345 réponses à ce sujet

[Lugaidster]

Disclaimer: I have a degree in literature and I minored in film studies.

The f*** I was going to give flew away right there...

[lillitheris]

philippe willaume wrote...

Then your problem was with the understanding the theme of the ending, and I am happy it helped.
I am fine with the theme and  the creative direction. In fact I like the last minute change of premises, but i am massively miffed with the
the lack of consistency of the ending itself.
The lack of closure for the story stakeholders
the lack of impact/exposure/contextualisation of the ending with the actual play through.
 
I think this is what rattled people cage more than understanding the theme

This is probably true, I agree. If they'd left everything else the same but included some epilogue stuff (see the Epilogue Generator thread, for example), Retake might be 1/2-1/3 of what it is now.

That doesn't mean that the other problems, plotholes/inconsistency/railroading/etc. don't exist, just that a large number of people would have been able to overlook those issues – like some do now – and while there would still have been probably lively discussions about them, the swell might not have happened.

And BioWare's problem is that people won't overlook it now; all the other problems got proper exposure because of this, revealing the bizarre half-assedness of the whole thing. Simple epilogues are not enough anymore.

I'm partially glad about the opportunity to show the suits (here's looking at you, EA) that gamers aren't willing to take it anymore, that they expect quality throughout, and that rushing releases isn't going to cut it.

[MattFini]

What a pretentious article.

I don't care if the author majored in Literary Arts with a minor in Film Studies. I did the very same thing, and I don't expect my opinion to somehow carry more weight. It also doesn't make you an "expert" in such things.

[Trentgamer]

If the author majored in literary arts s/he would know that ME 3 ending violates all the rules of good writing. 1. You never introduce a major character and new plot items in the finale. 2. if your ending is bad it leaves a bad impression on your audience and will affect their view of the entire story. 3. You never make your audience feel disconnected from the story when you've spent so much time getting them involved.

The ending of ME 3 as it stands violates all of those and then some. It opens up plot holes, creates whole new dilemas that are never addressed and it assumes too much about the player.

[new_bio]

Catalyst was on citadel always. Anyone could speak with him and take one of his decision. All this story is pointless.

[ZajoE38]

People, read this. The one who wrote this bested all theories. Because this is not a theory but a fact. Long story short - you can't disagree with it. It's like disagreeing that sea is deep, because you're afraid you will drawn. Because it is do damn obvious.

[Sinner8056]

I wasn't able to get very far into that analysis, since he basically says "I'm going to pick the weakest criticism to refute, even though people say that isn't what the majority believes, because I think they do."

But can someone tell me, does he explain how space magic fits in to the themes of the ME universe?

[Robhuzz]

*Facepalm*

Great job on the writing, next time he should remember degree in literature =/= being right. It still leaves us with a dozen series crippling plot holes, no resolution to the series, no satisfaction or closure, an ending in which your choices didn't do SQUAT and more than a dozen broken promises.

Wish people would just stop trying to defend that abomination BioWare calls an ending, it's getting embarrassing.

[MikeRoz]

I liked the article. I think it makes a lot of really good points, but it has to basically throw out the entire end cutscene and do a bunch of extra exposition to make the ending begin to make sense. Bottom line is that BioWare botched the presentation if what BioWare intended is what this guy picked up on. Especially when you have this image. BioWare spent two games, respectively, explaining why TiM's and Saren's options were wrong. And then in 5 minutes BioWare expects to convince you that these are not only viable options, but expect you to feel fulfilled by fulfilling the vision of one of the villains you fought against, or by what at first glance feels like destroying galactic society.

This gives me hope that some extra clarification and explanation might actually make the ending bearable.

• Make Control feel less like surrender and more like slapping vent kid in the face and saying you can do it better.
• Make Synthesis less of a rape of the entire galaxy to solve a dubiously presented problem, and more the creation of something new. (The Deus Ex ending (the original one, not HR) was great at this. Their 'Synthesis' ending wasn't JC raping the whole world, but JC merging himself with the AI and walking into the sunset to be the cyberpunk equivalent of Jesus.)
• Make Destroy the renegade ending it was intended to be.
• Make the last cutscene less freakin' depressing, and add some more exposition to assure us that we didn't just destroy galactic society. Remind us our choices mattered.

[MikeRoz]

Sinner8056 wrote...

I wasn't able to get very far into that analysis, since he basically says "I'm going to pick the weakest criticism to refute, even though people say that isn't what the majority believes, because I think they do."

But can someone tell me, does he explain how space magic fits in to the themes of the ME universe?

I agree the "sacrifice" argument doesn't speak to everyone who has problems with the ending. It didn't speak to me because Shepard dying wasn't one of my problems with the ending. It was the other arguments that really hit home.

[killnoob]

ProtoPWS wrote...

Link: 
http://www.escapistm...-great-spoilers 

Like many of you, after finishing Mass Effect 3 I've turned to the internet to discuss the storyline and see what other people think of the game. I really did not like the ending at all.... until I stumbled onto this analysis. The author does a really good job of explaining the themes of the storyline and why the ending fits with those themes. As much as I hated the ending before, since reading that post I did a replay of the game and came away with a much better feeling. Sorry for not posting the full text but it's extremely long and I did not write it so a link will have to do.

I also have a degree in creative writing as well as a bachelor in game design (why does that matter? I'm still a troll, still no smarter than anybody) and i can tell you this:

Introducing a character that basically info dumps about everything about the universe, and then force you to choose between three endings that resemble each other so much is simply not good writing, especially not in a game.

The author in the article fail to recongize, that the main theme of ME is not actually about entropy, or about forgiveness or whatever he fancied pulling out of his ass. The main theme of ME is choices. How will my choice impact the story. If I choose to forgive the Geth, what would happen? If I destroyed Maelon's data, what would happen?

The choices you make MATTERS.
This is what they want you to take away from Mass Effect 3.
Not forgiveness, not entropy.

Choices.

It is the objective of the game, the theme of the game and the entire replay value of single player depends on it. If today they want to feed you a story about forgiveness and entropy they wouldn't give you a dialogue wheel; they'd just shove it down your throat and you'd have to take it like a little b-----

Now, in the previous installements, they give you a middle ground choice, that is the choice without renegade or paragon. But in ME3 they have taken this away. You HAVE to make a choice, and you HAVE to deal with the different consequences, this is on their agenda.

But we didn't get that in the ending. Instead we get 3 different colours explosion and the same outcomes and we can't even question the stupid nonsense that star kid was talking about.

You don't need a degree in anything to tell how the ending's bad, and the fact that the author of that post totally missed this shows he was either lying about his degree or he must've passed the course narrowly by 1 mark or something.

Modifié par killnoob, 05 avril 2012 - 12:02 .

[calvinocious]

"Great analysis" and "ending was well done" do not belong together in the same sentence. They are antithetical phrases. The ending was NOT well done, and no literary degree can change that (besides, plenty of people with literary degrees have laid out why it's not well done too).

If they failed to present this abrupt theme shift properly, the ending is not well done.

If they failed to maintain a consistent theme, the ending is not well done.

If they broke their promises made during development, the ending is not well done.

There's no other way to slice this. It's an utter failure.

Modifié par calvinocious, 05 avril 2012 - 12:00 .

[EricHVela]

I will say again:
All-out war with a superior force never has a "happy" ending, even if the allies win.

Yet, what we got was hack.

I don't want a "happy" ending in the sense that everyone wakes up the next morning and returns to their old life as if nothing happened. Such wounds upon society might even take longer than an Asari generation to fix -- terrible losses all around.

I want an actual ending.

I don't want "closure". Closure is answering questions from this and previous stories. Omega, Dark Energy, Shepard's trial, who survived and died and how it happened, ...? That changes nothing about the ending.

What we got was hack.

[Lugaidster]

MikeRoz wrote...

I liked the article. I think it makes a lot of really good points, but it has to basically throw out the entire end cutscene and do a bunch of extra exposition to make the ending begin to make sense. Bottom line is that BioWare botched the presentation if what BioWare intended is what this guy picked up on. Especially when you have this image. BioWare spent two games, respectively, explaining why TiM's and Saren's options were wrong. And then in 5 minutes BioWare expects to convince you that these are not only viable options, but expect you to feel fulfilled by fulfilling the vision of one of the villains you fought against, or by what at first glance feels like destroying galactic society.

This gives me hope that some extra clarification and explanation might actually make the ending bearable.

• Make Control feel less like surrender and more like slapping vent kid in the face and saying you can do it better.
• Make Synthesis less of a rape of the entire galaxy to solve a dubiously presented problem, and more the creation of something new. (The Deus Ex ending (the original one, not HR) was great at this. Their 'Synthesis' ending wasn't JC raping the whole world, but JC merging himself with the AI and walking into the sunset to be the cyberpunk equivalent of Jesus.)
• Make Destroy the renegade ending it was intended to be.
• Make the last cutscene less freakin' depressing, and add some more exposition to assure us that we didn't just destroy galactic society. Remind us our choices mattered.

The problem with clarification is that Synthesis will still be hamfisted. For a fairly grounded sci-fi story, synthesis is borderline stupid magic. I might be able to accept the other endings, but synthesis will still be the ugly duck standing out. And there's no going around the fact that synthesis pretty much changes everyone against their will. Rationalize it all you want, it's still screwing everyone's free will.

[killnoob]

Lugaidster wrote...

MikeRoz wrote...

I liked the article. I think it makes a lot of really good points, but it has to basically throw out the entire end cutscene and do a bunch of extra exposition to make the ending begin to make sense. Bottom line is that BioWare botched the presentation if what BioWare intended is what this guy picked up on. Especially when you have this image. BioWare spent two games, respectively, explaining why TiM's and Saren's options were wrong. And then in 5 minutes BioWare expects to convince you that these are not only viable options, but expect you to feel fulfilled by fulfilling the vision of one of the villains you fought against, or by what at first glance feels like destroying galactic society.

This gives me hope that some extra clarification and explanation might actually make the ending bearable.

• Make Control feel less like surrender and more like slapping vent kid in the face and saying you can do it better.
• Make Synthesis less of a rape of the entire galaxy to solve a dubiously presented problem, and more the creation of something new. (The Deus Ex ending (the original one, not HR) was great at this. Their 'Synthesis' ending wasn't JC raping the whole world, but JC merging himself with the AI and walking into the sunset to be the cyberpunk equivalent of Jesus.)
• Make Destroy the renegade ending it was intended to be.
• Make the last cutscene less freakin' depressing, and add some more exposition to assure us that we didn't just destroy galactic society. Remind us our choices mattered.

The problem with clarification is that Synthesis will still be hamfisted. For a fairly grounded sci-fi story, synthesis is borderline stupid magic. I might be able to accept the other endings, but synthesis will still be the ugly duck standing out. And there's no going around the fact that synthesis pretty much changes everyone against their will. Rationalize it all you want, it's still screwing everyone's free will.

Not only is it screwing with everyone's free will,

How the F--- does it even work?

Some machine exploded and everybody magically tranformed into half robots?

Star War makes more sense than this crap.

[ZajoE38]

So this proves that DLC From Ashes is crucial to understand the narrative. Without Javik, you just can't know. He is the most solid proof that what Catalyst and Reapers stand for is true. That dialogue with him I had to repeat for 3 times.. i was that surprised.

[sean10mm]

ProtoPWS wrote...

Link: 
http://www.escapistm...-great-spoilers

Bought and paid for.

[MikeRoz]

killnoob wrote...

Lugaidster wrote...

MikeRoz wrote...

I liked the article. I think it makes a lot of really good points, but it has to basically throw out the entire end cutscene and do a bunch of extra exposition to make the ending begin to make sense. Bottom line is that BioWare botched the presentation if what BioWare intended is what this guy picked up on. Especially when you have this image. BioWare spent two games, respectively, explaining why TiM's and Saren's options were wrong. And then in 5 minutes BioWare expects to convince you that these are not only viable options, but expect you to feel fulfilled by fulfilling the vision of one of the villains you fought against, or by what at first glance feels like destroying galactic society.

This gives me hope that some extra clarification and explanation might actually make the ending bearable.

• Make Control feel less like surrender and more like slapping vent kid in the face and saying you can do it better.
• Make Synthesis less of a rape of the entire galaxy to solve a dubiously presented problem, and more the creation of something new. (The Deus Ex ending (the original one, not HR) was great at this. Their 'Synthesis' ending wasn't JC raping the whole world, but JC merging himself with the AI and walking into the sunset to be the cyberpunk equivalent of Jesus.)
• Make Destroy the renegade ending it was intended to be.
• Make the last cutscene less freakin' depressing, and add some more exposition to assure us that we didn't just destroy galactic society. Remind us our choices mattered.

The problem with clarification is that Synthesis will still be hamfisted. For a fairly grounded sci-fi story, synthesis is borderline stupid magic. I might be able to accept the other endings, but synthesis will still be the ugly duck standing out. And there's no going around the fact that synthesis pretty much changes everyone against their will. Rationalize it all you want, it's still screwing everyone's free will.

Not only is it screwing with everyone's free will,

How the F--- does it even work?

Some machine exploded and everybody magically tranformed into half robots?

Star War makes more sense than this crap.

Hence why I point out that the Synthesis ending, like the other two, needs to be changed a bit to work. 

To me this is progress. This is the difference between only being happy if they throw out the entire ending, and being happy if they just re-work a few things but leave the basic choice presented the same.

[lumen11]

Heavvy Metall wrote...

ProtoPWS wrote...

Link: 
http://www.escapistm...-great-spoilers 

Like many of you, after finishing Mass Effect 3 I've turned to the internet to discuss the storyline and see what other people think of the game. I really did not like the ending at all.... until I stumbled onto this analysis. The author does a really good job of explaining the themes of the storyline and why the ending fits with those themes. As much as I hated the ending before, since reading that post I did a replay of the game and came away with a much better feeling. Sorry for not posting the full text but it's extremely long and I did not write it so a link will have to do.

So were the massive plot holes put in on purpose? 

Could someone please refer me to a decent review of the plotholes everyone keeps mentioning. I still don't get what everyone is talking about.

I have seen the youtube-video I think many refer too - from the guy who is initially quite happy, but then feels there is a lot missing. I don't believe he really found any plotholes, though, just open-endedness. So I'm wondering if there is other stuff?

[mbr.to]

really great article. thanks for the link.
people who are whining about the end should def read this

[RebelTitan428]

this one doubts that one has any degree, that one types sentences like a child.
that one wants attention
this one not pleased

[Sinekein]

I guess that we'll have to agree to disagree.

Mass Effect is as much about Sacrifice that it is about beating impossible odds. 3 people (and the Mako) defeating Saren and his army of geth. 3 people defeating an entire enslaved alien race (possibly without losing anyone - actually, on my first playthrough without looking on the internet, I "only" lost half of the Normandy crew). 3 people slaughtering thousands of mercs and geth, sometimes destroying ships or Colossi. 1 guy breaking someone out of a high-security batarian prison. And in 3, the odds are even harder to beat - but it is still possible to unite turian and krogan, or geth and quarian, things that couldn't be done for centuries.

If the Christic metaphor is obvious enough, then Shep's "divine essence" should be enough to help him to beat the odds, once again.

More importantly, I am personally not crying over the philosophical meaning of the ending, I am crying about the poor narration (the unavoidable Harbinger beam, and all the things that already have been discussed a thousand times) and the plot holes. Star Wars is full of plot holes, and runs only with how cool something looks. Mass Effect's lore is both cool and solid.

About the entropy, again, beating the odds. Because, if everything is cyclical, why fight the reapers ? What's the point ? It's faster to surrender, and just wait for the next cycle. It makes everything that happens during all three games, utterly pointless. If "Bioware simply made the Reapers too powerful an enemy for anyone to defeat", then what is the POINT of trying to fight them ?

Moreover, there is no way the Synthesis ending is the good one. You don't sacrifice to save organic life : you decide to merge the synthetics and organics, without giving anyone a choice. Basically, you make the most synthetic choice possible : the "good" (is it really good after all ? There are more than a few great stories - Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell - who say that being only half-human sucks) for everyone, over the right for everyone to decide of his individual fate. No one is able to rebel against this fate. You know, rebelling against the fate : what you've been doing from the beginning of ME1.

The forgiveness part makes no sense. It totally negates the Romances role. If you played your romance well enough, Shep feels guilty, but he shares it with someone, he means something to someone, and the thing he wants the least is to abandon this person. If you are a paragon Shep, that you romanced the ball of anger that Jack was in 2, slowly helping her to become someone better, someone who is able to trust other people, then this success is worth all guilt. It's something that Shep has added to the galaxy, instead of destroying it.

BTW, the "creation" theme is seen quite often. Thane quotes it when he talks to his son '"the only good thing I added to the galaxy"). Tali too, who says that "it will be nice to see you build something, for once". The geth try to create a society, with no experience at all. Wrex tries to recreate his race. Even Cerberus creates, in its own twisted way. Whichever ending you choose, you end up destroying the galactic relays, which negates everything all the races made during the last thousands of years. BW didn't follow the theme that was introduced so often during its games.

That's why I think that the "forgiveness" and "entropy" arguments are invalid. It consists in picking up some plot elements, here and there, and make it a theory. You can do the same with the opposing elements. As for the Sacrifice, I already said what I thought of it.

[killnoob]

Sinekein wrote...

I guess that we'll have to agree to disagree.

Mass Effect is as much about Sacrifice that it is about beating impossible odds. 3 people (and the Mako) defeating Saren and his army of geth. 3 people defeating an entire enslaved alien race (possibly without losing anyone - actually, on my first playthrough without looking on the internet, I "only" lost half of the Normandy crew). 3 people slaughtering thousands of mercs and geth, sometimes destroying ships or Colossi. 1 guy breaking someone out of a high-security batarian prison. And in 3, the odds are even harder to beat - but it is still possible to unite turian and krogan, or geth and quarian, things that couldn't be done for centuries.

If the Christic metaphor is obvious enough, then Shep's "divine essence" should be enough to help him to beat the odds, once again.

More importantly, I am personally not crying over the philosophical meaning of the ending, I am crying about the poor narration (the unavoidable Harbinger beam, and all the things that already have been discussed a thousand times) and the plot holes. Star Wars is full of plot holes, and runs only with how cool something looks. Mass Effect's lore is both cool and solid.

About the entropy, again, beating the odds. Because, if everything is cyclical, why fight the reapers ? What's the point ? It's faster to surrender, and just wait for the next cycle. It makes everything that happens during all three games, utterly pointless. If "Bioware simply made the Reapers too powerful an enemy for anyone to defeat", then what is the POINT of trying to fight them ?

Moreover, there is no way the Synthesis ending is the good one. You don't sacrifice to save organic life : you decide to merge the synthetics and organics, without giving anyone a choice. Basically, you make the most synthetic choice possible : the "good" (is it really good after all ? There are more than a few great stories - Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell - who say that being only half-human sucks) for everyone, over the right for everyone to decide of his individual fate. No one is able to rebel against this fate. You know, rebelling against the fate : what you've been doing from the beginning of ME1.

The forgiveness part makes no sense. It totally negates the Romances role. If you played your romance well enough, Shep feels guilty, but he shares it with someone, he means something to someone, and the thing he wants the least is to abandon this person. If you are a paragon Shep, that you romanced the ball of anger that Jack was in 2, slowly helping her to become someone better, someone who is able to trust other people, then this success is worth all guilt. It's something that Shep has added to the galaxy, instead of destroying it.

BTW, the "creation" theme is seen quite often. Thane quotes it when he talks to his son '"the only good thing I added to the galaxy"). Tali too, who says that "it will be nice to see you build something, for once". The geth try to create a society, with no experience at all. Wrex tries to recreate his race. Even Cerberus creates, in its own twisted way. Whichever ending you choose, you end up destroying the galactic relays, which negates everything all the races made during the last thousands of years. BW didn't follow the theme that was introduced so often during its games.

That's why I think that the "forgiveness" and "entropy" arguments are invalid. It consists in picking up some plot elements, here and there, and make it a theory. You can do the same with the opposing elements. As for the Sacrifice, I already said what I thought of it.

+1

If that guy in the article has a degree in literature you might as well claim a PhD.

[Noatz]

Tocquevillain wrote...

Noatz wrote...

1. His ENTIRE argument hinges on a subjective interpretation of what the themes are. He says they are Sacrifice, "Entropy" (wat) and Forgiveness and expects everyone to just accept that while conveniently ignoring themes such as Unity and Determination which are left at the door by the ending.

2. Two of his supposed themes are poorly argued/don't apply. Why does he call the second theme Entropy? This is a bad use of the term, he should of called it Cycles or History Repeating. He also doesn't address that much of ME is about breaking these cycles and yet some endings present a paradox where you break the cycle by submitting to it. The Forgiveness theme is used to develop characters, not the overall universe. It doesn't apply as a theme of the series in the same way as revenge doesn't apply as a theme (many characters have revenge stories as well, but this is ignored in his post).

Oh and also if Sacrifice is such an important theme - how come Shepard can live?


.

Did you read it? It's an essay, it seeks to persuade, that's how essays work. Evidence: the theme was said by ME team to be "victory through sacrifice". In favour of history repeating, Soveriegn stating the cycle repeats 50k years...that's a proof in favour of the author's point. Unity and Determination are not the larger narrative themes of the game, much the same way you argue Foregivness is not a series theme.

Sacrifice is an important theme because Shepard was "willing" to die, and fully believed they were going to die, because the Catalyst told Shepard she'd die from all the options. That is the definition of Sacrifice; Shepard didn't think she'd live after being told she'd die after making the decision, she went ahead and did it.

What an odd choice of words. One would think you didn't read my entire post since the first thing I say is that I effectively wished to be persuaded. This is not a case of someone determined not to listen to other sides; I actively seek persuasion, which is why this... dissertation failed so profoundly.

By the way why are you comparing unity and determination to forgiveness "much in the same way"? It is nothing alike. Unity and determination colour almost everything you do wheras forgiveness applies to specific characters. I won't say more on this though since others have already said much in this regard.

Also for the record I do believe sacrifice is a valid theme, just not the only one. Its just amusing that the original piece doesn't seem to acknowledge that this can happen. Explanation of how Shepard "Harry Pottered" at the end is a fine argument.

[Silpheed58]

So the end of the game is the game.... just forget the end of the game? How insightful....