1895 réponses à ce sujet

[snfonseka]

The entire ME3 ending is a mess.

[Kreidian]

Michael Gamble wrote...

The Charnel Expanse wrote...

Michael Gamble wrote...

Cmon - give us some time with the DLC, and let's try to avoid hatin' on Patrick or Jessica:P

Honestly, after all the valid and incisive criticism leveled at the Catalyst and his presence in the ending, why insist on keeping him around? 90% of what's wrong with the ending can be solved simply by retconning him out of existence.

Why not just answer this question directly?

Is your question about whether or not we are going to retcon the catalyst? The answer is no. We've already said we are not changing the endings, but again - there are many things that we *can* do without changing them. 

A lot of folks had questions that we want to answer for them - but just like any piece of content, we are not going to outline the specifics before release.

Sorry, this might be comming a bit late to the party but I have to ask...

Why Not?

I don't think this has been answered beyond the whole Artistic Integrity excuse. And I use that term becaue that's how a lot of fans see it now, as an excuse. It seems the only valid reason to keep him around is so you won't have to admit you were wrong. It's alright to say that you felt that he belonged in the ending, but being unwilling to admit you might be wrong is just dangerous territory in my opinion. Every major project I've ever worked on that has had serious development issues always stem from having someone who constantly refuses to acknowledge the possibility that they might be wrong. This is the main problem that I have with the extended cut DLC. You're presenting it as a "clarification" instead of a fix, as if to say "We can't possibly have made a mistake with our ending, you're all just too stupid to understand why it was so brilliant." And that just pisses me off.

That might seem unfair from your perspective, I know all too well that things are different from the developer point of view when you know everything that's gone into a project. But that's part of the problem, you're not seeing things from the player perspective, or at least you're not showing that you really understand that perspective.

At the very least you have yet to answer why you put him in to beging with.
Why are you introducing new characters and concepts in the last 10 minutes of the game?
Why are you pulling out a very litteral Duex Ex Machina when that is the very definition of a weak story?

These aren't questions meant to antagonize, I honestly would like to know what you were thinking, what the process was that led you to decide this star child was a good idea.

Barring all that, it seems to me the best reason to leave the star kid in is simply one of resources. It would take much longer and cost much more to completely change the ending, so it would be much simpler to just add to it in a way that people happy, hopefully, and still be able to provide it for free. Personally I would prefer you take longer to develop a completely different ending and just go ahead and charge for it. I don't buy BioWare games for their speedy development cycles, I buy them for their quality.

But at least I could understand this. The rabid fanbase being what they are ( and hey I'm probably including myself there ) it makes sense that having something sooner rather than later, and providing it for free, you probably speculate this would make the most number of people happy. I can understand that, I don't agree with it, but I can understand it, and I certainly appreciate and respect all the effort you guys are going to make your fans happy. But if this is the case then just say so.

"We won't be changing the endings because that would require a great deal more development time and resources, which means we would not be able to afford to give it to you for free and you would not receive it until much, much later."

You might be surprised at how many people would be willing to wait, and to pay, for a proper ending.
... or maybe not, but either way I would rather have the straight answer.


Either way, I can tell you I will definitely look forward to seeing what you guys do with ending. Just don't expect me to stop expressing my oppinions of what I feel would be the best way to change the ending.
...
At the very least, though, I hope that the extended cut DLC gives us:
A) the opportunity to argue the Star Child's logic, and to tell him flat out how wrong he is.
the chance to get "better" endings; such as knowning the Geth and EDI don't die in the Destroy ending if your EMS is high enough.
C) LITTLE BLUE CHILDREN!!

( just to be clear I want all three. I'm not giving you three options for you to choose only one from. )

[logan23tom78]

I hope EA learned that if they had given the ME3 team a larger budget and a longer cycle then this would not have happen.

EA could of used the money they threw at advertisements and marketing and shifted a portion to the development team. The game will sell it's self it already had a fellowing.

I say more money and time for development and less on bloated marketing

[liggy002]

Michael Gamble wrote...

Luiginius wrote...

Weekes said those were his statements seen through the eyes of the person asking the questions.
I don't know what other confirmation you could ask for. In no way is it accurate, Weekes said that himself, but it's still the best PR piece concerning bioware.
Done by a fan, answers given by a man in the writing team, no pr people in sight.
Paints a pretty clear picture what is the other issue bioware is having besides the ending.

You know, most of us in game development would love to have all the time in the world to make our games, but that doesn't mean we put something out that we don't believe is quality.

As for some of this specifics of the questions...

Of course joker wouldn't abandon Shepard for no reason, and yes - let's not underestimate FTL here let's also not forget about quantum communication...or the incredible store of food rations that the Normandy has.

Cmon - give us some time with the DLC, and let's try to avoid hatin' on Patrick or Jessica:P

You're talking about the ending as if it really happened.  Wouldn't that disprove the indoctrination theory right there?  You said that you didn't want to be prescriptive about whether it was true or not but it seems like you are implying here that it is false.  Correct me if I am wrong here.

[Doug M]

If Mr. Gamble is still reading this thread, Kreidian's question is pretty valid.

Why did you put the Catalyst Starchild into the finale?

As it is, the Catalyst's character at the end is literally deus ex machina, and that's weak writing. The inclusion of the Catalyst in the end breaks narrative coherence.

I'm playing through ME3 again, and as long as I let myself forget about the end I'm able to really enjoy the game. But as soon as I start thinking about the last five minutes, my enthusiasm quickly dies down and I end up turning the game off.

[FabricatedWookie]

DentedHalo wrote...

on the one hand some of that stuff sounds good but on the other i just think, how the hell could they release the game and just assume we would know the difference between an relay overloading and rupturing... seriously!

One easy way is to not play arrival >.>

I never assumed it was a galactic wipeout by supernova, more that it was like winning a fight but getting crippled hard enough that you simply get to live out a slow, agonizing death instead.

[Dark Gantros]

extremely minor thought, Weekes' portrait is Dr. Facilier, the villain from Princess and the Frog?

[Valorefane Dragonwinter]

Dark Gantros wrote...

extremely minor thought, Weekes' portrait is Dr. Facilier, the villain from Princess and the Frog?

Yep.  I love that movie.

I mean... uh... 
>.>
<.<

"It's not slime!  It's mucus!"

Modifié par Valorefane Dragonwinter, 09 avril 2012 - 09:03 .

[Terror_K]

Blindspy wrote...

Nah, the sort of questions that an intellegent, collective community votes on tend to be more geared to the kind of stuff posted in the OP - informal questions designed get a feel for what goes on behind closed doors, with a bit of humor mixed in.  Sometimes there are the hard questions, but it's more of a Q&A session, not a QQ&A session.

I know, and that's kind of the problem. There are too many "safe questions" in interviews these days, not to mention those that seem pretty much scripted and just get us the same responses as we've already seen time and time again (those who interview Ray and Greg seem particularly bad at this, for instance). Safe and pandering questions just result in "safe answers" and PR speak more often than not.

The most interesting and illuminating answers from Patrick actually came from the harder questions that were a little more direct about ME3's weak points, such as the one about the Rachni decision completely railroading the player. To me his answer spoke volumes about the Mass Effect trilogy and revealed the foundations as to why our choices just didn't matter at all in the end: BioWare's design philosophy was completely counter-intuitive to it.

Modifié par Terror_K, 09 avril 2012 - 07:40 .

[Lurchibald]

Wouldn't an overload cause an even more spectacular explosion? If they really try to explain away the Mass Relay explosions as overloads.... ugh.

[ShdwFox7]

    Maybe I'm cynical, but this OP sounds like complete bull****. Why would a developer in an unofficial interview release so much information about their plans for the Extended Cut DLC? Their is so much written there I just have to believe their is at least some ounce of truth there. That at the very least the writers are considering radically changing the interpretation of the ending. However, if the added cutscenes do radically change the logical interpretation of the ending; then why keep the starchild plot device there at all?

    I just don't get it. The writers were so dead set on holding onto their artistic integrity. They've certainly beat us to death with that enough through various statements (i.e. Hudson, Muzyka). But to radically change the ending in this manner doesn't sound like they care about artistic integrity at all anymore. It's obvious that the original intent with the ending was to give the impression of an Adam and Eve scenario. Everything else is destroyed and life begins anew with Joker (Adam) and EDI (Eve) on a remote planet. Having the relays blow up was a sensible way to achieve this. We know from the Arrival DLC that a destroyed relay can blow up a solar system. It would be only logical for the player to assume this was most likely the event to occur when the relays started blowing up. Furthermore, why was Joker trying to escape the blast if it wasn't dangerous?

    Anyway, point is the events of the ending was meant to give this Adam and Eve type of result. But nearly everything in the OP says contradicts that. If the galaxy is lively, their is still billions alive and it completely negates the original artistic integrity. So that begs the question, if their completely willing to forego one piece of artistic integrity, then why not forego all of it? I just don't get it, at all. Especially the starchild. If I HAD to choose between Adam and Eve or starchild I'd choose Adam and Eve.

    To me the whole thing is just a development shackle. Instead of just changing the whole ending their forced to retcon the story within it's original limitations. It's just unnecessary. And again I'm completely baffled here.

    The only possible guess I can come up with is maybe it has something to do with other, pre-established DLC. Maybe the starchild somehow plays a role in one of them and that by removing the starchild you inadvertently affects that DLC as well. Here's hoping my bullets actually kill him this time if that's true.

    So yeah, this is all just bewildering. Either this entire OP is just completely yanking our legs or something really odd is going on here.

[cutegigi]

logan23tom78 wrote...

I hope EA learned that if they had given the ME3 team a larger budget and a longer cycle then this would not have happen.

EA could of used the money they threw at advertisements and marketing and shifted a portion to the development team. The game will sell it's self it already had a fellowing.

I say more money and time for development and less on bloated marketing

but marketing people ned to spend big money to justify thier big salary.

[Lurchibald]

Also, FTL Travel requires Fuel (pretty much all fuel dumps have been destroyed)

And according to codex and other established in game lore, Drive charge has to be taken into account, a ship can travel up to 50 hours (about 25 LY) before it has to discharge (Heavier or faster ships have to discharge more often) so for all we know, capital ships might only be able to go 12-18 LY before having to discharge.

Meaning that to go to another part of the universe standard ships need to constantly have a planet less than 25 LY away each stop to travel to their intended destination, and capital ships would probably need about 12-18 LY. And again, don't forget the fuel and food.

[Tirranek]

Terror_K wrote...

Blindspy wrote...

Nah, the sort of questions that an intellegent, collective community votes on tend to be more geared to the kind of stuff posted in the OP - informal questions designed get a feel for what goes on behind closed doors, with a bit of humor mixed in.  Sometimes there are the hard questions, but it's more of a Q&A session, not a QQ&A session.

I know, and that's kind of the problem. There are too many "safe questions" in interviews these days, not to mention those that seem pretty much scripted and just get us the same responses as we've already seen time and time again (those who interview Ray and Greg seem particularly bad at this, for instance). Safe and pandering questions just result in "safe answers" and PR speak more often than not.

The most interesting and illuminating answers from Patrick actually came from the harder questions that were a little more direct about ME3's weak points, such as the one about the Rachni decision completely railroading the player. To me his answer spoke volumes about the Mass Effect trilogy and revealed the foundations as to why our choices just didn't matter at all in the end: BioWare's design philosophy was completely counter-intuitive to it.

Thing is it your questions are pretty much loaded with answers as well. Instead of being curious for information they're basically just asking for a: 'Not enough time.' or 'We're sorry!' . It's not much better than PR Q&As.

EDIT:

A bit more on topic, I was thinking yesterday about what examples in
the game there are that hint at the Synthetic vs Organic problem.

1. Geth (resolved potentially, at least in the short term)
2. The moon VI
3. The citadel rogue AI in 1 (Am I remembering that right?)
4. The rogue system in the ME2 N7 Mission arc.
5. Overlord.

Am I missing any?

I think one of the points is that because of their nature, even a single slip up has potentially devastating consequences.

Modifié par Tirranek, 09 avril 2012 - 08:46 .

[Ieldra]

ShdwFox7 wrote...
So yeah, this is all just bewildering. Either this entire OP is just completely yanking our legs or something really odd is going on here.

I'll tell you what I'm seeing. They're trying to "change the endings without changing the endings". The starchild scene and the three options for the final choice will stay because that's a core part of the original vision, but if there's a change in the starchild dialogue in order to make its reasoning make more sense AND a change in the consequences of the choices that's akin to changing the endings as I see it.

Rather obviously, the original vision included a dark age of the galaxy lasting thousands of years. While the imagery does not say that outright, it's very suggestive of it. That "destroy the universe" aspect was the primary reason people were depressed and said their choices don't matter because everything's going to hell anyway. Seeing that, they're trying to put a positive spin on it by reinterpreting the events, whereby the vagueness of the endings works in their favor, similar to what I've done in my thread Out of the dark age.

They may not say so, but it's quite likely they *are* compromising their original vision with the Extended Cut, and it's a good compromise should all that manifest what I'm talking about here. If we get new dialogue with the starchild, the nonsensical nature of its reasoning might be much mitigated, and putting a positive spin on the consequences of the choice as well as presenting us with some hopeful closure scenes from the places we know will make the ending feel hopeful instead of  soul-crushingly depressive.

[Ieldra]

Lurchibald wrote...
Also, FTL Travel requires Fuel (pretty much all fuel dumps have been destroyed)

And according to codex and other established in game lore, Drive charge has to be taken into account, a ship can travel up to 50 hours (about 25 LY) before it has to discharge (Heavier or faster ships have to discharge more often) so for all we know, capital ships might only be able to go 12-18 LY before having to discharge.

Meaning that to go to another part of the universe standard ships need to constantly have a planet less than 25 LY away each stop to travel to their intended destination, and capital ships would probably need about 12-18 LY. And again, don't forget the fuel and food.

(1) Fuel is helium-3, which is freely available at any gas giant. You just need an extraction mechanism. These already exist and just have to be made mobile. Fuel is a minor problem.
(2) Around Sol, there are more than 250 star systems within a radius of 25 ly. By current estimation about half of them have planets, and most planets are gas giants. Drive core discharge should not be a problem.
(3) Until now, there was no need to improve star travel technology for a longer range, but after the relays are gone there is such a need. Expect the size of fuel and reaction mass tanks to increase, expect drive cores to be made more effective as to reduce the frequency of discharging. Etc. etc.
(4) Food can be produced in liveship analogues. The quarians can build them, so so can others. Sure, single ships won't be able to go on long expeditions, but expedition fleets with specialised ships for food production, living, extraction of raw materials etc. are perfectly possible.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 09 avril 2012 - 08:53 .

[Obvakhi]

pikey1969 wrote...

-Why did EDI have cameltoe?

Wow, you actually asked him that? LOL, what a waste of a question.

Modifié par Obvakhi, 09 avril 2012 - 08:58 .

[Stonewall_Jack]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Lurchibald wrote...
Also, FTL Travel requires Fuel (pretty much all fuel dumps have been destroyed)

And according to codex and other established in game lore, Drive charge has to be taken into account, a ship can travel up to 50 hours (about 25 LY) before it has to discharge (Heavier or faster ships have to discharge more often) so for all we know, capital ships might only be able to go 12-18 LY before having to discharge.

Meaning that to go to another part of the universe standard ships need to constantly have a planet less than 25 LY away each stop to travel to their intended destination, and capital ships would probably need about 12-18 LY. And again, don't forget the fuel and food.

(1) Fuel is helium-3, which is freely available at any gas giant. You just need an extraction mechanism. These already exist and just have to be made mobile. Fuel is a minor problem.
(2) Around Sol, there are more than 250 star systems within a radius of 25 ly. By current estimation about half of them have planets, and most planets are gas giants. Drive core discharge should not be a problem.
(3) Until now, there was no need to improve star travel technology for a longer range, but after the relays are gone there is such a need. Expect the size of fuel and reaction mass tanks to increase, expect drive cores to be made more effective as to reduce the frequency of discharging. Etc. etc.
(4) Food can be produced in liveship analogues. The quarians can build them, so so can others. Sure, single ships won't be able to go on long expeditions, but expedition fleets with specialised ships for food production, living, extraction of raw materials etc. are perfectly possible.

But wouldn't the Quarians already have the long range FTL capabilioties. Did they not pretty much had to explore the entire galaxy for a new suitable homeworld? I remember reading stuff about scouting parties in some lore piece. 

[Lurchibald]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Lurchibald wrote...
Also, FTL Travel requires Fuel (pretty much all fuel dumps have been destroyed)

And according to codex and other established in game lore, Drive charge has to be taken into account, a ship can travel up to 50 hours (about 25 LY) before it has to discharge (Heavier or faster ships have to discharge more often) so for all we know, capital ships might only be able to go 12-18 LY before having to discharge.

Meaning that to go to another part of the universe standard ships need to constantly have a planet less than 25 LY away each stop to travel to their intended destination, and capital ships would probably need about 12-18 LY. And again, don't forget the fuel and food.

(1) Fuel is helium-3, which is freely available at any gas giant. You just need an extraction mechanism. These already exist and just have to be made mobile. Fuel is a minor problem.
(2) Around Sol, there are more than 250 star systems within a radius of 25 ly. By current estimation about half of them have planets, and most planets are gas giants. Drive core discharge should not be a problem.
(3) Until now, there was no need to improve star travel technology for a longer range, but after the relays are gone there is such a need. Expect the size of fuel and reaction mass tanks to increase, expect drive cores to be made more effective as to reduce the frequency of discharging. Etc. etc.
(4) Food can be produced in liveship analogues. The quarians can build them, so so can others. Sure, single ships won't be able to go on long expeditions, but expedition fleets with specialised ships for food production, living, extraction of raw materials etc. are perfectly possible.

1. With what resources will they build these extractors?
2. Yes, that is what's close to sol, what about 25 LY beyond that? and beyond that?
3. Again, they have minimal resources, pretty much any spare resources went into developing the crucible, With what can we research with?
4. Resources, Resources, Resources, What will they use to build these live-ships? The development/build time would be huge, the quarians have only ever needed enough food for themselves, so unless they want to starve they cant give much (if any) food to the Turians, Earth is almost desolate from what we see and we probably only have just enough food for our own people before anything will start to grow on Earth again.

[Ieldra]

Stonewall_Jack wrote...
But wouldn't the Quarians already have the long range FTL capabilioties. Did they not pretty much had to explore the entire galaxy for a new suitable homeworld? I remember reading stuff about scouting parties in some lore piece.

Of course they have. In fact, apart from the liveships, all species have the capability. What neither the quarians or anyone else has is long-range FTL capability that takes no time, as it was with the relays. After the relays are gone, everyone's limited to standard FTL speeds around 12ly/day, with a little leeway since this was always a "typical" speed rather than the top speed.

[Fulgrim88]

"Help us Mr. Weekes. You are our only hope!"

*cough*

Some VERY interesting stuff in there. Not just the ending, but an explanation for the ridiculous ME2 Terminator and all Reapers looking like giant cuttlefish still.

I really, really wonder why it seemed so hard to do something along these lines earlier.

Whoever came up with "Total non disclosure is such a good way to communcate with your fans"?

To that I say NAT!

Thanks again, Patrick. And ofc also Michael and Allan. Pray tell some more people around there that talking with us is a good thing, will ya?

Modifié par Fulgrim88, 09 avril 2012 - 09:30 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Lurchibald wrote...

1. With what resources will they build these extractors?
2. Yes, that is what's close to sol, what about 25 LY beyond that? and beyond that?
3. Again, they have minimal resources, pretty much any spare resources went into developing the crucible, With what can we research with?
4. Resources, Resources, Resources, What will they use to build these live-ships? The development/build time would be huge, the quarians have only ever needed enough food for themselves, so unless they want to starve they cant give much (if any) food to the Turians, Earth is almost desolate from what we see and we probably only have just enough food for our own people before anything will start to grow on Earth again.

To be fair, the Quarian fleet is going to have been pretty heavily beaten up.  Assuming both the live ships survived, it's entirely possible that the food demands of the Quarian fleet have dropped (maybe even significantly).  This is in addition to the demands of the Turians, and everyone else really.  The idea that they have a surplus of food is not unreasonable.

I think an interesting result would be to have whether or not Admiral Koris survives play an impact here.  Since he's so badass, his ability to keep the liveships safe throughout the battle seems acceptable to me.

[Ieldra]

Lurchibald wrote...
1. With what resources will they build these extractors?

Expedition fleets will be accompanied by a mobile refinery ship, or every starship will be equipped with a helium-3 extractor. There is no need to be build local refineries.
Also, if you're talking about the Sol system's industrial infrastructure with which these things would have to be built, in the Earth is OK endings most of it would have survived. The places we see in the game are those where the heaviest fighting takes place. London and many other big cities will be piles of rubble. But others will have remained mostly intact.

2. Yes, that is what's close to sol, what about 25 LY beyond that? and beyond that?

Star density around Sol is low compared to most parts of the galaxy. Expedition fleets will find more places to fefuel and discharge further out. If they're accompanied by liveships, there is no need to return to Earth for resupply.

3. Again, they have minimal resources, pretty much any spare resources went into developing the crucible, With what can we research with?

The people who built the Crucible can reasonably said to be in the Sol system. They are now free to focus on other things. I'd say it's quite plausible that the Sol system now has the biggest concentration of bright minds in the galaxy. As for the rest, see the comment above about the industrial infrastructure.

I don't know why you people are so determined to paint everything in the worst possible light. Don't you want a less depressive ending? Use your imagination to find reasons why it can be better instead of worse. Really, I don't understand this negativity.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 09 avril 2012 - 09:29 .

[eromelcm7]

"the need for tools to make our lives easier eventually results in an AI being made."

"If the need to create the tools is gone as a result of the synthesis, then there's no reason for synthetics to be created."

This is quite interesting, so lets continue this logic. Given that synthetics are the ultimate outcome of tools, it would follow to negate the need/desire for physical tools (as stated above). But synthesis does not accomplish this.

The desire for a tool starts with simpler physical need. The Geth tool was created from the simpler physical need for labor (like agriculture). The desire for these tools is only a desire in the sense that survival dictates it. This is not laziness. Tools follow as a solution to survival, which is continues and thus the development of tools is a continues advance. Really, the only way to stop this advancement is to eliminate the pressure of survival. But synthesis is "the finale evolution of life" right? So no more pressure to survive right? Right? Not that I can see...

We are told that a new format of DNA is created through the combination of synthetics. So we still have some form of "DNA" in this ending -- this is important. This means we are still self-replicating life. Nothing has really changed here, survival is still a factor and thus the creation of tools is inevitable. The forms of matter used as a "framework" of life are irrelevant, merely existing in the physical world as life bounds you to its rules. The only real solution would be to transcend the physical. If anything, AI are the closest thing to "the finale evolution of life" because they exist as software, as Javik says, "outside of nature". By what logic would AI feel the need to create subservient AI? They have no physical needs.

But this all just an extrapolation on the assumption synthesis is supposed to stop the creation of new synthetics and synthetics are somehow inherently bad as asserted by the Catalyst.