1648 réponses à ce sujet

[Grey21]

Tankred wrote...

"Bioware should talk to CD Projekt RED about the definition of consequences. We want an ending that is a consequence of our choices. It doesn't need to be happy, it just needs to be different."

Now that you mention it, there isn´t much difference in what you do at the end of Witcher 1 with relevance for Witcher 2. You always end up killing your own boy Alvin( that is actually open for debate, since they left it deliberately open if Alvin really is the Grandmaster of the Order. So much for definite conclusions and plotholes hehe) . And no matter what side you chose in the civil war, the King always dies at the start of the next game, just are few Npcs change. And in Witcher 3 , you will have a big war on your conscience , no matter what you did at the end of game 2. Just some Npcs will change..
So be careful what you wish for:)

Difference is that The Witcher games are seperate games. Each game does have consequences that reflect your choices.

Throughout Mass Effect this hasn't really been the case. In ME1 you end up making a lot of choices with the promise that they'll have consequences in later games. Even in the final part of the game you make choices. Of course they immediatly effect the ending in a small way but they are supposed to have a consequence in later installments.

Instead the choice for human concillor is ignored and it ends up being the same guy. Imagine if they had given a true consequence to this choice, than the whole Cerberus invasion of the citadel wouldn't have happened or it would have happened differently. The other choice made in ME1 ends upgrading your military strength score a little.

ME2 is basically the same, you make a lot of choices about the genophase and the Geth but they are undone in ME3. You destroyed the cure for the genophse? Here is another solution that plays out exactly the same!

Than at the very end of ME3 where you expect that all your choices can play a role as they don't have to effect the game afterwards, they give us an ending that COMPLEETLY ignores any choice we've made. I'd rather of The Witcher where choices have consequences even if there is a canon storyline, it is better then nothing.

[toli_man]

a montage ... ?

[diggisaur]

Wynteryth wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...

Getorex wrote...

Choice is the heart of this game.

They didn't give me the choice when they retconned my character out of existence, they didn't give me a choice when they butchered everything I've done previously, they didn't give a choice to Thane or Jacob romancers when they threw them out as irrelevent, they didn't give a choice to Cerberus supporters, they didn't give a choice to a lot of people.

The ending is the only one which inconveniences you, thus it bothers you and you stomp your feet on the ground and cry out, demanding satisfaction. They're offering closure, something which many people clamoured for, though you'll keep stomping your feet because you don't get a happily ever after.

I'm sorry if I find that outrageous.

They didn't throw Thane and Jacob out as irrelevant. They had Jacob find a different romance while you were indisposed.. That happens in real life.. 

They gave a lot more choices to people than you are claiming.  The fact is that they gave you ONE choice for an ending.  Suicide.  Period.  No Paragon check. No Renegade Check.  No matter what you chose, you're dead.  Yeah.. great choice.  OH, and it basically made all the other choices irrelevant.  More so than anything else in the series.  

How can you expect them to write major plot lines, and devote unlimited time and money, around characters people could have had killed off in ME2? Unless you were willing to pay two, three or four times what you did for this game. Let's be realistic.

[Tankred]

Yeah well , the best example for this is destroying or not destroying the collector base, which just ends up with either 150 or 50 ems, that´s really a joke indeed. Damn shame they didn´t capitalize more on that, but no sense in complaining about that now , since they certainly won´t rewrite the critical storyline. I just hope they think twice about screwing up DA3 too after this debacle. I for once, won´t buy it before i hear some critics here in these forums.

[Menethra]

I've always been quite open about my dislike of EA so i am approaching this very very cautiously. I cannot see this being anything special as it's free, i do not believe that EA would allow a lot of effort to be put into something that will give them 0 profits.

[diggisaur]

Grey21 wrote...

Tankred wrote...

"Bioware should talk to CD Projekt RED about the definition of consequences. We want an ending that is a consequence of our choices. It doesn't need to be happy, it just needs to be different."

Now that you mention it, there isn´t much difference in what you do at the end of Witcher 1 with relevance for Witcher 2. You always end up killing your own boy Alvin( that is actually open for debate, since they left it deliberately open if Alvin really is the Grandmaster of the Order. So much for definite conclusions and plotholes hehe) . And no matter what side you chose in the civil war, the King always dies at the start of the next game, just are few Npcs change. And in Witcher 3 , you will have a big war on your conscience , no matter what you did at the end of game 2. Just some Npcs will change..
So be careful what you wish for:)

Difference is that The Witcher games are seperate games. Each game does have consequences that reflect your choices.

Throughout Mass Effect this hasn't really been the case. In ME1 you end up making a lot of choices with the promise that they'll have consequences in later games. Even in the final part of the game you make choices. Of course they immediatly effect the ending in a small way but they are supposed to have a consequence in later installments.

Instead the choice for human concillor is ignored and it ends up being the same guy. Imagine if they had given a true consequence to this choice, than the whole Cerberus invasion of the citadel wouldn't have happened or it would have happened differently. The other choice made in ME1 ends upgrading your military strength score a little.

ME2 is basically the same, you make a lot of choices about the genophase and the Geth but they are undone in ME3. You destroyed the cure for the genophse? Here is another solution that plays out exactly the same!

Than at the very end of ME3 where you expect that all your choices can play a role as they don't have to effect the game afterwards, they give us an ending that COMPLEETLY ignores any choice we've made. I'd rather of The Witcher where choices have consequences even if there is a canon storyline, it is better then nothing.

ME1 choices did make subtle differences in ME2 and ME3.

For example saving Maelons genophage research in ME2 determines whether Eve lives of dies in ME3, which has greater ramifications depending on whether you chose to kill or save Wrex in ME1. Same thing for Wrex in both ME1 and ME2, if he was killed off then Wreav is the Krogan Leader in ME2 and ME3. If you screw over the Krogans and save Mordin, he even agree that with Eve dead, and not around to keep Wreav in check, it would probably only be time before Wreav attacked the Turians again. None of that happens if you leave Wrex alive in ME1 or keeps Maelons work from ME2.

This is just some of the minor differences between games and decisions made in earlier games. One of my saves has Tali exiled from the Flotilla. I havent played this save yet (got too many saves!) but am betting she doesn't show up in ME3 as an Admiral. Which may be a fast track to her death scene in ME3.

So there are subtle differences, but Bioware has to draw the major plot back to a point. Otherwise the endings could have been countless and costly. Otherwise you'd be paying double, maybe even triple for this game.

[Reva-C]

diggisaur wrote...

Wynteryth wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...

Getorex wrote...

Choice is the heart of this game.

They didn't give me the choice when they retconned my character out of existence, they didn't give me a choice when they butchered everything I've done previously, they didn't give a choice to Thane or Jacob romancers when they threw them out as irrelevent, they didn't give a choice to Cerberus supporters, they didn't give a choice to a lot of people.

The ending is the only one which inconveniences you, thus it bothers you and you stomp your feet on the ground and cry out, demanding satisfaction. They're offering closure, something which many people clamoured for, though you'll keep stomping your feet because you don't get a happily ever after.

I'm sorry if I find that outrageous.

They didn't throw Thane and Jacob out as irrelevant. They had Jacob find a different romance while you were indisposed.. That happens in real life.. 

They gave a lot more choices to people than you are claiming.  The fact is that they gave you ONE choice for an ending.  Suicide.  Period.  No Paragon check. No Renegade Check.  No matter what you chose, you're dead.  Yeah.. great choice.  OH, and it basically made all the other choices irrelevant.  More so than anything else in the series.  

How can you expect them to write major plot lines, and devote unlimited time and money, around characters people could have had killed off in ME2? Unless you were willing to pay two, three or four times what you did for this game. Let's be realistic.

Yeah, I agree....I was actually surprised at the amount of cameos we got during the game, that was something I loved about it  It was disappointing you couldn't get a bigger playable squad, but hey, I had a good squad as it was. I think the cameos we got were enough to tie up some loose ends with ME2 particularly. (Although as a Thane romancer......Arghhhhh frustrating! LOL)

[Super.Sid]

diggisaur wrote...

Grey21 wrote...

Tankred wrote...

"Bioware should talk to CD Projekt RED about the definition of consequences. We want an ending that is a consequence of our choices. It doesn't need to be happy, it just needs to be different."

Now that you mention it, there isn´t much difference in what you do at the end of Witcher 1 with relevance for Witcher 2. You always end up killing your own boy Alvin( that is actually open for debate, since they left it deliberately open if Alvin really is the Grandmaster of the Order. So much for definite conclusions and plotholes hehe) . And no matter what side you chose in the civil war, the King always dies at the start of the next game, just are few Npcs change. And in Witcher 3 , you will have a big war on your conscience , no matter what you did at the end of game 2. Just some Npcs will change..
So be careful what you wish for:)

Difference is that The Witcher games are seperate games. Each game does have consequences that reflect your choices.

Throughout Mass Effect this hasn't really been the case. In ME1 you end up making a lot of choices with the promise that they'll have consequences in later games. Even in the final part of the game you make choices. Of course they immediatly effect the ending in a small way but they are supposed to have a consequence in later installments.

Instead the choice for human concillor is ignored and it ends up being the same guy. Imagine if they had given a true consequence to this choice, than the whole Cerberus invasion of the citadel wouldn't have happened or it would have happened differently. The other choice made in ME1 ends upgrading your military strength score a little.

ME2 is basically the same, you make a lot of choices about the genophase and the Geth but they are undone in ME3. You destroyed the cure for the genophse? Here is another solution that plays out exactly the same!

Than at the very end of ME3 where you expect that all your choices can play a role as they don't have to effect the game afterwards, they give us an ending that COMPLEETLY ignores any choice we've made. I'd rather of The Witcher where choices have consequences even if there is a canon storyline, it is better then nothing.

ME1 choices did make subtle differences in ME2 and ME3.

For example saving Maelons genophage research in ME2 determines whether Eve lives of dies in ME3, which has greater ramifications depending on whether you chose to kill or save Wrex in ME1. Same thing for Wrex in both ME1 and ME2, if he was killed off then Wreav is the Krogan Leader in ME2 and ME3. If you screw over the Krogans and save Mordin, he even agree that with Eve dead, and not around to keep Wreav in check, it would probably only be time before Wreav attacked the Turians again. None of that happens if you leave Wrex alive in ME1 or keeps Maelons work from ME2.

This is just some of the minor differences between games and decisions made in earlier games. One of my saves has Tali exiled from the Flotilla. I havent played this save yet (got too many saves!) but am betting she doesn't show up in ME3 as an Admiral. Which may be a fast track to her death scene in ME3.

So there are subtle differences, but Bioware has to draw the major plot back to a point. Otherwise the endings could have been countless and costly. Otherwise you'd be paying double, maybe even triple for this game.

Witcher 2 decisions will influence 3 i believe
1. Did u spare/kill king Hensett
2. Did you turn over the girl to the kingdom/Did Roche run away with her
3. Did you unite the mages/ Do you go on a witch hunt

and of course the conclusion to Wild Hunt and Nilfgaard

to add a few

Modifié par Super.Sid, 06 avril 2012 - 06:39 .

[Grey21]

diggisaur wrote...

So there are subtle differences, but Bioware has to draw the major plot back to a point. Otherwise the endings could have been countless and costly. Otherwise you'd be paying double, maybe even triple for this game.

I know there are subtle differences. This wasn't my main point to be honest.

My main point was that all the choices made throughout ME1, ME2 and ME3 don't really effect the final ending. I expected choices made to directly effect the ending. I figured this wasnt that hard as they don't have to continue after ME3 so they can do wild things. I understand they can't show huge consequences during ME2 and ME3 gameplay, it would lead to too many variables to work with.

Unfortunatly the ending doesnt really have consequences for your choices. It just puts them all into one big EMS score, this is highly disappointing.

But I figured that if I just said this people would comment on how these choices have consequences during ME1, ME2 and ME3 so they don't need to be reflected in the ending. So I immediatly wanted to point out I was aware of this but consider this small consequences that hardly effect the game. While playing ME2 and ME3 I was sort of disappointed that they didn't (for example) have Udina and Anderson in reversed roles based on your ME1 choice (that would have been interesting) but I was okay with this, because I do understand it would lead to too many variables.

As long as they could have the final ending show us the consequences of all these choices. ME3 failed to deliver this, the fact that the ending was also illogical just makes it worse.

[Grammarye]

To be honest, it's the constant trumpeting of 'we strongly believe we did a great game and need to preserve our artistic integrity' that is getting on my nerves. We get it. You like the game you made. You don't want to change stuff. Chances are the EA overlords won't give you any budget to fix anything major anyway. At no point in this process is anyone else required to like the game in order to validate that. The flipside is that nobody is required to believe in Bioware or buy the game or post glowing reviews. I think what begins to really irritate me is that if we took that attitude in our software business, we'd just lose customers - there's not much 'hey we like that you believe in what you created, even if we find it utterly awful' in real business (rather than practically guaranteed sales due to a superb first game).

It's nice that we're getting longer cinematics. Thanks. Really, no sarcasm - EA providing anything for free is astonishing all by itself. I'm afraid it will not change my opinion over how some key parts of the game were rushed out to make a quick buck because people would buy ME3 regardless, vs truly having artistic integrity, and releasing it when it's done & ready, not before.

As for 'we're listening' - you had two huge threads after the demo of 'tell us what you think' and changed absolutely nothing from the feedback - arguably the points raised in those are what annoy me more in actually playing the game. If Bioware is listening, it's with extremely selective hearing.

Modifié par Grammarye, 06 avril 2012 - 07:20 .

[Emzamination]

Grey21 wrote...

Tankred wrote...

"Bioware should talk to CD Projekt RED about the definition of consequences. We want an ending that is a consequence of our choices. It doesn't need to be happy, it just needs to be different."

Now that you mention it, there isn´t much difference in what you do at the end of Witcher 1 with relevance for Witcher 2. You always end up killing your own boy Alvin( that is actually open for debate, since they left it deliberately open if Alvin really is the Grandmaster of the Order. So much for definite conclusions and plotholes hehe) . And no matter what side you chose in the civil war, the King always dies at the start of the next game, just are few Npcs change. And in Witcher 3 , you will have a big war on your conscience , no matter what you did at the end of game 2. Just some Npcs will change..
So be careful what you wish for:)

Difference is that The Witcher games are seperate games. Each game does have consequences that reflect your choices.

Throughout Mass Effect this hasn't really been the case. In ME1 you end up making a lot of choices with the promise that they'll have consequences in later games. Even in the final part of the game you make choices. Of course they immediatly effect the ending in a small way but they are supposed to have a consequence in later installments.

Instead the choice for human concillor is ignored and it ends up being the same guy. Imagine if they had given a true consequence to this choice, than the whole Cerberus invasion of the citadel wouldn't have happened or it would have happened differently. The other choice made in ME1 ends upgrading your military strength score a little.

ME2 is basically the same, you make a lot of choices about the genophase and the Geth but they are undone in ME3. You destroyed the cure for the genophse? Here is another solution that plays out exactly the same!

Than at the very end of ME3 where you expect that all your choices can play a role as they don't have to effect the game afterwards, they give us an ending that COMPLEETLY ignores any choice we've made. I'd rather of The Witcher where choices have consequences even if there is a canon storyline, it is better then nothing.

The me3 ending in no way,shape or form ignored any of your choices.

[GuyIncognito]

Other thread locked. Reposting.

Hawke's Story / Shepard's Story vs. The Warden's Story
In DA:O, the illusion that you are controlling The Warden's decisions is pretty much there. There was no speaking role for The Warden and the text that you selected was pretty much how you interacted with the characters in the game. You the player were The Warden.

This changed in DA2, whereas Hawke is now voiced and you only have a vague control of what tone or attitude your character converses (Obsidian's Alpha Protocol). You aren't controlling The Champion, instead you're actually controlling The Narrator(Varric) and how he's actually relaying the story to Cassandra.

Varric's conversation with Cassandra and telling her two versions of the story of The Champion is a suggestion of the lack of control of The Champion. You get a story where The Champion is super powerful (more than he / she should be) and Bethany has a noticiably exaggerated bosom size, and then you get a second story when Cassandra calls BSOD (b.s. on Dracula) where you get Varric to tell you what is supposedly the actual story.

Some of the details were embellished, some were spot on, a few things just didn't make sense because they were never explained. After 10,000 years a story is going to lose certain aspects of itself as they originally occured. Hell, even after 100 to 1000+ years a story is going morph over time. Example: Davy Crockett, John Henry, Paul Bunyan, Wyatt Earp, or the Three Kingdoms period of Ancient China (Romance of the Three Kingdoms).

So why throw in the "10,000 Years Later" bit?
There's no real point to including it unless you're trying to indicate that all the inaccuracies and holes in a story are just the casualty of passing on a legend in an oral tradition. Until this point in ME3 it's assumed that you are controlling Shepard in real time and making his decisions as your Shepard, not "The Shepard."

It makes you think how the writers have intended to storyboard the DLC script, sitting in the conference room in a plot session... well here's another part of the story which was related to "The Shepard" but how can we tell this story if the player has already completed the main game?

We go back to the example with Varric and Cassandra if you purchased DA2: Legacy or DA2: Mark of the Assassin and have completed the main single player game. The way the scene is presented it is fairly vague about whether this part of the conversation that the Seekers have dragged Varric back into the chair once more or if this was actually part of the original conversation that was handled off camera during the SP and only made available to you now. There's no segway which leads from the SP game to the DLC it just starts off with Cassandra grilling Varric "Tell me about this incident..."

Are we going to get a new cinematic with a new set of voice actors who will start telling us another story of "The Shepard?"

This whole point of view could be irrelevant, this is just how I interpret what's going on. I take / interpret the inclusion of the 10,000 years later bit, as the whole ME triology's story into a subtle variation of how DA2's story was executed. You aren't making the choices as they would have essentially happened in that history, you are making choices of how the story is being told.

Modifié par GuyIncognito, 06 avril 2012 - 08:09 .

[Dakota Strider]

G4tv.com's take on the free clarification dlc
http://www.g4tv.com/...nding-for-free/

Modifié par Dakota Strider, 06 avril 2012 - 08:12 .

[Emzamination]

GuyIncognito wrote...

Other thread locked. Reposting.

Hawke's Story / Shepard's Story vs. The Warden's Story
In DA:O, the illusion that you are controlling The Warden's decisions is pretty much there. There was no speaking role for The Warden and the text that you selected was pretty much how you interacted with the characters in the game. You the player were The Warden.

This changed in DA2, whereas Hawke is now voiced and you only have a vague control of what tone or attitude your character converses (Obsidian's Alpha Protocol). You aren't controlling The Champion, instead you're actually controlling The Narrator(Varric) and how he's actually relaying the story to Cassandra.

Varric's conversation with Cassandra and telling her two versions of the story of The Champion is a suggestion of the lack of control of The Champion. You get a story where The Champion is super powerful (more than he / she should be) and Bethany has a noticiably exaggerated bosom size, and then you get a second story when Cassandra calls BSOD (b.s. on Dracula) where you get Varric to tell you what is supposedly the actual story.

Some of the details were embellished, some were spot on, a few things just didn't make sense because they were never explained. After 10,000 years a story is going to lose certain aspects of itself as they originally occured. Hell, even after 100 to 1000+ years a story is going morph over time. Example: Davy Crockett, John Henry, Paul Bunyan, Wyatt Earp, or the Three Kingdoms period of Ancient China (Romance of the Three Kingdoms).

So why throw in the "10,000 Years Later" bit?
There's no real point to including it unless you're trying to indicate that all the inaccuracies and holes in a story are just the casualty of passing on a legend in an oral tradition. Until this point in ME3 it's assumed that you are controlling Shepard in real time and making his decisions as your Shepard, not "The Shepard."

It makes you think how the writers have intended to storyboard the DLC script, sitting in the conference room in a plot session... well here's another part of the story which was related to "The Shepard" but how can we tell this story if the player has already completed the main game?

We go back to the example with Varric and Cassandra if you purchased DA2: Legacy or DA2: Mark of the Assassin and have completed the main single player game. The way the scene is presented it is fairly vague about whether this part of the conversation that the Seekers have dragged Varric back into the chair once more or if this was actually part of the original conversation that was handled off camera during the SP and only made available to you now. There's no segway which leads from the SP game to the DLC it just starts off with Cassandra grilling Varric "Tell me about this incident..."

Are we going to get a new cinematic with a new set of voice actors who will start telling us another story of "The Shepard?"

This whole point of view could be irrelevant, this is just how I interpret what's going on. I take / interpret the inclusion of the 10,000 years later bit, as the whole ME triology's story into a subtle variation of how DA2's story was executed. You aren't making the choices as they would have essentially happened in that history, you are making choices of how the story is being told.

What are you talking about? You defined everything about the warden's story from the ground up, there was no "Illusion" of choice and every choice had a consequence on the state of affairs in da2.The mass effect story has always been a little linear from the very beginning.No matter what you do,you either got a red back drop ending or a blue back drop ending so I'm not seeing why me3 is getting tons of heat for following in the foot steps of its predecessors.

[GuyIncognito]

Emzamination wrote...
What are you talking about? You defined everything about the warden's story from the ground up, there was no "Illusion" of choice and every choice had a consequence on the state of affairs in da2.The mass effect story has always been a little linear from the very beginning.No matter what you do,you either got a red back drop ending or a blue back drop ending so I'm not seeing why me3 is getting tons of heat for following in the foot steps of its predecessors.

I'm agreeing with you about everything from The Warden, my way of phrasing the concept is poor. You do have complete control from start to finish in DA:O and the ramifications of your decisions play into DA2.

But when I refer to illusion of choice, I'm comparing the difference in the story telling style between DA:O The Warden and DA2 The Champion where I'm suggesting that you aren't controlling The Champion, you're controlling how Varric is telling the story.

Edit: Given the post credit sequence of ME3, I'm suggesting that the ME trilogy is the story of "Your Shepard" until the point where they throw in the old man talking to the kid. Now it suggests the ME trilogy becomes the story of "The Shepard" and all the decisions that players have made until this point is actually a story being told by some old guy 10,000 years later.

Modifié par GuyIncognito, 06 avril 2012 - 08:30 .

[Wynteryth]

duckley wrote...

Good for BIOWARE for trying to be responsive to their fans who wanted a bit more information/clarity and good for BIOWARE to stand by their product and what they have accomplished with this series.

No matter what they do someone will be unhappy.

A good majority of the people who have issues with the endings have issues, not because of a lack of clarity, it's because they don't make sense.  It's going to take more than a couple cinematic sequences and epilogue power points to "fix" the endings.. 

For BioWare to "stand by their product" as you say is just a big F.U. to the fans.  

[Emzamination]

GuyIncognito wrote...

Emzamination wrote...
What are you talking about? You defined everything about the warden's story from the ground up, there was no "Illusion" of choice and every choice had a consequence on the state of affairs in da2.The mass effect story has always been a little linear from the very beginning.No matter what you do,you either got a red back drop ending or a blue back drop ending so I'm not seeing why me3 is getting tons of heat for following in the foot steps of its predecessors.

I'm agreeing with you about everything from The Warden, my way of phrasing the concept is poor. You do have complete control from start to finish in DA:O and the ramifications of your decisions play into DA2.

But when I refer to illusion of choice, I'm comparing the difference in the story telling style between DA:O The Warden and DA2 The Champion where I'm suggesting that you aren't controlling The Champion, you're controlling how Varric is telling the story.

Edit: Given the post credit sequence of ME3, I'm suggesting that the ME trilogy is the story of "Your Shepard" until the point where they throw in the old man talking to the kid. Now it suggests the ME trilogy becomes the story of "The Shepard" and all the decisions that players have made until this point is actually a story being told by some old guy 10,000 years later.

No, you had full control of the champion, just with fewer ground shaking decisions than the warden.varric was irrelevant, all he did was chime in after certain major decisions and reitterate that you made that decision which is no different from someone not being there to vocalize the warden's decision, the decision was still made.

Shepard was referred to as "the shepard" because he guided the galaxy the same way a "shepard" guides his flock.

[Kya]

Reva-C wrote...

From what I've read, it sounds like it's just going to be a bunch of extra videos showing us what happens to our mates.

What's the point?

It's been made clear it's the actual ending that's bothering us....the lack of choice and the lack of anything we had done over the 40 hours of game play making any difference what so ever.

This.

[Stormrider321]

f1r3storm wrote...

[*]No. BioWare strongly believes in the team’s artistic vision for the
end of this arc of the Mass Effect franchise. The extended cut DLC will
expand on the existing endings, but no further ending DLC is planned.[/list] 

Its important to stand by your product and all, but I'm sorry, there was no "artistic vision" for the end of that. The only way to actually turn that ridiculously cliched mess into anything coherent is to accept the "Indoctrination theory" that many, many fans have come up with, or say it was a hallucination. Nothing else makes any semblence of sense at all. Everything that child space god monstrosity said, was entirely disproven throughout the 3 games.

"Synthetics and organics can never be at peace." Meanwhile, on Rannoch, where the quarians and geth are working together to rebuild...  Not to mention the thousands of geth ships and soldiers fighting alongside the organics in their battle against the reapers. Or Joker and EDI.

I'm sorry BioWare, while your games have otherwise been amazing, you are entirely shooting yourself in the foot if you do not listen to your fans by giving them what they ask for. When millions of people are telling you that your ending is absolute garbage, that means it is garbage. Calling it art won't change that. Especially when that sort of ending has been done multiple times in different franchises. Art implies originality, and there was nothing original about that. It was an overused, cliched, "magic" style ending which had no business existing in what had otherwise been one of the greatest sci-fi universes of all time. And not to mention, given your creative genius in other past game storylines, completely and totally beneith your ability.

I hope for your sake, as well as ours, that you actually put some real thought into this, rather than keeping the space god child and all of his disproven nonsense as reality. In order for his existence to make sense, Shepard had to have been in the process of being indoctrinated, or hallucinating. And given all of the absolute weirdness that happens after getting hit by that laser in London? Its near impossible to imagine all of that as anything BUT a hallucination.

[Mallissin]

GuyIncognito wrote...

Other thread locked. Reposting.

Hawke's Story / Shepard's Story vs. The Warden's Story
In DA:O, the illusion that you are controlling The Warden's decisions is pretty much there. There was no speaking role for The Warden and the text that you selected was pretty much how you interacted with the characters in the game. You the player were The Warden.

This changed in DA2, whereas Hawke is now voiced and you only have a vague control of what tone or attitude your character converses (Obsidian's Alpha Protocol). You aren't controlling The Champion, instead you're actually controlling The Narrator(Varric) and how he's actually relaying the story to Cassandra.

Varric's conversation with Cassandra and telling her two versions of the story of The Champion is a suggestion of the lack of control of The Champion. You get a story where The Champion is super powerful (more than he / she should be) and Bethany has a noticiably exaggerated bosom size, and then you get a second story when Cassandra calls BSOD (b.s. on Dracula) where you get Varric to tell you what is supposedly the actual story.

Some of the details were embellished, some were spot on, a few things just didn't make sense because they were never explained. After 10,000 years a story is going to lose certain aspects of itself as they originally occured. Hell, even after 100 to 1000+ years a story is going morph over time. Example: Davy Crockett, John Henry, Paul Bunyan, Wyatt Earp, or the Three Kingdoms period of Ancient China (Romance of the Three Kingdoms).

So why throw in the "10,000 Years Later" bit?
There's no real point to including it unless you're trying to indicate that all the inaccuracies and holes in a story are just the casualty of passing on a legend in an oral tradition. Until this point in ME3 it's assumed that you are controlling Shepard in real time and making his decisions as your Shepard, not "The Shepard."

It makes you think how the writers have intended to storyboard the DLC script, sitting in the conference room in a plot session... well here's another part of the story which was related to "The Shepard" but how can we tell this story if the player has already completed the main game?

We go back to the example with Varric and Cassandra if you purchased DA2: Legacy or DA2: Mark of the Assassin and have completed the main single player game. The way the scene is presented it is fairly vague about whether this part of the conversation that the Seekers have dragged Varric back into the chair once more or if this was actually part of the original conversation that was handled off camera during the SP and only made available to you now. There's no segway which leads from the SP game to the DLC it just starts off with Cassandra grilling Varric "Tell me about this incident..."

Are we going to get a new cinematic with a new set of voice actors who will start telling us another story of "The Shepard?"

This whole point of view could be irrelevant, this is just how I interpret what's going on. I take / interpret the inclusion of the 10,000 years later bit, as the whole ME triology's story into a subtle variation of how DA2's story was executed. You aren't making the choices as they would have essentially happened in that history, you are making choices of how the story is being told.

Very well written. I appreciate the focus on narrative perspective.

[Emzamination]

Stormrider321 wrote...

f1r3storm wrote...

[*]No. BioWare strongly believes in the team’s artistic vision for the
end of this arc of the Mass Effect franchise. The extended cut DLC will
expand on the existing endings, but no further ending DLC is planned.[/list] 

Its important to stand by your product and all, but I'm sorry, there was no "artistic vision" for the end of that. The only way to actually turn that ridiculously cliched mess into anything coherent is to accept the "Indoctrination theory" that many, many fans have come up with, or say it was a hallucination. Nothing else makes any semblence of sense at all. Everything that child space god monstrosity said, was entirely disproven throughout the 3 games.

"Synthetics and organics can never be at peace." Meanwhile, on Rannoch, where the quarians and geth are working together to rebuild...  Not to mention the thousands of geth ships and soldiers fighting alongside the organics in their battle against the reapers. Or Joker and EDI.

I'm sorry BioWare, while your games have otherwise been amazing, you are entirely shooting yourself in the foot if you do not listen to your fans by giving them what they ask for. When millions of people are telling you that your ending is absolute garbage, that means it is garbage. Calling it art won't change that. Especially when that sort of ending has been done multiple times in different franchises. Art implies originality, and there was nothing original about that. It was an overused, cliched, "magic" style ending which had no business existing in what had otherwise been one of the greatest sci-fi universes of all time. And not to mention, given your creative genius in other past game storylines, completely and totally beneith your ability.

I hope for your sake, as well as ours, that you actually put some real thought into this, rather than keeping the space god child and all of his disproven nonsense as reality. In order for his existence to make sense, Shepard had to have been in the process of being indoctrinated, or hallucinating. And given all of the absolute weirdness that happens after getting hit by that laser in London? Its near impossible to imagine all of that as anything BUT a hallucination.

[*]Lets just forget the 200+ year war with the whole synthetics rising up against their creators and all.

[Tankred]

who came actually up with that hallucination theory?

[Adanu]

Wynteryth wrote...

duckley wrote...

Good for BIOWARE for trying to be responsive to their fans who wanted a bit more information/clarity and good for BIOWARE to stand by their product and what they have accomplished with this series.

No matter what they do someone will be unhappy.

A good majority of the people who have issues with the endings have issues, not because of a lack of clarity, it's because they don't make sense.  It's going to take more than a couple cinematic sequences and epilogue power points to "fix" the endings.. 

For BioWare to "stand by their product" as you say is just a big F.U. to the fans.  

Take your entitlement complex to the dozens of other troll threads.

[GuyIncognito]

[

Emzamination wrote...
No, you had full control of the champion, just with fewer ground shaking decisions than the warden.varric was irrelevant, all he did was chime in after certain major decisions and reitterate that you made that decision which is no different from someone not being there to vocalize the warden's decision, the decision was still made.

Shepard was referred to as "the shepard" because he guided the galaxy the same way a "shepard" guides his flock.

How would you know that you had full control?

If you take Varric and Cassandra's conversation out as a delivery mechanism to introduce plot and sure, I would argue the same position that you have and that you the player are in control of The Champion as much as the same situation The Warden. Your decisions, your story.

But you're not playing from the perspective of The Champion, you are playing from the perspective of influencing choices in the story as it is being told by Varric; this includes all the minor stuff. There would be no point to Varric chiming in at the beginning of each Act and at the end of the game if he wasn't telling the complete story compacting 10 years into one conversation. This is how BW chose to use the narrative.

You could say this about The Vault Dweller in Fallout 1, The Chosen One in Fallout 2, The Nameless One in Planescape: Torment, The Hero of Neverwinter.... your decisions, your story. Why? Its not someone else telling the main character's story because you have control of the main character. DA:O followed the execution of the story in the tradition of these games. Your decisions, your story, your Warden.

With ME3, if you totally ignore the "10,000 years later bit" where the kid asks the old man to tell him another story about "The Shepard" then I would say that you are in control of Shepard because its Your Shepard (playing the perspective of Shepard from ME1 and ME2). However by including that plot point at the end of ME3, that we are in the exact same situation as DA2. You're controlling the Narrator (Old Man) as he is telling the kid stories about Shepard, and not actually controlling Shepard.

Why is this relevant to the Extended Cut? It changes how I look at the ME trilogy. You've seen many times where BW has been quoted with stating that this is "Shepard's Story." It's no longer... I'm Shepard and how would I act? It has become... I'm the narrator of Shepard's story.

I see this as a fundamental reason why there is such outcry, because people want it to be his/her Shepard and his/her story. We want the best ending or unique ending because we are projecting ourselves onto Shepard and we want the psychological rewards that come with being a protagonist.