we unwashed rabble, we children of the swamps who squint before the red/green/blue face of Apollo. O, flawless art that was rushed and hewn in isolation from the creative team that told the rest of the story. Give unto me thick-rimmed, black glasses, that I might become worthy.

/drama

Yeah, it's just bad. It hasn't survived a single scholarly deconstruction without being unmasked as tripe.

I can understand liking the ending. It's cool that some people do, and respectful disagreements can be very good for fostering discussions. I think I'm losing my temper, though, with those pretentious few who archly declare stupidity as the root of all discontent. I've found the "2deep4u" crowd a bit intractable to converse with...sorry if I indulged that frustration in this post. 

You and me both.  And I look for deeper meaning in works of fiction for fun.

[CroGamer002]

Yep, bad writing.

Mac Walter just wants his own Warhammer 40k rip off.
ME3 endings pretty much set it up for that.

[Blc949]

Paxcorpus wrote...

http://i39.tinypic.com/1gnlw2.jpg

My brain says fake.  My heart says the writing is bad enough to be on par with the current ending.  I hope my brain is right cause my balls can't take anymore kicking.

[recentio]

AdmiralCheez wrote...

recentio wrote...

Two men alone, filled with pride, created an "intelligent" ending. Woe to a piteous soul as me, for I cannot fathom it's sweeping complexities! In shame, I withdraw to the Abyss of Imbeciles from whence I came, consoled there by the idiocy of theoretical computer science. O, we unwashed rabble, we children of the swamps who squint before the red/green/blue face of Apollo. O, flawless art that was rushed and hewn in isolation from the creative team that told the rest of the story. Give unto me thick-rimmed, black glasses, that I might become worthy.

/drama

Yeah, it's just bad. It hasn't survived a single scholarly deconstruction without being unmasked as tripe.

I can understand liking the ending. It's cool that some people do, and respectful disagreements can be very good for fostering discussions. I think I'm losing my temper, though, with those pretentious few who archly declare stupidity as the root of all discontent. I've found the "2deep4u" crowd a bit intractable to converse with...sorry if I indulged that frustration in this post. 

You and me both.  And I look for deeper meaning in works of fiction for fun.

Me too! I absolutely love layered works.

[Orthodox Infidel]

Skyblade012 wrote...

Orthodox Infidel wrote...

Skyblade012 wrote...

Mainly this:  Can anyone think of a way the series could have been damaged more by the ending?  Because I can't, and I've been thinking about it for a while.

Yes.

The current endings are unclear, and Bioware's statements basically indicate that they failed to convey whatever they intended to convey. The ending could be "bittersweet," because victory came at a very large cost. But if those relay explosions are the same as the Arrival explosion, then it's "nihilistic," because everybody but the Normandy crew got wiped out and all of the decisions you made in the game, like curing the Genophage, don't matter at all. Or if Shepard is hallucinating, then we don't know how the story ends. Or if Shepard is Indoctrinated, the story isn't actually over and Bioware sold us an incomplete game.

The one thing that would be worse than the current ending would be an ending where the Reapers unambigously succeeded in everything they set out to do, regardless of any decision you made. Even with the "worst" destroy ending, the Reapers die, so at least you can say "Shepard totally killed off every galactic civilization, but it was worth it, because somewhere, there's a bunch of microbes that will never have to face the Reapers." Imagine instead of that ending, the Starbrat says "Hey, guess what? This Crucible thing? It was a trap we laid for you to lure the entire armed forces of the galaxy into one place so we could kill them all with our own secret superweapon you knew absolutely nothing about. And we're going to let you live long enough to watch us kill everybody." And then that actually happens. And nothing you did in the game could stop it, besides simply never playing the game in the first place.

That would be a worse ending then the one we got.

The Synthesis ending.

It is literally the culmination of the Reaper's entire plans.  Everything they do in ME2?  Everything they've been doing in the entire cycle for years?  Synthesis.  They take advanced races, synthesize them with machines, and craft them into their new hybrid form.

And you do that to the entire galaxy.  The Reapers win, now and forever.

I agree, but it's actually not as cruel an ending, because it's not clear that they win. It's so not clear that people not only think it's the best ending, they go on to invent crazy things like "SEE, IT'S REALLY A TEST TO SEE IF YOU'RE TOLERANT SO SOME SUPER-ALIENS WE'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE WILL AGREE TO MEET YOU." Which is more crazy than the crazier versions of indoctrination theory, but it doesn't matter, because those people can feel like they won and that they're happy.

Then again, Bioware has managed to torture the fanbase into so much mental gymnastics with the current set of endings, I'm not sure that an ending where the Reapers pee all over your dead bodies would be worse anymore.

[FemmeShep]

Greed1914 wrote...

It is rather baffling that the people that could deliver so much awesomeness could also utterly botch the last moments so horribly.

While I agree, it could be easily explained...

An ending, is an ending. Put yourself in the shoes of a writer. For many artists, the ending is one of the most difficult things to pull off. Have you ever been given a task that you could do, but have trouble because the implications of it, the pressure of it?

I think what happened here is, two writers really wanted to make a memorable ending that was heavy onsymbolism. And that's why it's so disconnected from the rest of the story. Because it was written disconnected from it. There was too much focus on it being an ending. 

Modifié par FemmeShep, 26 mars 2012 - 06:40 .

[BadlyBrowned]

To me, it simply feels like something they cobbled together from the pieces of what they already had in order to meet the deadline.

[stysiaq]

Yes, it is bad writing. Really bad. And as I see it its the community who actually demands some 'artistic integrity', because ME never was about speculations.

[Zine2]

Look, we already know that Case Hudson and Mac Walters hid the ending from the rest of the writing staff. So it shouldn't be shocking that its tone and quality was so different.

[magor1988x]

Skyblade012 wrote...

Theme of unifying diverse cultures: Thrown away
Theme of overcoming unbeatable odds: Thrown away
Theme of forging one's own path in the galaxy: Thrown away
The Implacable and Unstoppable foes: Thrown away
The Mass Relays that are the basis of the entire franchise: Thrown away
The ability to argue with entities on Shepard's level: Thrown away

Remember when Mordin Solus discusses the importance of art & culture in ME2? I just read the list in my head to that exact scene. ("No soul, replaced by tech.")

[Xandurpein]

Personally I think that part of the problem is that they overreached themselves. They have proven time and again that they can write awesome characters that makes us genuinely care about these virtual persons, but the ending seems more like an attempt to write something very profound about the nature of life and existence, while on a very tight time schedule, and they just didn't manage to pull it off.

[MPSai]

No one wants to believe Bioware could be this incompetent. The picture we have right now is there was a deadline, they didn't even have an ending as late as November, and Mac Walters threw one together mostly by himself. He also seems to have thought throwing a plot twist into the last 5 minutes of an otherwise straight forward story just for the sake of having a twist was a good idea.

The problem is they won't man up and own up to it. They keep crossing their arms and saying they don't have to change it and don't deserve a bad grade because they were being artistic. Even though people are willing to pay them to do the good job we know they can do.

Modifié par MPSai, 26 mars 2012 - 07:16 .