1291 réponses à ce sujet

[EmGo]

 Yep, same here

For example: the ending of ME2 was two colored explosion (red or blue?). But nobody cared because we had variety in things that mattered to us: our crew. We could survive, some people could die etc. That was it! And destroy or give collectors' base? Who cares? The effect was the same, but for me important was that Garrus, Zaeed, Mordin, Legion and Tali survived And the rest too.

In ME3 we only got the explosion part. *sigh*

[Vhalkyrie]

EnerPrime wrote...

phantomdasilva wrote...

I'lll just say that establish lore is that a mass relay exploding wipes out the solar system

No. Established lore is that when a mass relay is hit by a small planetoid, all of the energy contain in the relay's eezo core is released in an uncontrolled, system destroying fashon. This is what we see happen in Arrival.

In the ending, we see that same energy that destroyed a system released in a different way. That giant beam the relay fires is where all the enrgey that would have wiped out the system goes. The part that explodes is just the rest of the relay without the core. Arrival, the very lore you insist is relevant, makes it very clear that the giant eezo core in a relay is the system destroying part, not all that metal stuff around it. The explosion of a relay without a core is just the same as any other space station exploding.

I think the endings are ****, but assuming the ending relay destruction is the same as getting hit be a gian freaking asteroid is really just graping at straws.

This is fanfic.  Filling in the gaps that are contradictory to what we are shown in Arrival and the codex.

[pjotroos]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

pjotroos wrote...
We do not roleplay the Mass Effect universe. We do not make choices and think for the whole universe.

Of course you did.

Of course I didn't. I made choice as a character Shepard, the universe - as presented by GM - reacted to that choice, I was adequately informed about the possible outcomes, and then left to guess or wonder what will happen after. The basic outline was always provided by GM. Sure I wasn't informed about all the minutia of further life on Feros, but I was given enough. There's a major difference between providing reasonably varied outline and providing vague, contradictory, steamlined outcome.

Dean_the_Young wrote...
The fundamental chore of every game masters is to give players only what
its needed to start visualizing the rest, not to spell out every detail
for them. Game masters who give the players the tool to build the world
keep a game moving: game masters who try the the later never get past
the first empty room.

All our previous choices were informed decisions if we played the game carefully enough. All our previous choices had measurable outcomes. Everything we've done up until the last minute was sufficiently consistent from the storytelling point of view. It can be compared to the example you give - game master says "you're in an empty room with a single locked door", and it's left to player to carry on from there. The way endings are presented, game master says "You're in a room", player asks "Is it empty?" and the game master replies "Maybe". We're lacking context, we're lacking crucial information, and all for the sake of "speculations for everyone".

If you don't see it that way, there's nothing else I can say to change it. We could argue about it forever. I'll happily agree to disagree at this stage, though. It's not like either of us can change what we got anyway.

[Dean_the_Young]

savionen wrote...

@Dean

If you feel so strongly about imagining what happens in the story, then what's wrong with the bleak view of the ending so many have? That everything ends in death and gloom?

I don't have a problem with people doing it. I have a problem with people insisting that they are forced to do it for lack of any other alternative.

You could get a lot of good drama out of the crashed Normandy, for example. Say they're stranded and trying to work on a radio, but the dextro food is running out. Garrus is a good guy, and really everyone needs Tali more than him, just some ex-cop with a gun. The longer he eats the food, the less she'll have, the less likely she'll be able to fix the radio. Garrus is a good man, but just a guy with a gun. Maybe that gun is looking a little tasty, but at least Tali will get to eat...


But you could also get a good drama out of a reversal: that the world is Dextro Food, and the humans can't eat. The game never claims what type of Garden world it is.


You can also continue it on by the world in question being the Alpha Centari world referenced in CDN, which means it already has a population center that could save them. The crew gets rescued, and then makes way back to Earth to start rebuilding.



ME3 ends with an open-ending. Yes. It requires projection. Yes. It does not require you to project in any specific way.

People who claim that it does and then act the victim for their own willful interpretation annoy me.

[Dean_the_Young]

Opsrbest wrote...

Unless you play a reactionary style to the game.

If you only react to what's explicitly in the game, then the Mass Effect trilology is a horrific mess anyway of vague insinuations and lack of substance. At which point the ending should be something of a mercy killing.

[alx119]

Dean_the_Young wrote...



What makes Shepard more than that is you. Your participation. You fill in the blanks: why does Shepard feel this way? What makes Shepard tic? What does Shepard really feel that can't be captured in a few hundred lines of dialogue?


Shepard is a tabula rosa which you fill in.



The game gives you a baseline, but don't even pretend you haven't been helping in making it up all along.

Your own argument is a good argument to give a reason why the ending sucked so hard. 

You are Shepard, and the thing is, most of our Shepards, never gave up to the flawed logic of one being with god complex. It was Shepard himself, and extrapolating,  the player, who decided to save or not the Destiny Ascension, it was Shepard himself who opposed TIM or not at the end of the Suicide Mission. But it was not Shepard who choose, it was a godkid who forced you to choose between three premade choices of his likeness. And Shepard not only goes for it, but doesn't question the logic of the godkid at all. 

Yes, I say that's forgetting a pretty core thing from your game. Choices. 

And yes, the game gives you baselines from where you can imagine and speculate, but the ending is just absurd. One thing is to speculate that Joker goes to the bathroom and needs help to get up the toilet, and another way different is to speculate that everything's fine and dandy after the Relays explosion and that everything will be alright because a green beam of light changed the fundamental genetic code of the whole galaxy against its will.  

That's just absurd. If you want to believe everything makes total sense, that's fine, but we don't, and don't have to, because the whole universe of Mass Effect, while driven to small speculation, had it's science and SENSE behind it. The ending had none of that. 

[alx119]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

savionen wrote...

@Dean

If you feel so strongly about imagining what happens in the story, then what's wrong with the bleak view of the ending so many have? That everything ends in death and gloom?

I don't have a problem with people doing it. I have a problem with people insisting that they are forced to do it for lack of any other alternative.

You could get a lot of good drama out of the crashed Normandy, for example. Say they're stranded and trying to work on a radio, but the dextro food is running out. Garrus is a good guy, and really everyone needs Tali more than him, just some ex-cop with a gun. The longer he eats the food, the less she'll have, the less likely she'll be able to fix the radio. Garrus is a good man, but just a guy with a gun. Maybe that gun is looking a little tasty, but at least Tali will get to eat...


But you could also get a good drama out of a reversal: that the world is Dextro Food, and the humans can't eat. The game never claims what type of Garden world it is.


You can also continue it on by the world in question being the Alpha Centari world referenced in CDN, which means it already has a population center that could save them. The crew gets rescued, and then makes way back to Earth to start rebuilding.



ME3 ends with an open-ending. Yes. It requires projection. Yes. It does not require you to project in any specific way.

People who claim that it does and then act the victim for their own willful interpretation annoy me.

Excuse me, but you are victim of your own willful interpretation of the ending. So you should annoy yourself. 

[Dean_the_Young]

pjotroos wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

pjotroos wrote...
We do not roleplay the Mass Effect universe. We do not make choices and think for the whole universe.

Of course you did.

Of course I didn't. I made choice as a character Shepard, the universe - as presented by GM - reacted to that choice, I was adequately informed about the possible outcomes, and then left to guess or wonder what will happen after. The basic outline was always provided by GM. Sure I wasn't informed about all the minutia of further life on Feros, but I was given enough. There's a major difference between providing reasonably varied outline and providing vague, contradictory, steamlined outcome.

Mass Effect 3 gives you a reasonably varied outline. Who lives on the Quarian homeworld. The likely future of the Krogan post-Genophage cure. Whether Cerberus controls its own troops or entire husk armies. The mans by which species on Earth can survive, and can return home. That they are given before the ending doesn't change their applicability.

But that is all Mass Effect has ever given you: a vague outline.


As a structural story, the mass effect universe has always been streamlined and mostly linear. The endings have more differentiation in their effects than most other parts of the game.

All our previous choices were informed decisions if we played the game carefully enough. All our previous choices had measurable outcomes. Everything we've done up until the last minute was sufficiently consistent from the storytelling point of view. It can be compared to the example you give - game master says "you're in an empty room with a single locked door", and it's left to player to carry on from there. The way endings are presented, game master says "You're in a room", player asks "Is it empty?" and the game master replies "Maybe". We're lacking context, we're lacking crucial information, and all for the sake of "speculations for everyone".

No major decision in the game to date has had stirctly measurable outcomes, not least because the franchise didn't even start implementing cross-game consequences until ME3. The largest part of every consequences of ME1 and ME2, even in their own games, was based on projection on your part. The 'so what' was always something your were expected to fill in on your own.



The way the endings are presented makes the answer to your question clear: the room isn't empty, you just can't see through it. We know races survived. We know the means for travel exist. We know that the darkness won't last forever.

A lot of the context that is claimed to be missing is simply ignored.

If you don't see it that way, there's nothing else I can say to change it. We could argue about it forever. I'll happily agree to disagree at this stage, though. It's not like either of us can change what we got anyway.

You can always change your own mindset.

[Dean_the_Young]

alx119 wrote...

Excuse me, but you are victim of your own willful interpretation of the ending. So you should annoy yourself. 

You are excused for your error.

I know that the ending requires willful interpreation. Therefore I am aware on who it lies, and do not feel the victim of someone else. As I do not feel the victim of someone else due to my own projection, I do not annoy myself.

It's an understandable confusion on your part, so you're forgiven.

[EnerPrime]

Vhalkyrie wrote...

This is fanfic.  Filling in the gaps that are contradictory to what we are shown in Arrival and the codex.

I'm not sure about the codex, but there are no gaps that contradict Arrival. Dr. Kenson explicitly states in the game itself that it's the eezo core's energy being released all at once that would destroy the system. The relay has nothing to do with the explosion other than the fact it is has a giant core. You see, in the game, that the giant explosion emanates from the eezo core.

You also see very clearly that those same eezo cores are gone after the giant (inset color here) beam fires, and therefore gone when the relays explode in ME3. No eezo core in the relay when it blows means no system destroying explosion. It's as simple as that.

Arrival does not say that relay destruction means system destroying explosion, as you keep insisting. Arrival states that a giant eezo core explosion means system destruction. ME3 destroys the relays without their eezo cores, therfore there is no system destroying explosion.

The lore contadicts your position, not mine.

[Minimooo]

Thank you for summarising the end in words that I'm still at a loss to find.

[pjotroos]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

If you don't see it that way, there's nothing else I can say to change it. We could argue about it forever. I'll happily agree to disagree at this stage, though. It's not like either of us can change what we got anyway.

You can always change your own mindset.

What's wrong with "agree to disagree"? And why can't you change your mindset? Can't fathom the possibility you're not universally right? Everyone that sees things differently obviously isn't bright enough? And I'm not asking rhetorically. What's wrong with "agree to disagree"?

Modifié par pjotroos, 01 avril 2012 - 03:07 .

[alx119]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

alx119 wrote...

Excuse me, but you are victim of your own willful interpretation of the ending. So you should annoy yourself. 

You are excused for your error.

I know that the ending requires willful interpreation. Therefore I am aware on who it lies, and do not feel the victim of someone else. As I do not feel the victim of someone else due to my own projection, I do not annoy myself.

It's an understandable confusion on your part, so you're forgiven.

So the game has basically no ending for you. Because you never interpretated it. 

But, nevermind that and understanding this statement as: "Your" interpretation of the ending is right to you because it's "yours". By your own logic, everyone elses interpretation, as bleak as it is, should be right for them, and your critizism is just you disagreeing with everyone else's views because yours is the right one (since, again, it's yours).

Willful ignorance isn't any better than willful interpretation. 

[Dean_the_Young]

alx119 wrote...

Your own argument is a good argument to give a reason why the ending sucked so hard. 

You are Shepard, and the thing is, most of our Shepards, never gave up to the flawed logic of one being with god complex. It was Shepard himself, and extrapolating,  the player, who decided to save or not the Destiny Ascension, it was Shepard himself who opposed TIM or not at the end of the Suicide Mission. But it was not Shepard who choose, it was a godkid who forced you to choose between three premade choices of his likeness. And Shepard not only goes for it, but doesn't question the logic of the godkid at all.

This is internally inconsistent.

Shepard has always been limited in the ability to break script. This was already apparent in ME1 and ME2, especially the basis of ME2's paragon ending in which Shepard gives a 'we can't use tainted technology' after a game of procuring and utilizing tainted technology. Not challening someone's argument is established. Nor is Shepard forced to accept the Star Child's logic: simply because a half-dead man or woman doesn't give a counter-argument doesn't imply acceptance.

And yes, Shepard has always been confronted with a choice by others
and circumstance. The Rachni Queen was either liberatred or killed,
never simply left in the tank. The Illusive Man forced a choice between preserving the base and destroying it.

Shepard doesn't have to choose at all: you can actually wait out an invisible clock, at which point the Reapers will win. This is actually the only ending choice in the series you don't have to make, as all other story choices in the game wait on you until you choose.

Claiming Shepard is forced to make a choice is bizaar when the Crucible is the one story choice Shepard can actually refuse to make.

And yes, the game gives you baselines from where you can imagine and speculate, but the ending is just absurd. One thing is to speculate that Joker goes to the bathroom and needs help to get up the toilet, and another way different is to speculate that everything's fine and dandy after the Relays explosion and that everything will be alright because a green beam of light changed the fundamental genetic code of the whole galaxy against its will. 

And the Renegade Council was supposedly a big deal, but turned into about four different conversations. And the Collector Base is said to have given Cerberus control of Reaper armies, but we never see. And Krogan are supposed to be completely different between Wrex and Wreave. And- and-

Face it: most of the 'consequences' for Big Choices have been player projections on the setting from small baselines.

That's just absurd. If you want to believe everything makes total sense, that's fine, but we don't, and don't have to, because the whole universe of Mass Effect, while driven to small speculation, had it's science and SENSE behind it. The ending had none of that. 

Are you kidding? Mass Effect has been space magic since day one, with violations of the most basic laws of physics and thermodynamics, FTL telepathy, the Asari, biotics, and a repeated disregard for the most basic consistency of scale.

Anyone who thought the Mass Effect universe was grounded in an internally consistent system simply wasn't paying attention.

[chester013]

xsdob wrote...

sometimes I wonder why I even come here anymore. OP's thread is sad, it ignores the goal of stopping the reapers and selfishly focuses on just shepard living and not on the future controlled by a genocidal machine race. The fact that so many other people agree is even worse, it tells of a group of fans who claim to be mature on one side but resort to tantrum throwing that everything didn't end well for us, but might end well for the future, which should be the focus of winning a war.

Things turning out well in the imediate is of little concern, how things turn out for the future is more important.

You know what, screw this, any thread I see the angry one in, I'm just gonna turn around and ignore that thread even exist anymore.

Save it for the charity fundraiser Bono, I don't give a sh*t about the future I'm not going to be there.

[alx119]

EnerPrime wrote...

Vhalkyrie wrote...

This is fanfic.  Filling in the gaps that are contradictory to what we are shown in Arrival and the codex.

I'm not sure about the codex, but there are no gaps that contradict Arrival. Dr. Kenson explicitly states in the game itself that it's the eezo core's energy being released all at once that would destroy the system. The relay has nothing to do with the explosion other than the fact it is has a giant core. You see, in the game, that the giant explosion emanates from the eezo core.

You also see very clearly that those same eezo cores are gone after the giant (inset color here) beam fires, and therefore gone when the relays explode in ME3. No eezo core in the relay when it blows means no system destroying explosion. It's as simple as that.

Arrival does not say that relay destruction means system destroying explosion, as you keep insisting. Arrival states that a giant eezo core explosion means system destruction. ME3 destroys the relays without their eezo cores, therfore there is no system destroying explosion.

The lore contadicts your position, not mine.

We also see how the beam color hits the Relay, and fills them again with whatever energy the beam is made of. It's also interesting to note that the beam is transported from Relay to Relay, which may mean that the beam itself has the same energy as the eezo core of the normal Relays, that's able to transport, change matter, from Relay to Relay. So we're basically at point 0 again, the Relays explode with that energy, that has the same power as the original Eezo core of the Relays. Plus, Joker gtfo's through the Relay (since there's no habitable planet on Sol System with two moons) after the beam explosion, so it does, or at least imo, proove that the Relay with green/red/blue energy has the same power as the Relay with the Eezo core. 

This is the **** that pisses me off about the ending, why the hell are the players trying to fill the inconsistencies gaps that it left. One thing is speculation as in, "what happens next" another is to speculate as for WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED.

[Tleining]

EnerPrime wrote...

I'm not sure about the codex, but there are no gaps that contradict Arrival. Dr. Kenson explicitly states in the game itself that it's the eezo core's energy being released all at once that would destroy the system. The relay has nothing to do with the explosion other than the fact it is has a giant core. You see, in the game, that the giant explosion emanates from the eezo core.

You also see very clearly that those same eezo cores are gone after the giant (inset color here) beam fires, and therefore gone when the relays explode in ME3. No eezo core in the relay when it blows means no system destroying explosion. It's as simple as that.

Arrival does not say that relay destruction means system destroying explosion, as you keep insisting. Arrival states that a giant eezo core explosion means system destruction. ME3 destroys the relays without their eezo cores, therfore there is no system destroying explosion.

The lore contadicts your position, not mine.

uhm, at the end of ME3, the Explosion from the Mass Relays expand and can be seen from outside the Galaxy, covering the entire Galaxy. So obviously there was a lot of Energy still stored in the Relay.
Now you can argue that that was harmless energy that would just affect the Reapers. But that's your Interpretation. It is NOT backed up by the game.

If a Nuclear Power Plant explodes, the Radiation gets released and causes widespread damage. If you take the Reactor Core away, the Explosion from the Plant wouldn't be quite so catastrophic. That doesn't mean that you should play in the Ruins or sit on the core.

[Dean_the_Young]

alx119 wrote...

So the game has basically no ending for you. Because you never interpretated it.

Incorrect.

But, nevermind that and understanding this statement as: "Your" interpretation of the ending is right to you because it's "yours". By your own logic, everyone elses interpretation, as bleak as it is, should be right for them, and your critizism is just you disagreeing with everyone else's views because yours is the right one (since, again, it's yours).

Incorrect again. Intereprations need to be based upon the allowances of canon: people whose interpretation rests on denying established technologies or capabilities of the Mass Effect universe have flawed interpreations. Likewise, interpretations need to recognize that they are just that, not established fact.

"I suspect the crew of the Normandy will die for lack of edible food' is a valid projection. Pessimistic, but valid. 'The crew of the Normandy is doomed to die for starvation because there is no way for them to survive' is not, because there are means by which they could survive (the vegetation being edible, foreign rescue, having landed on an inhabited world).

This goes for other common complaints as well. 'There is no FTL' is an invalid interpretation, because FTL technology still exists. 'The Relays go super-nova like in Arrival' is flawed because the Relays are not destroyed under the same circumstances as the one in Arrival.

Willful ignorance isn't any better than willful interpretation. 

Congratulations, you finally got something right. Now try to apply it.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 01 avril 2012 - 03:23 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Tleining wrote...
uhm, at the end of ME3, the Explosion from the Mass Relays expand and can be seen from outside the Galaxy, covering the entire Galaxy. So obviously there was a lot of Energy still stored in the Relay.

You don't see supernovas from outside the galaxy: you see the FTL waves of the Crucible effect.

Now you can argue that that was harmless energy that would just affect the Reapers. But that's your Interpretation. It is NOT backed up by the game.

No, the Crucible effect waves leaving ships, various technologies, and life alive was established by how the Crucible waves could encompass Earth and no one even flinches.

If a Nuclear Power Plant explodes, the Radiation gets released and causes widespread damage. If you take the Reactor Core away, the Explosion from the Plant wouldn't be quite so catastrophic. That doesn't mean that you should play in the Ruins or sit on the core.

It does mean that it isn't a chernobyl, however.

[Dean_the_Young]

chester013 wrote...

xsdob wrote...

sometimes I wonder why I even come here anymore. OP's thread is sad, it ignores the goal of stopping the reapers and selfishly focuses on just shepard living and not on the future controlled by a genocidal machine race. The fact that so many other people agree is even worse, it tells of a group of fans who claim to be mature on one side but resort to tantrum throwing that everything didn't end well for us, but might end well for the future, which should be the focus of winning a war.

Things turning out well in the imediate is of little concern, how things turn out for the future is more important.

You know what, screw this, any thread I see the angry one in, I'm just gonna turn around and ignore that thread even exist anymore.

Save it for the charity fundraiser Bono, I don't give a sh*t about the future I'm not going to be there.

Strictly speaking 'you' wont be alive for your own future. It will be someone different than you, changed by experiences you haven't had yet.

[pistolols]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Are you kidding? Mass Effect has been space magic since day one, with violations of the most basic laws of physics and thermodynamics, FTL telepathy, the Asari, biotics, and a repeated disregard for the most basic consistency of scale.

Anyone who thought the Mass Effect universe was grounded in an internally consistent system simply wasn't paying attention.

This.  Shows the intelligence of the BSN community.  They wait till now to make a big deal over space magic when they've been piloting a ship that travels faster than the speed of light for 3 games lol.

[savionen]

pistolols wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Are you kidding? Mass Effect has been space magic since day one, with violations of the most basic laws of physics and thermodynamics, FTL telepathy, the Asari, biotics, and a repeated disregard for the most basic consistency of scale.

Anyone who thought the Mass Effect universe was grounded in an internally consistent system simply wasn't paying attention.

This.  Shows the intelligence of the BSN community.  They wait till now to make a big deal over space magic when they've been piloting a ship that travels faster than the speed of light for 3 games lol.

Of course it's space magic. But it was believable space magic. Most people don't seem to find god-kid or "one-button that can kill everything" very believable.

[LTKerr]

@The Angry One I love you man  I absolutely agree.

Modifié par LTKerr, 01 avril 2012 - 03:27 .

[pjotroos]

pistolols wrote...
This.  Shows the intelligence of the BSN community.  They wait till now to make a big deal over space magic when they've been piloting a ship that travels faster than the speed of light for 3 games lol.

Check what willing suspension of disbelief and reader-writer contract are, and it will be much easier to fathom. It has nothing to do with being too stupid to see through the faux sience.

Modifié par pjotroos, 01 avril 2012 - 03:28 .

[Dean_the_Young]

savionen wrote...

Of course it's space magic. But it was believable space magic. Most people don't seem to find god-kid or "one-button that can kill everything" very believable.

Telepathy beacons, plants with FTL influence on thralls, and the Asari were only believable if you threw away everything else about reason.


The God Child was pretty much Vigil all over again: a late-game deus ex plot explanation device who set you up for the final choice. And people really didn't give Vigil a bad rap for showing up out of nowhere and giving us the 'I Win' button that enabled victory by doing something dramatic. And what was the main differentiation for the endings? The coloring afterwards. You either went to a dark hallway, or the Praesidium.

Nor did people care about why the Collector Base had a convenient self-destruct button, or why Shepard's teammate pulled out some random disc that enabled it. A self-destruct, I'd remind you, that was mainly differentiated by different colors.


Face it: a large part of the multi-colored ending following the 'I win' device was because you celebrated it in the first two games.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 01 avril 2012 - 03:33 .