486 réponses à ce sujet

[shodiswe]

I can understnad and accept if people have a different opinion about things, I might not agree but at least they would be honest about it.

However if something that could have been great got spoiled by a rush job then I find it very sad and provokative. An ending that is supposed to brign together the artistic works of several artists should be analysed and reflected upon by all involved to ensure the sum of the whole can be find in the ending. I can understand that compromises have to be made at some point... But it feelt like the ending was detatched from the overall artistic values of the rest of the game and the series as a whole.

I would be as bold as to say this is the reason why several of the mroe fanatical fans get so upset. They realy bought into the story and content of the game and all it's beautiful windowdressing and then when it all came to the finnish it was all stripped away and they entered a bare room with a chair and two people performing a dualitymonologue... Two speakers one mind. Then it ended with a coloured explosion, The end.
The a short cutscene, however cute or not, it feelt detatched from the main story and didn't help provide a conclusion or closure.

Modifié par shodiswe, 13 avril 2012 - 09:09 .

[sdfgdsfsdfsfs]

thefallen2far wrote...

We want to enjoy the game. We want to find a way to accept the ending.... that's why Indoc Theory is so popular.... it's a way or us to hold onto our perception of what the game was without completely ignoring what was happening or what was in front of us. We literally think that believing the whole ending was a dream is more in line to our perception of the story, but the semantics outside the story we were perceiving [your vision, your budget, your theme, your intention] is the only reason it doesn't work.

You know it has to be bad when "it was only a dream" is the least offensive interpretation.

Modifié par sdfgdsfsdfsfs, 13 avril 2012 - 09:11 .

[GuardianAngel470]

Snout wrote...

GuardianAngel470 wrote...

Snout wrote...

If people in this thread are going to throw the 'falsely advertised' thing at BW, I'm going to just say it.

No it wasn't.

"To establish that an advertisement is false, a plaintiff must prove five things: (1) a false statement of fact has been made about the advertiser's own or another person's goods, services, or commercial activity; (2) the statement either deceives or has the potential to deceive a substantial portion of its targeted audience; (3) the deception is also likely to affect the purchasing decisions of its audience; (4) the advertising involves goods or services in interstate commerce; and (5) the deception has either resulted in or is likely to result in injury to the plaintiff. The most heavily weighed factor is the advertisement's potential to injure a customer. The injury is usually attributed to money the consumer lost through a purchase that would not have been made had the advertisement not been misleading. False statements can be defined in two ways: those that are false on their face and those that are implicitly false."

Yeah, it was.

Evidence?

http://social.biowar.../index/10056886

Pick your poison.

This one in particular is either based on unforgivably different context or a lie:

Casey Hudson said...

Yeah, and I’d say much more so, because we have the ability to
build the endings out in a way that we don’t have to worry about
eventually tying them back together somewhere. This story arc is
coming to an end with this game. That means the endings can be a lot
more different. At this point we’re taking into account so many
decisions that you’ve made as a player and reflecting a lot of that
stuff. It’s not even in any way like the traditional game endings,
where you can say how many endings there are or whether you got
ending A, B, or C.....The endings have a lot more sophistication and
variety in them.”

“We have a rule in our franchise that there is no canon. You as a player
decide what your story is.

Particularly the part where he answers "yeah and I'd say much more so." Objectively, you cannot say there are more permutations of the ending cinematic than there were permutations of the suicide mission. There were at least 169 possible ways that ME2 could end. There are nowhere near that many in ME3.

Modifié par GuardianAngel470, 13 avril 2012 - 09:13 .

[brusher225]

DnVill wrote...

Stanley Woo wrote...

Not doing what you want us to do, and not agreeing with our decisions, does not mean we have stopped listening. It is possible to completely disagree with you while still taking your feedback into account.

So basically.... Bioware is ignoring its fans?

That's what your trying to say right?

When a vast majority of fans have stated that "clarification' and/or "more closure" does not completely consititute the entirety nor extent of our intense dislike of the ending yet they keep saying "clarification and "more closure" is all we need, and they're even releasing a DLC to give us just that, then I would call that ignoring the fans.

[katamuro]

sdfgdsfsdfsfs wrote...

thefallen2far wrote...

We want to enjoy the game. We want to find a way to accept the ending.... that's why Indoc Theory is so popular.... it's a way or us to hold onto our perception of what the game was without completely ignoring what was happening or what was in front of us. We literally think that believing the whole ending was a dream is more in line to our perception of the story, but the semantics outside the story we were perceiving [your vision, your budget, your theme, your intention] is the only reason it doesn't work.

You know it has to be bad when "it was only a dream" is the least offensive interpretation.

I was writing novels a while back, and after a deadline of a particular novel was up I had to rush the ending of the novel with exactly that "It was all a dream." the publisher told me quite justifiably that its a ****** poor end and no one is going to like it. So I know that the ending to ME3 as well as to my novel was a rush job, but what now insults me is that bioware is not willing to admit it. 
that is what the worst of it is, they are trying to tell us that in their minds this was a great ending when everyone with at least a cursory glance at the ME universe and previous games would clearly see that it goes against the lore and canon of previous installments. 

[CD4 Reborn]

Mr. Woo, I would prefer you just stopped responding at all rather than talk down to us. Maybe you don't mean for it to sound that way, but it does. We don't need you to give us the definitions of words except maybe incompetence.

[Snout]

@guardianangel

Sorry, I can't quote the whole of your post from my phone.

Basically, a court is unlikely to view developer notes and generalised chat as 'advertising'. This is my point, you can say that the developers misled you if you so wish, but none of the actual advertising said these things. TV adverts/trailers/posters etc.

This is where my problem lies. If the developers said one thing then did another, that's fine but let's be honest, the vast majority of people who saw JUST the advertising were not misled.

[Jayleia]

Stanley Woo wrote...

Not doing what you want us to do, and not agreeing with our decisions, does not mean we have stopped listening. It is possible to completely disagree with you while still taking your feedback into account.

This is true.  You could take a third option.  Helpfully color-coded for your convenience.

EDIT: That came off more than a bit snarky.  But you don't have to do everything we want, its the game you made, and there's a few opportunities to take our feedback, and your own ideas, and come up with something that makes a lot of people happy, and calms most people down.

Modifié par Jayleia, 13 avril 2012 - 09:57 .

[GorrilaKing]

What still frankly appals me is that apparently, Casey and Mac wanted to send their own message.
But what the heck was that message?
All i got from it was: " Yeah, nice try rallying against the truly powerful. Too bad it's all for nothing, now please be quiet and listen to what the VILLAIN tells you to do, be a good little boy and do it."
Wow...that's incredibly cynical, borders on nihilistic...and is utter crap.
I simply cannot comprehend how anyone can still defend this.

Also, it's very worrisome how BW apparently treats us like an enemy, becoming more and more defensive every day (when not simply bunkering down). Hello, we paid your salaries!!!

Modifié par GorrilaKing, 13 avril 2012 - 10:37 .

[twizbuck]

Stanley Woo wrote...

sdfgdsfsdfsfs wrote...

Stanley Woo wrote...

Not doing what you want us to do, and not agreeing with our decisions, does not mean we have stopped listening. It is possible to completely disagree with you while still taking your feedback into account.

It's possible to disagree, but a lot of the "issues" people raised with the ending are extremely legitimate, and to say that you "completely disagree" with those legitimate points is... troubling, to say the least.

And having a difference of opinion has absolutely no effect on the "legitimacy" of those issues.

If you dislike X in a game, my saying "I disagree with you" has no effect on your opinion. It has no effect on BioWare already choosing to create clarification DLC.

It doesn't make me right, it doesn't make you wrong. The only reason people want BioWare to (or me) to agree is to give you more ammunition to say "see? even Stanley Woo agrees with this!" or "even BioWare agrees. this proves we are right!" which does nothing except, well, make you feel better about being right.

But I'm not going to provide answers that will only be used to be either wielded as a weapon or given as proof that we hate you, because neither is conducive to productive discussion.

Uhm... what? So this was planned from the start? From before ME3 was released?

[GorrilaKing]

Not sure...can they make synthetic spines yet? I think many people at BW might need one...

[huntrrz]

Snout wrote...

This is where my problem lies. If the developers said one thing then did another, that's fine but let's be honest, the vast majority of people who saw JUST the advertising were not misled.

Did you "TAKE EARTH BACK"?  Did you come anywhere CLOSE to 'taking Earth back'?  No, you ran a couple of ground missions in an ATTEMPT to take Earth back.

It was 'only' the slogan of the marketing campaign - that's 'advertising', not 'developer comments'.

[Snout]

huntrrz wrote...

Snout wrote...

This is where my problem lies. If the developers said one thing then did another, that's fine but let's be honest, the vast majority of people who saw JUST the advertising were not misled.

Did you "TAKE EARTH BACK"?  Did you come anywhere CLOSE to 'taking Earth back'?  No, you ran a couple of ground missions in an ATTEMPT to take Earth back.

It was 'only' the slogan of the marketing campaign - that's 'advertising', not 'developer comments'.

Easily refutable.

You build your forces to 'Take Earth Back' throughout the game. You launch an attack on the Reapers on Earth. You attempt to take earth back. Ambiguity is a major part of advertising nowadays. But to claim that advert was false is just simply wrong.

[Snout]

Also, in one of the endings, the Reapers are defeated on Earth. Or leave Earth. Or join with organics. As long as the Earth wasn't destroyed, it can be said that it's been taken back.

[Skybree]

CD4 Reborn wrote...

Mr. Woo, I would prefer you just stopped responding at all rather than talk down to us. Maybe you don't mean for it to sound that way, but it does. We don't need you to give us the definitions of words except maybe incompetence.

And this ....

[BalooTheBear]

I haven't read all the other comments but when I read that Bioware 'didn't think there was much demand for that.' I was so angry.

I mean they really didn't expect that the fans would want an ending with closure to characters we have developed and grown attached to all these years?

That we would want choices in the ending as we did in the other two games. (Or more so as this was the ending game)

That we would want to see the consequences of our choices as we have in the other games?

That we would want more than one ending as we were promised?

No. I can see why they didn't think we would want any of those.

[Jayleia]

GorrilaKing wrote...

What still frankly appals me is that apparently, Casey and Mark wanted to send their own message.
But what the heck was that message?
All i got from it was: " Yeah, nice try rallying against the truly powerful. Too bad it's all for nothing, now please be quiet and listen to what the VILLAIN tells you to do, be a good little boy and do it."
Wow...that's incredibly cynical, borders on nihilistic...and is utter crap.
I simply cannot comprehend how anyone can still defend this.

I could have liked a nihilistic Crapsack world for an ending.  But I'd still want Shepard to try to kick the Reapers in their...manufacturing facilities until the end...when she appears again with such PRETTY blue eyes.

But with that kid coating that ending it in three meters of superdense Crapsaccharine...ugh.

[Demigod]

Allan Schumacher wrote...
I think my point may have been missed here.  You were saying that you would have liked some sort of parameters to base your feedback on.  I was saying that Gamble has now presented some.  I don't think that that makes the concerns mentioned prior to Gamble's announcement invalid, but the examples that I provided were along the lines of what type of feedback I would consider useful, based on the parameters Gamble has recently put forth.  I think that Gamble's announcement is the "tell us what type of feedback you think is relevant" that you seemed to be hoping for.


Allan

When even the "anouncment" required interpretation from another bio dev i think its fair to say that the message either is not clear enough or wasnt there at all. The comumity arnt idiots. It would be nice to have some clear speak from bio rather than vague "clarifications" and contradictions from the CM's seemingly hiding over on twiter.

Edit: I know twiter is part of their job even if they are posting mostly on personal accounts but it would be nice have to them do something more here rather than just post other peoples anouncments or close threads, which even devs have been moderatimg more than them latly it seems from my point of view.
 No insult to them as im sure interacting with the comunity outside of pax et al is the smallest part of their job but it would be nice to see them DO something here. Apart from a Facebook competion a christmas ago that was anounced here but not run here, this place hasnt seen much done to it since the bazar debacle.

Modifié par Demigod, 13 avril 2012 - 11:59 .

[garf]

DadeLeviathan wrote...

Complaining that Bioware has decided to not do exactly what you want them to do is nothing short of the entitled whining that many people accused Retakers of at the beginning of all of this.

This is Bioware's product. I agree the ending is bad, but ranting and raving that they aren't doing exactly what you want them to is nothing short of arrogance. Would it be wonderful if they completely got rid of the current ending and wrote a new, better one? Of course. Is that what they are doing? no. Is that perfectly their choice to make? YES.

If you don't like that Bioware gets to control what they do with THEIR work, return your copy of the game and don't buy more Bioware products. Just as they have no obligation to do what you want, you have no obligation to buy their products. That's how the developer-customer relationship works.

Done... see my sig. Now if everyone who is instead trying, begging .. to be heard to get bioware to give them an excuse to be loyal buy the pre order sight unseen customers again did the same .. do you think bioware would find that better? or worse?

[Severyx]

CD4 Reborn wrote...

Mr. Woo, I would prefer you just stopped responding at all rather than talk down to us. Maybe you don't mean for it to sound that way, but it does. We don't need you to give us the definitions of words except maybe incompetence.

This is a defensive reaction that is not necessary. I've read all of Mr. Woo's posts and there is no such tone. He needs to account for the lowest common denominator (that is, the person who doesn't understand ANY of the terms), as there is no way to avoid that these days. Stop acting like he (and other BioWare employees) are talking specifically to you when he has to bring things down a level to account for those that don't understand. That's mighty selfish, and rather unfair to Mr. Woo and his colleagues.

Anywho... Block of text incoming. Read at your own will.

I, for one, respect BioWare's decision to keep the endings the same. I was one of the people that gave objective feedback that the ending was confusing and many things seemed pulled out of context. I also mentioned the stark lack of closure. I didn't demand change, I didn't push for public outcry, I let BioWare make the decision, because it is THEIR place to decide what happens, not mine, and not yours. That said, the decision to make a DLC that clarifies what happened post-decision is exactly what I wanted.

Using old quotes about what employees said isn't ever going to change anything. It just shows that even after things have been established, certain players are just going to be forever stuck on something once said in the past. I agree, it didn't turn out the way that certain people implied, but continuously re-quoting pre-release statements is no different than getting hung up on politicians because something they said during their election campaign didn't come to fruition during their office term. It's silly. People need to move on.

"But Severyx, should we always just lay down and accept what's given us? That's silly!"

In short, yes. BioWare offered a product as-is. You bought it. If you don't like it well then you'll be more wary next time. If you liked it, great! You got an awesome experience. It's totally fine to tell BioWare what you did or didn't like based on X. It's a very different story to expect them to change something due to you personal preferences. Sorry if those are tough words to hear, but it's reality.

"But Severyx, I paid for this! I deserve to get what I want, and what I want is an ending I agree with!"

Have you ever been disappointed in a music album? Did you spam the artists and demand they 'fix' it because you didn't like it? No? Then why do it to BioWare? Because you spent more money? Irrelevent. The amount of money you paid for this product is a direct result of the immense amount of work that went into it. Because you're more emotionally invested in it? Also irrelevent. People get invested in many, many things in this world, and not all of them match expectations. This includes other art forms. Let's try NOT to murder developer companies with rose-tinted visions of how the world works, ok?

"But Severyx, I just can't understand why they did what they did."

And that's a fine viewpoint. I didn't understand everything either, but that does not automatically give me the right to expect a change in their IP because of that. Such thinking is parallel to a power trip - belief that one's opinion holds so much weight that something must be done about it. I only wanted clarification. I didn't expect it. I'm quite happy to hear that's exactly what they're working on, but it wouldn't have changed anything if they decided not to, because my wants are just my wants.

Does it sound like I'm using a lot of words to call the gaming community (not just BSN) selfish? Probably. As a game designer in training, this sort of thing has me worried about the future of the industry. Will there be attempted lawsuits in the future because people didn't get what they expected? What they wanted? What role will player entitlement play in the up and coming industry? Is the direction of the industry itself responsible? I can only hope developer companies stand their ground on their decisions (which is fundamentally DIFFERENT than ignoring fans, people), defending their work like all good designers of any art should.

Hackett Severyx out.

[ahandsomeshark]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I like you a lot Stanley, but in this you are wrong.

You may be listening. Someone may even be writing down everything we say, but you are hardly taking our feeback into account.

To provide an example:

Someone may provide a very good piece of feedback on an issue, but it may not thematically go along with other ideas that have been envisioned. People will look at the feedback, and critically assess how that feedback can exist beside other decisions. After examining the feedback, it's determined that it undermines the other changes in plan, so it is not utilized.

The feedback is not used as the creators disagree with the author that it's valid, but that doesn't mean the feedback was not taken into account during the decision process.

but back to the original quote, how exactly do developers especially one like bioware that seems to have a pretty open communication system, get to the point they're so disconnected from the fans (and arguably from their own story) that they had no idea fans would want something that resulted in a MASS backlash?

[ahandsomeshark]

Nightwriter wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I think this is muddy territory.  It really looks like you're suggesting that we shouldn't bother doing what we want to do, but should cater our games to the people that would give us money.  This retroactively assumes that the entire Mass Effect franchise was not something that BioWare wanted to make.  I think one of the worst things you can do is make game developers make a game that they don't want to make.

The idea that they actually WANTED to make those endings the way they did horrifies me.

HORRIFIES ME.

I'm talking HORROR, Allan. I want you to really grasp the emotional intensity of that emotion. HORROR. Sheer, cold, mortal HORROR.

I am talking the kind of horror I only felt watching the episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with those pale floating men in suits. With the steel teeth. The ones who stole your ability to scream and then cut your heart out without anesthetics.

also this. I'd rather believe it was an EA plot to turn us all into organic batteries.

[ahandsomeshark]

BalooTheBear wrote...

I haven't read all the other comments but when I read that Bioware 'didn't think there was much demand for that.' I was so angry.

I mean they really didn't expect that the fans would want an ending with closure to characters we have developed and grown attached to all these years?

That we would want choices in the ending as we did in the other two games. (Or more so as this was the ending game)

That we would want to see the consequences of our choices as we have in the other games?

That we would want more than one ending as we were promised?

No. I can see why they didn't think we would want any of those.

yeah this is the statement this thread should be about. And this is what I'd like to see mods respond too. How it's possible to listen to player feedback and apparently completely miss such a HUGE thing. And I'd really like to hear some sort of explanation/justification for it.

[Luder09]

I think it's been almost a month since I finished the game, and I still can't seem to put the words down to express my dissapointment. I have to listen to "Suicide Mission" on repeat and cry myself to sleep most nights, repeating to myself: "This is how it should have been, this is how it should have been"

[Qutayba]

Stanley Woo wrote...

Not doing what you want us to do, and not agreeing with our decisions, does not mean we have stopped listening. It is possible to completely disagree with you while still taking your feedback into account.

The OP's point, however, isn't that BioWare didn't implement the fans' desires, but that most of BioWare's responses about the feedback fail to accurately represent many of the core points of that feedback.  If BioWare keeps implying that fans did not "get" the ending - and thus require "clarification" - that would seem to indicate that they are not hearing the many thoughtful critiques that point to the ending's narrative, thematic, and structural weaknesses.

I happen to believe that BioWare actually has heard those critiques, but most of the PR so far fails to reassure fans that this is the case - hence the continuing fan frustration.  So far, the high spot of BioWare PR has been an impromptu paraphrased interview with Patrick Weekes at PAX, where he went off script and just engaged frankly and honestly with a fan.  It was like a spring in the middle of the desert for fans.  The layers of PR rhetoric are hampering real communication - and real communication will do wonders for BioWare's PR.  Most of us want very much to feel that we and the devs are on the same side working through this issue, but at times BioWare seems to have adopted an approach every bit as adversarial as the worst elements on the BSN.

I'm optimistic about the Extended Cut, but BioWare still has a PR problem to resolve in the meantime.  Take a lesson from what has or has not worked so far.