314 réponses à ce sujet

[M0keys]

Thanks for reading so far! :

Keep posting your great comments:O

Modifié par M0keys, 15 avril 2012 - 03:50 .

[M0keys]

Vox Doom wrote...

I applaud the effort, but the Paragon Shep in this sounds like a wet blanket.

Could you describe this issue in more detail? It might help Grub when tweaking the dialogue

thanks!

[M0keys]

xIxDarkWolfxIx wrote...

Do you have any idea on when the epilogues will be finished? =)

I'm guessing it will be a while before they completely finished. Writing all the endings took about..what.. a month, I think?

And there are lots of characters to resolve. However, I think he'll be releasing new versions of the script incrementally as usual, so you won't have to wait for everything to finish before you see new content.

[NexusIsaac]

I'm reading it now. This storyline is amazing! BioWare should do this. It has it's flaws, but it still beats the real endings.

[M0keys]

Thanks, Nexus! Which ending are you reading?

[Ono Hikaru]

Got to say, really impressed. These are really awesome. Corruption is just downright evil, but in a great way. This is what the endings should have been, really varied, but always fitting with your choices. (Also, I love some of Renegade Shep's dialogue!)

[Banzai101]

I read through the whole thing, and man is it awesome! The sheer variance of the endings is refreshing, and they just absolutely blow bioware's endings out of the water. I look forward to seeing the liara resolution

[Skull Bearer]

Gave this an plug on LJ: masseffect.livejournal.com/1453834.html?thread=41963018

[M0keys]

most appreciated, skull bearer!

[Eryri]

Haven't read all of this yet, but what I've seen is great! Love the way you can tell the star brat to go take a running jump!

[M0keys]

Thanks, Eryri!

[M Hedonist]

Actually had tears in my eyes when I was reading the 'Heroes' ending. This is how you write a meaningful sacrifice. This is how you write closure. If Bioware's 'extended cut' is only half as decent as this my hopes would be restored in them.

[M0keys]

thank you sauruz!

[CronoDragoon]

I do have to say though that implementing all of this was probably not realistic under BioWare's time table and resources. Still, choosing the Miracle Man ending (happy) a Reapers win ending, and 1-2 middle of the road ones (the Indoctrination one we've been dicussing) would have been feasible I think.

Edit: Haven't read the Indoctrination one, but it could have been an awesome Reapers win ending. Shepard betrays his crew and sabotages the operation from the inside out.

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 15 avril 2012 - 07:18 .

[M0keys]

really? you should check it out! I think it's haunting and a lot of other people like it, too

[Zuka999]

This is excellent. Maybe a bit over-the-top on the character resolutions and stuff, but mostly what I had actually expected.. at least, in terms of number of endings. I honestly wish they had done something similar to this.

[M0keys]

Thanks for the comments, Zuka999!

[Redshirt-1701]

It is a real shame thought that in order to find proper closure to what was otherwise a really great set of games we have to look outside of Bioware itself. There is no reason why they could not have come up with an ending that matched or possibly even exceeded what was done here. They proved that they knew how to bring complex stories to resolution with the Genophage, but really dropped the ball at the end. I am looking forward to reading the remaining good byes to the rest of the crew. I am also hoping to see what happens with Shepard and his various love interests at the end.

[Pallowin]

GARRUS
Scoped.

Garrus slams his fist down on the launch button.

EXT. ABOVE EARTH

The Thanix blast careens into the Reaper ship- The last blow.

INT. NORMANDY, GUN ROOM

GARRUS
And dropped.


This actually made me shiver, this is one amazing read!

The "Miracle Man" ending is my favourite, but the "Heroes" is fantastic as well!

[Skull Bearer]

bump, those on LJ may want to click the link, as the author is answering posts there. Feel free to complain directly

[M0keys]

Thanks for the heads up, skull! I put the link in the original post :

[HBC Dresden]

I just read all of them and I predict a writing future in the author's future.

I only have two faults with the end. The first one is that some variation is not being taken into account. Garrus' being the hero in the (awesome) Indoctrinated Shepard ending is a little tricky because Garrus can die in ME2 (I realize most have him alive in their playthrough though). More problematic is that the geth play a promiment role in many of the endings, especially the (super creepy, tied with both Control endings) Synthesis ending and Indoctrinated Shepard ending. A good chunk of players had to choose between the geth and the quarians in ME3 and a good portion chose the quarians.

The only other fault is that the endings don't feel like Mass Effect. They are VERY clever and comprehensive, and the ideas in them are three steps above other fan endings, which is why I predict the author will be a writer in the future for movies, games, etc. But they don't feel like Mass Effect because they explore the consequences of picking Destroy, Control, and Synthesis at the end. In other words, his endings reveal one reason why the current ending is bad: you are working with a choice presented to you by the Reapers. This idea is present in all the criticisms of the current ending but they are not emphasized separately. In one of the author's response on livejournal, he describes the ideas behind the endings:

"Control is about emptiness and slavery, and Synthesis much the same way but in more of a surreal System Shock/Lovecraft direction. Basically it's what happens if you think the Reapers are giving you ultimate power to change the galaxy. It's like making a deal with the devil or an evil genie. You didn't think they'd really let you get what you wanted, did you? These aren't human solutions, after all. They're the solutions of a demon, powers you're not meant to have or use. It's dark, unnerving. and it feels wrong. The Destroy ending can still be hopeful, but even then it has a message of, "This wasn't me at my best. I failed somehow. I wish I could try again."

How can we agree with the Starchild's choice at the end when they are actually Reaper options? That requires a lot of faith in the benevolence of the Reapers in the end. And throughout ME1 and ME2, I I got the feeling that the Reapers are truly alien and unnerving, calling it similar to Lovecraft is astute. To me, the Reapers are so unsettling that to understand or work with them would be very disquieting because they are so unhuman that any understanding would be a shock to our humanity and to work with them would result in horror. These fan endings capture this feeling exactly and by extension, shows why choosing any of the current ending's option is bad.

Very nice work.

On a smaller note, this ending is so good that it takes a life of its own and seems different than ME3. I definitely got a "feeling" from reading these endings, like the indescribable unique "feeling" you get when you play a game. The feeling between ME3 and this ending are different though.

To OP, could you forward this one suggestion (along with my praise and response ) to the author: Also, I like both Control endings, creepy in their own way (Paragon: unnerving atmosphere on something being "wrong" and Renegade being to allow the Reapers fulfill their mission). However, I think if your Shepard is a Paragade, there should be a third Control ending, where Shepard's personality guides the Reapers into being a police force to shape the world into his/her own way, but exploring the consequences of letting one person, no matter how awesome they are, controlling the world---that one person is perceived as a dictator and evil (because everyone has different morals and perspectives).

Also, he totally needs to add the "thought" dialogue trees in the script because it's so awesome and is in canon as shown in Retribution:

M0keys wrote...

something cool Grub told me was that in the Corruption ending, all the dialogue choices are the same, but on the dialogue wheels themselves the short "choice texts" become Shepard's thoughts, like the real Shepard is trapped helplessly inside his own body unable to save his friends. so all the choices would be Shepard thinking things like, "don't stand there! I'm going to kill you," "run!" or, "Forgive me" but no matter what you pick, he always goes through with all those terrible things. you're just as helpless as he is.

I'm not sure if that fits into canon or not, and maybe that's why Grub doesnt strictly say in the script, but I think it would've been very powerful in the actual game

Modifié par HBC Dresden, 16 avril 2012 - 02:18 .

[M0keys]

HBC Dresden wrote...

I just read all of them and I predict a writing future in the author's future.

I only have two faults with the end. The first one is that some variation is not being taken into account. Garrus' being the hero in the (awesome) Indoctrinated Shepard ending is a little tricky because Garrus can die in ME2 (I realize most have him alive in their playthrough though).

at the very beginning of the script Grub says certain things are assumed to have happened but would be different depending on certain variables. so i forwarded your points to him. since he doesn't mind writing all these long explanations to people on livejournal, I'll post what he said directly.

"I'm probably just a lazy jerk, but basically you should treat things missing as actual missing 'assets,' and generic characters don't just replace them. If you didn't save Garrus in ME2, Shepard/Reapers succeed in betraying/defeating the galaxy because there's no one there to kill Shepard's body. But I wrote Garrus as surviving because most people had Garrus survive, and I wanted people to feel like Shepard had to die at that point, and only Garrus could do it. That, I think, is my favorite expression of that particular ending. And believe me, I even had moments where I felt like turning back and making the ending nicer because it was so hard to write killing characters I liked, but you just have to press on with it and .. well .. brutally, cruelly murder characters like Tali.

If people want me to write different variations of the corruption ending, I'll definitely put it on my list of things to do but I can't make any guarantees as I go on down the line. There's just so much on my plate :-P

BTW, Bioware does have a legit problem with variables leading into basically infinitely spanning writing time, but it wasn't nearly as bad as they thought and I think they certainly had the capability to do more. However, I can't truly assume to know why they didn't sooooo, yeah. I'll stop there."

HBC Dresden wrote...

More problematic is that the geth play a promiment role in many of the endings, especially the (super creepy, tied with both Control endings) Synthesis ending and Indoctrinated Shepard ending. A good chunk of players had to choose between the geth and the quarians in ME3 and a good portion chose the quarians.

"Same theory applies. I wrote the Geth being there, but different things would happen without them. You can't truly replace dead people. Who knows how the outcome of WW2 changes if 5 more soldiers died at Iwo Jima or the beaches of Normandy? If a single hero in that war died before he could save his men?

In the Heroes ending, the Geth being gone means they don't breakup the debris of the destroyed Citadel. Maybe someone else would, but they wouldn't do as good of a job protecting Earth or the Normandy due to lessened numbers, thus less forces to dedicate to that sort of thing. The Normandy might have been hit, and forced to crash land on Earth as the debris rained down. Different people may or may not survive based on who you sided with in the Geth-Quarian war. If Garrus kills Shepard in the Corruption ending but the Geth aren't there to escape the Galaxy, Garrus lives a lonely existence with EDI and the remaining organics that fight until the Reapers win years later like in Javik's cycle.

So that means, yeah, you'll have to go back and play again to get different outcomes, but those are the consequences of choice, and I think they encourage further playthroughs."

HBC Dresden wrote...

The only other fault is that the endings don't feel like Mass Effect. They are VERY clever and comprehensive, and the ideas in them are three steps above other fan endings, which is why I predict the author will be a writer in the future for movies, games, etc. But they don't feel like Mass Effect because they explore the consequences of picking Destroy, Control, and Synthesis at the end. In other words, his endings reveal one reason why the current ending is bad: you are working with a choice presented to you by the Reapers. This idea is present in all the criticisms of the current ending but they are not emphasized separately. In one of the author's response on livejournal, he describes the ideas behind the endings:

"Control is about emptiness and slavery, and Synthesis much the same way but in more of a surreal System Shock/Lovecraft direction. Basically it's what happens if you think the Reapers are giving you ultimate power to change the galaxy. It's like making a deal with the devil or an evil genie. You didn't think they'd really let you get what you wanted, did you? These aren't human solutions, after all. They're the solutions of a demon, powers you're not meant to have or use. It's dark, unnerving. and it feels wrong. The Destroy ending can still be hopeful, but even then it has a message of, "This wasn't me at my best. I failed somehow. I wish I could try again."

How can we agree with the Starchild's choice at the end when they are actually Reaper options? That requires a lot of faith in the benevolence of the Reapers in the end. And throughout ME1 and ME2, I I got the feeling that the Reapers are truly alien and unnerving, calling it similar to Lovecraft is astute. To me, the Reapers are so unsettling that to understand or work with them would be very disquieting because they are so unhuman that any understanding would be a shock to our humanity and to work with them would result in horror. These fan endings capture this feeling exactly and by extension, shows why choosing any of the current ending's option is bad.

"Quick question: Do you mean they don't feel like Mass Effect 3? You mention them matching the moods of ME1 and ME2, and I will admit those affected my writing about the Reapers much moreso than ME3. After all, you wouldn't expect Emperor Palpatine to be a good guy after the events of New Hope and Empire Strikes Back.

Just wondering if that's what you meant though. :-)  "

HBC Dresden wrote...

Very nice work.

On a smaller note, this ending is so good that it takes a life of its own and seems different than ME3.

"Oh. Nevermind!"

HBC Dresden wrote...

I definitely got a "feeling" from reading these endings, like the indescribable unique "feeling" you get when you play a game. The feeling between ME3 and this ending are different though.

To OP, could you forward this one suggestion (along with my praise and response ) to the author: Also, I like both Control endings, creepy in their own way (Paragon: unnerving atmosphere on something being "wrong" and Renegade being to allow the Reapers fulfill their mission). However, I think if your Shepard is a Paragade, there should be a third Control ending, where Shepard's personality guides the Reapers into being a police force to shape the world into his/her own way, but exploring the consequences of letting one person, no matter how awesome they are, controlling the world---that one person is perceived as a dictator and evil (because everyone has different morals and perspectives).

"I'll see what I can do B-) "

HBC Dresden wrote...
Also, he totally needs to add the "thought" dialogue trees in the script because it's so awesome and is in canon as shown in Retribution:

M0keys wrote...

something cool Grub told me was that in the Corruption ending, all the dialogue choices are the same, but on the dialogue wheels themselves the short "choice texts" become Shepard's thoughts, like the real Shepard is trapped helplessly inside his own body unable to save his friends. so all the choices would be Shepard thinking things like, "don't stand there! I'm going to kill you," "run!" or, "Forgive me" but no matter what you pick, he always goes through with all those terrible things. you're just as helpless as he is.

I'm not sure if that fits into canon or not, and maybe that's why Grub doesnt strictly say in the script, but I think it would've been very powerful in the actual game

"Yeah, I'm trying to find ways of doing that right now.You can see in the NPC responses to the player, which response they're repsonding to (response responsey response!) has the player's "thought" text in them.

Suppose I could throw Shepard's thoughts in his actual [PARAGON/RENEGADE/etc] descriptors.

Thanks for your awesome comments. Every post like this helps me out a bunch and I can't thank you enough.

Cheers!"


And thanks from me as well :

[HBC Dresden]

Thanks Grub for listening to my comments and for M0keys to act as the excellent mediator! To clarify and expand on the "different feeling" statement: on one hand, the ending feels different from ME3 itself. Upon further retrospection, this may not be a bad thing because it provides the descending action ME3's narrative lacks. So it might make sense for it to be a little different, seeing as it deals with the climax of the story and arguable the entire series, which is a game changer in a sense. So, your ending could still totally fit in the story as is and into someone's headcanon without problems. So I kind of take that statement back.

That said, Grub's treatment of the Reapers seem more inline with the aura of the Reapers in ME1 and ME2 (like the Emperor Palpatine analogy). ME3 tried to make their motivations so accessible and understable to the player's perspective, the Reapers lost some of their other-worldliness. In ME1 & 2, the idea was to stay as far away from the Reapers as possible and to find a way to kill them. In ME3, the way to kill them falls into your lap on Mars and then the Reapers' methods are answered by the Starchild. Unlike others, I don't think the Reapers need to stay mysterious to keep their evil and powerful aura, but I think to come into contact with them and learn their motivations should be creepy and have horrific consequences. This is exactly what you did in your endings to excellent effect.

After reading your alternate endings, the war story structure of ME3 is disappointing. I think BioWare took the easy way out in writing the Crucible. The entire game was a rush to literally create a deus ex machinia device but any frame or set-up could have been applied to force Shepard into concluding the Genophage arc and the Geth-Quarian war. Among all the alternatives, BioWare chose a restrictive plod through a war story where everything was focused on the final battle at earth, which lead to impossible expectations. Your ending shows there is so much more that could have been done. To be more like ME1 & 2, ME3 should have had exploration to find out how to stop the Reapers and by doing so, they learn the Reapers' shocking secrets and motivations. Eventually, Shepard would have found different ways of defeating the Reapers and "the big choice" (like the Council or Collector Base choice) is the second half of the game, not the very end. So, depending on how Shepard chooses to fight the Reapers back, there would be different consequences throughout the second half of the plot.

Anyway, I totally understand that you are busy I'm super busy too and read your script in one setting earlier today instead of doing some of my university homework, but it was worth it! So no pressure or anything. I just want to let you know it was very thought-provoking to read, not just from a narrative sense, but from its meta-analysis of the ending that is latent in the construction of your endings. You succeeded because your endings made me view ME3's plot and structure differently.

If you want, a month ago I wrote a design document on my own alternate endings. It is not a script like yours because that would have taken too much time, but there are a couple similarities between our endings. Anyway, if you have the time, here is a link: social-iconoclast.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4tc9u0

It would be very interesting to read your response (Grub and M0keys as well). Not that there has to be one ending of course, because I consider your ending headcanon along with my own endings. Parallel game universes for the win!

Modifié par HBC Dresden, 16 avril 2012 - 04:44 .

[M0keys]

I'll give it a read and forward the link to Grub if he hasn't already seen your reply.

You rock, Dresden!