It seems like it's more a preference on the part of the player, rather than a requirement on the part of the developer.
But the developer shapes the player's possibilities, and by doing so reveals their intentions to how the game can and/or should be played (and sometimes those things are very different). In this case, by allowing non-combat-related savegames, narrative outcomes can be selected by the player, which to some degree (and this varies by player) degrades the choice-consequence loop. It's not a bad thing per se, but it's something to account for.
Also, to bed with me. All shall be read on the morn. Responses may be delayed on account of road trip to the beach.
How would/ should a developer account for this kind of circumstance?
Life is a beach. There's a sea of possibilities, but we can only change the sand around us.
EDIT: What is this? Putting ME on the top of a page, with only THIS to say?! The universe is playing some kind of joke on us, indeed.
Never mind KitaSaturnyne. Be glad it wasnt one of my last ones which were dreadfully frivolous.
I dont have much to add to the topic - however I do feel the need to reiterate that savegames dont necessarily detract from the choice-consequence loop. They can actually give meaning to the final choice by creating the alternative conditions that were ultimately avoided.
The end of ME2 is full of those, for example the knowledge of how a favourite charactre dies, even if rectfied by a save, can create strong feelings by validating the "correct "choice, without a whole replay required.
Delta_Vee mentioned this feeling varies - I certainly benefited from knowing what happened to Tali if I chose wrong on Rannoch, even though the episode was replayed for a better result. However I have a friend who refuses to go back to saves, and is thus about to play ME3 without Thane,Legion or Zaeed. It is interesting his approach will, I believe, ultimately detract from the experience once he knows what he missed, but the topic of completionism has been addressed seperately.
Made Nightwing wrote... Shepard imposes his/her will upon every species, every form of life within the galaxy, making them all a dreary homogenous oneness. At such a point, wiping negotiation and multiplicity from the universe, Shepard moves from being an influential voice amongst a biodiversity of thought to sacrificing him/herself in an omnipotent imposition of will.
Seriously guys, this is just MINDBLOWING ! how can people thing about synthesis in this way ! That is just stupid and makes no sense, AT ALL !
I was fortunate during my main playthrough of Mass Effect in that I have never made a choice that I felt was a mistake and that I should fix it, even managing to ace the Suicide Mission in ME2 (though I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, in nail biting apprehension). I have however made choices and thought, "No that's wrong, Shepard wouldn't say/do that." so I would reload to change that.
Maybe there's no difference between those two types of situations, but I will say that I think if I had made a choice that I felt was wrong (Tali suicide, no way I could have lived with that) I probably would have reloaded because I want the world I'm making to be as perfect as I can get it.
Which makes me think maybe we're all writers of our own particular Mass Effect universe (as much as we can be anyway), and how we play whether sticking to our first choice gut reaction, or tweeking because we don't like the way that scene went, or what that character said is just down to different author styles.
I know for me I'm a sucker for a happy ending, so I think that reflects in why if I had made a mistake I would want to change it.
Hard to argue that you shouldn't have the option you want e.g to die in fruitless combat rather than defeat the Reapers through morally dubious means, but I suppose all I can say is that there are tons of different choices people are always going to want to make in these games and sadly it is a limitation that in games such as the Mass Effect trilogy choice is between A,B or C rather than for any possible action your character can conceive of
Having experienced that throughout the trilogy, I understand that it can be disappointing, and it must be even more so when you find your playthrough being ended by precisely such an instance
However I fear that is just the nature of the game. Oh and as regards the Rimmer comment, 'better dead than smeg', I am not certain it was a statement that supports the notion of self-sacrifice to a higher end. He personally would so hate becoming the future version of himself that he saw that he essentially ended his own life; not exactly sure how they is self-sacrificial beyond the literal suicide of it all
Made Nightwing wrote... Shepard imposes his/her will upon every species, every form of life within the galaxy, making them all a dreary homogenous oneness. At such a point, wiping negotiation and multiplicity from the universe, Shepard moves from being an influential voice amongst a biodiversity of thought to sacrificing him/herself in an omnipotent imposition of will.
Seriously guys, this is just MINDBLOWING ! how can people thing about synthesis in this way ! That is just stupid and makes no sense, AT ALL !
Have to agree; you do not get the sense that Shepard engaged in debate and negotiation out of a democratic respect for the "biodiversity of thought" (which only really makes sense in a very fluid and poetic sense) but rather he is trying to get people to agree to his/her line of thought which he/she sees as bringing about victory and/or future peace; in that sense Synthesis is not wholly 'other' to how Shepard has played. It would be unsatisfying if it was the choice you were forced to make, however of course it wasn't.
I was fortunate during my main playthrough of Mass Effect in that I have never made a choice that I felt was a mistake and that I should fix it, even managing to ace the Suicide Mission in ME2 (though I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, in nail biting apprehension). I have however made choices and thought, "No that's wrong, Shepard wouldn't say/do that." so I would reload to change that.
Maybe there's no difference between those two types of situations, but I will say that I think if I had made a choice that I felt was wrong (Tali suicide, no way I could have lived with that) I probably would have reloaded because I want the world I'm making to be as perfect as I can get it.
Which makes me think maybe we're all writers of our own particular Mass Effect universe (as much as we can be anyway), and how we play whether sticking to our first choice gut reaction, or tweeking because we don't like the way that scene went, or what that character said is just down to different author styles.
I know for me I'm a sucker for a happy ending, so I think that reflects in why if I had made a mistake I would want to change it.
That is exactly my playstyle. I have a version of Shepherd that I adhere to, and will reload a conversation to match that image. The only time I have varied that approach is in the endgame to ME2. Sometimes there is a reload, sometimes I've let the choice stand to prompt a better playthrough next time.
And it still has me on the edge of my seat, much in the way a good movie still grips after multiple viewings. I know Lancelot comes back at the end of Excalibur, but still cheer when he appears.
Made Nightwing wrote... Shepard imposes his/her will upon every species, every form of life within the galaxy, making them all a dreary homogenous oneness. At such a point, wiping negotiation and multiplicity from the universe, Shepard moves from being an influential voice amongst a biodiversity of thought to sacrificing him/herself in an omnipotent imposition of will.
Seriously guys, this is just MINDBLOWING ! how can people thing about synthesis in this way ! That is just stupid and makes no sense, AT ALL !
Synthesis makes no sense in general. This interpretation is one of many, and perfectly valid.
Made Nightwing wrote... Shepard imposes his/her will upon every species, every form of life within the galaxy, making them all a dreary homogenous oneness. At such a point, wiping negotiation and multiplicity from the universe, Shepard moves from being an influential voice amongst a biodiversity of thought to sacrificing him/herself in an omnipotent imposition of will.
Seriously guys, this is just MINDBLOWING ! how can people thing about synthesis in this way ! That is just stupid and makes no sense, AT ALL !
Synthesis makes no sense in general. This interpretation is one of many, and perfectly valid.
This interpretation is invalid since I saw Joker, Edi and Liara in their usual forms only with slight upgrades, they were not turned into a universal goo
Made Nightwing wrote... Shepard imposes his/her will upon every species, every form of life within the galaxy, making them all a dreary homogenous oneness. At such a point, wiping negotiation and multiplicity from the universe, Shepard moves from being an influential voice amongst a biodiversity of thought to sacrificing him/herself in an omnipotent imposition of will.
Seriously guys, this is just MINDBLOWING ! how can people thing about synthesis in this way ! That is just stupid and makes no sense, AT ALL !
Synthesis makes no sense in general. This interpretation is one of many, and perfectly valid.
This interpretation is invalid since I saw Joker, Edi and Liara in their usual forms only with slight upgrades, they were not turned into a universal goo
You saw three characters with green circuit skins. Even EDI, the synthetic lifeform who somehow seems to obtain synthetic parts.
Your intepretation of what this means is as valid as anyone else's.
Ebert had this argument that video games couldn't be art because of participation (it's probably been discussed in this thread earlier, but I'm not sure). The analogy he used is that if you could re-read Romeo and Juliet a second time, this time altering the story so that Romeo and Juliet live happily ever after, wouldn't this cheapen the story and deprive it of anything like genuine tragedy? It's a huge leap to go from this to "Games aren't art!", but I have to admit this argument always bothered me, and something like the considerations Ebert gives conditioned my experience of the various deaths in ME. Perhaps this experience is simply due to my own limitations; if anyone can persuade me that I'm simply not appreciating the massive conceptual shift in story telling that video games present us with, I'm certainly open to it.
I'm so glad you brought this up, osbornep, because I hate this damned argument too. I think Ebert has the capacity to say some thoughtful things (although to this day I'm still mystified by his review of Fight Club), but this whole argument about videogames not being Art really frustrates me. Much as I said a few pages back about Colin Moriarty and his strange little tantrum at those dissatisfied with the ending of ME3, I think that any effort such as Ebert's (or Moriarty's) to try and presuppose limitations upon the expression of video games as an art form by using traditional mechanics of analysis are (at best) misguided or (more accurately) wholly disingenuous.
As edisnooM said so pointedly: there was a time when cinema wasn't even considered a valid art form. (Hell, even the Lumiere brothers, the creators of cameras capable of recording moving pictures, declared cinema as having no future.)
Of course you can't re-do Romeo and Juliet, Ebert – because it's a film. It obeys different conventions. Just like you can't see a song, or listen to a painting. They necessitate different engagements with their audience, and to demand that new media be dictated by the limitations of the old is a fatuous, knee-jerk response, mired in outdated thought; one that strangles rather than elucidates artistic innovation.
Todd Howard (of Skyrim) spoke in his keynote address at the 2012 D.I.C.E. conference of the way in which games are the only form of artistic expression capable of evoking the sensation of pride in an audience. Because we as the player participate in the activity of bringing the game's narrative to life, he said, we invest in the expression of the game and are able to then feel triumph at our successes - a sensation that is only possible because of the unique interplay between player and text that videogames provide. Games therefore don't just communicate in new ways: they have the capacity to evoke whole new emotions and experiences; sensations that film, fiction, music, by the limitations of their form, cannot.
So when I hear figures like Ebert (or more alarmingly someone like Moriarty, whose meant to be part of this medium) diminishing the capacities and potential of videogames, it reminds me of why some criticism has the potential to be so detrimental to the expansion of art, and why Richard Pryor said he'd never met anyone who said they wanted to grow up to be a critic.
Ha! My streak of avoiding the top post continues unabated.
frypan wrote...
I dont have much to add to the topic - however I do feel the need to reiterate that savegames dont necessarily detract from the choice-consequence loop. They can actually give meaning to the final choice by creating the alternative conditions that were ultimately avoided.
edisnooM wrote...
Maybe there's no difference between those two types of situations, but I will say that I think if I had made a choice that I felt was wrong (Tali suicide, no way I could have lived with that) I probably would have reloaded because I want the world I'm making to be as perfect as I can get it.
osbornep wrote...
The analogy he used is that if you could re-read Romeo and Juliet a second time, this time altering the story so that Romeo and Juliet live happily ever after, wouldn't this cheapen the story and deprive it of anything like genuine tragedy? It's a huge leap to go from this to "Games aren't art!", but I have to admit this argument always bothered me, and something like the considerations Ebert gives conditioned my experience of the various deaths in ME. Perhaps this experience is simply due to my own limitations; if anyone can persuade me that I'm simply not appreciating the massive conceptual shift in story telling that video games present us with, I'm certainly open to it.
drayfish wrote...
Todd Howard (of Skyrim) spoke in his keynote address at the 2012 D.I.C.E. conference of the way in which games are the only form of artistic expression capable of evoking the sensation of pride in an audience. Because we as the player participate in the activity of bringing the game's narrative to life, he said, we invest in the expression of the game and are able to then feel triumph at our successes - a sensation that is only possible because of the unique interplay between player and text that videogames provide. Games therefore don't just communicate in new ways: they have the capacity to evoke whole new emotions and experiences; sensations that film, fiction, music, by the limitations of their form, cannot.
I multiquote here because all these thoughts have legitimacy behind them, and my own answer is a flighty, shifting thing. One of the things fiction of any sort can do is tell the audience what they need to hear, as opposed to what they want to - but there's that sense of accomplishment which no other form but games can evoke.
Made Nightwing wrote... Shepard imposes his/her will upon every species, every form of life within the galaxy, making them all a dreary homogenous oneness. At such a point, wiping negotiation and multiplicity from the universe, Shepard moves from being an influential voice amongst a biodiversity of thought to sacrificing him/herself in an omnipotent imposition of will.
Seriously guys, this is just MINDBLOWING ! how can people thing about synthesis in this way ! That is just stupid and makes no sense, AT ALL !
Synthesis makes no sense in general. This interpretation is one of many, and perfectly valid.
This interpretation is invalid since I saw Joker, Edi and Liara in their usual forms only with slight upgrades, they were not turned into a universal goo
There is a big difference between the original quote, which deals with the destruction of diversity in the synthesis ending, and the idea of a "universal goo" that you seem to be objecting to. Whatever Bioware originally intended with Synthesis, one strong implication of the Synthesis ending is that diversity is a bad thing. That despite the fact that major throughlines of the game up until those last 10 minutes could emphasize strength through diversity as well as the idea that all life could be valid while remainng different, suddenly at the end, all of the galaxy needs to homogenize on some level in order to survive regardless of prior choices. While the ending synthesis cinematic doesn't appear to eliminate all difference, the idea synthesis represents is that a loss of diversity is required in order for peace to happen, an idea that a lot (though not all) Shepherds spent three games arguing against and actively proving false.
Plus, the choice to synthesize life itself is being made before knowing the consequences are limited to green space-magic plants and circuitry on hats. Before seeing that final cinematic, the player choosing synthesis means they buy into the Catalyst's idea that the diversity between synthetic and organic is bad and needs to be eliminated. And it means believing that imposing homogenization on all of life in the galaxy is a good and noble thing.
To put it another way, if synthesis doesn't eliminate some degree of diversity then it fails at its stated goal of stopping what the Catalyst sees as the underlying conflict. And if synthesis does eliminate diversity in the service of peace than it is validly abhorrent in the eyes of some Shepherds.
If you found that loss of diversity a palatable trade off, good for you. But don't presume your opinion speaks for all.
Modifié par deliphicovenant42, 21 mai 2012 - 02:35 .
Seriously guys, this is just MINDBLOWING ! how can people thing about synthesis in this way ! That is just stupid and makes no sense, AT ALL !
Unfortunately, "that is just stupid" isn't a very useful entry point for discussion. If you can perhaps present your point of view, we could all benefit from your perspective.
Firstly, I wanted to say that I'm really glad you found Synthesis to be a worthy choice for the ending of the game, and I'm genuinely glad that it was a satisfying conclusion to your Shepard's story. As my comments have obviously indicated, I have struggled to come to terms with that option myself, but I am truly happy to see that others can and do see its merits. And again I'm not saying (and would never say) that I am right, or that I think it's wrong for others to have that view – just that I personally have issues with it.
I guess for me, I fundamentally don't understand what Synthesis is even meant to represent. I have appreciated CulturalGeekGirl's analogy of the kingdom of Aslan from the Narnia books as an entry point into how people might perceive this ending – as a kind of hopeful projection of a utopian future (one that I believe is an incredibly kind and selfless act, considering what little evidence we are given about the nature of that conclusion) – but when I think about it logically I struggle to see its positive implications. From every angle that I've approached it (and I really hope that I'm not somehow being obtuse or close-minded), I find that it's either a purge of the beautiful diversity that the Mass Effect universe has always celebrated (as delphicovenant42 stated so well), or a violation of each individual's free will to choose their fate, which until now Shepard has predominantly fought to protect. ...At the very least it seems wholly unnecessary.
I suspect the Synthesis is meant to be viewed as the endpoint of a growth toward transhumanism – the final unity of man and machine that finally breaks down the needless walls that until now have divided each from the other, and which apparently got the Reapers in such a tizzy (...yes, I just referred to countless generations of dispassionate genocide as a 'tizzy' – which indicates that I may be slightly over-tired).
My first issue with this premise (as I've stated previously), is that I still don't see why everyone having the same DNA would make any difference to social conflict (it didn't stop Krogans killing each other; and the Geth are exact replicas of each other and they still broke into civil war). But secondly (for me) Shepard making that choice to mutate everyone into synthetic/organic hybrids seems to invalidate the necessary evolutionary process that would earn such a result.
I guess to illustrate where I'm coming from I'll use the example of Buzz Aldrin. (He was kind enough to be in our game – shown freezing to death in a snowfield telling stories to some creepy kid who was waiting to hollow him out like a tauntaun – so I'll exploit the connection for yet another tortured analogy.) The achievement of humanity walking on the face of the moon was an audacious, unparalleled feat. It was symbolic of a growth toward human expansion and achievement that stretched us beyond our conventional limitations, one that lifted us – both metaphorically and literally – beyond the boundaries of our known world.
But the audacity of that achievement, and its epic symbolic grandeur, was fundamentally bound to the tenacity, ingenuity and gut-wrenching bravery of every stage that led to the moment those first footprints were made. The dreaming it up; the application of engineering mastery and science to make it work; the years of training and sacrifice; creating exciting new ways to use bathrooms in zero gravity: all of this built and grew upon what preceded it, each step in the ladder rising from the last. There is a Buddhist saying (that I am no doubt going to butcher in paraphrase) that states: we can only step from where we are standing – and it's this progression, one step at a time that ultimately makes the journey worthwhile, making our achievements the culmination of all our efforts.
If some 'God' had have appeared in 1960, given everyone space-gills (I call trademark on 'space gills', whatever they are), and without warning flung us all onto the surface of the moon, all of that ingenuity and tenacity would have been rendered meaningless. The moon landing would no longer be a symbol of human growth, and Buzz Aldrin would no longer be one of the pioneers of human exploration – he would just be another space-gilled dude wondering who drank all the Tang.
For me Synthesis operates much the same way. If humanity in the Mass Effect universe is already potentially moving toward such a transhuman state, then my Shepard forcing it upon the universe effectively robs it of its significance. It's no longer a natural evolution, one that we have chosen to pursue, but a state of being inflicted upon us by an outside force. We would suddenly have space-gills; but even worse than that, we wouldn't know why, or even what they were for.
And so that's why I personally struggle with Synthesis, because as yet I don't feel that the game has explained to me why this change is necessary (it seems to be only the Reapers and Puglsey-the-Ghost who care about this stuff now), or why subjecting every autonomous creature in the universe to its impact isn't a violation of their freedom. Again, that does not invalidate anyone else's opinion, simply an acknowledgement that I respectfully don't share it, and (like an obligatory transhumanism) would not wish to have it forced upon me.
p.s. – delta_vee, you have been bringing all kinds of knowledge to this thread. Fine, fine work. And I meant to thank you for those references you provided earlier about videogames as architectures that facilitate participation and engagement. Fascinating stuff. And Kill Screen. Nice.
A relevant read by the way is "Achilles in Vietnam" by a doctor who treated PTSD. Its not a laughing matter and like so many of these ham fisted attempts to bring something from reality to the "war is hell" theme, the idea struggled to gain resonance in game. I should say too that I am no expert in this field, and do not wish to offend anyone who has dealt with such issues. All I can say is that it would probably have been best avoided in a game that for the most part is space operatic fiction.
Facinating discussion, frypan. And thanks for the recommend.
All I can think about when thinking of Colonel Kurtz in this regard to our game are his last words....
The horror...the horror.
It's an amazing film, one that everyone should watch.
How does everyone feel about justified intervention? In the sense that the eventuality of The United States intervention in World War II was justified (I believe it was justified). Sorry for brining Hitler into this....
That is to say it was ethical to kill the opposing force to save innocents by the millions? I know that sounds terrible but I felt the opposite option was far less palatable.
I find that Destroy, at least in the eyes of Shepard was somthing to this effect. It Destroys the Reapers, at the cost of a few thousand lives, the geth and EDI.
Disgusting I know but Bioware hasn't left me with much choice.
I got all Noam Chompsky on you there for a minute....
Interestingly I read an interview with the Dalai Lama a few years ago, and I can't remember the exact wording but he said something to the effect that in some cases fighting is necessary and he used WW2 and Hitler as an example. And I'm fairly certain most people can agree that stopping him was the right choice.
There is also the quote (it's been attributed to many different people) "The only thing needed for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing."
So in the end I was forced to ask: Do I compromise my Shepard entirely or just partly? Maybe that was intentional on BioWare's part, but it certainly wasn't what I was expecting after five years. Maybe there is no "Right" choice in the end.
Those two cases are really good ones. I can't do them full justice here (in fact, I probably couldn't do full justice to any of the decisions, even given an arbitrary amount of space and time). The most straightforward way to justify Kate's decision would be in terms of a doctrine called "double effect," which maintains a distinction between intending and foreseeing. Suppose I have a horrible stutter, and am asked to give a speech. When I give the speech, I foresee that speaking will cause me to stutter, but there's also an intuitive sense in which I don't intend to stutter.
Applying these considerations to Kate Bowman's case, we might suppose that murder involves intentional killing; when Kate Bowman refuses to give Shepard's location to the Batarians, she foresees that this will cause her brother's death, but she doesn't intend her brother's death, so her action need not be wrong even though it causes a death. Similar considerations might be appealed to with the Balak decision. It's important to note, though, that the doctrine of double effect is incredibly controversial. Here's a good discussion for interested parties:
This is not easy reading, but it's much more trustworthy than Wikipedia.
@Hawk227
Whew! For a second I thought you were going to scientifically calculate a number that represented my total value as a human being. I agree with you; it is a little bothersome that the total value of my choices can be calculated so simply. But maybe if those numbers translated into more concrete effects in-game, we all would have overlooked it.
@delta_vee & drayfish:
Those are both really good responses to Ebert. I remember Tom Bissell making a similar point somewhere about how horror games are able to induce fear in a way movies and TV cannot, because unlike in those other media, the player avatar can actually be killed.
I think what bothered me about Ebert's argument at the time was not his conclusion that games aren't art (I just didn't see how it followed from his argument), but the prospect that games couldn't do certain things, like tragedy, well, and I'd very much like to believe that games at some point will be able to do any kind of story well. In my ideal world, we'll be able to release games with the following sort of premise without anyone batting an eyelash:
"In Deep Thoughts, you take up the role of effete academic Archibald Humperdink, a man in his final years wondering whether or not in the end, anything he did really mattered. Can you complete his quest for meaning in a seemingly random universe?"
Silly I know, but that's just me. It's hard to imagine how to construct satisfying gameplay around such a premise ("Press A to introspect and brood. Press B to think back to better days. Press C to angrily destroy everything in your room."); still, I have this pollyannaish hope that video games will at some point be able to tackle something like the same range of subject matter as other media. I don't think there's anything wrong with or 'inferior' about more genre-oriented works, but I'd like to see room for a little bit of everything. As things currently are, it seems you couldn't sell a game where the protagonist could conceivably be played by John Cazale, but I wonder, is this a desirable state of affairs?
Also, let me second delta_vee's recommendation of Rise of the Triad. Here's a link to the bad ending I mentioned earlier (recommended for anyone who likes 'splosions):
You know, I think I would have prefered an "ALL IS LOST!" ending over what we ended up with. I mean, that was one of the great things about ME2. YOU COULD LOSE! Yeah, I mean you could lose only if you rushed and was stupid end game, but that possiblity created an urgency and tension that MADE you care about what happened next. I still get a rush out of beating the Suicide Mission in ME2. *sighs, remembers good times* Yet another missed opportunity Bioware. At least losing to the Reapers in epic and dramatic fashion would have been well within established themes and lore given how the Reapers are THE big bad.
Oh. Well, I choose to think that the HL2 and L4D2 versions are more important to the continuity of the universe. At least, for now.
@osbornep
The double effect sounds scary at best. I'll, uh... read another time.
As for "Deep Thoughts", if you're telling a story, perhaps the thing to do is put Archie in a situation where he can do something that affects the world around him in a noticeable way, for better or worse. The "press buttons" part makes for a good opening scene, I think.
@delta_vee
The thought I had today concerning the "Save Game Problem" in terms of Mass Effect is that it only really becomes a problem if Mass Effect is more than a game. It's not. It's really not art, if you think about it. It's a standard hero story, where one person suddenly makes the galaxy go round. Mass Effect isn't a microcosm, or a simulation of life, or any other such simulation where hitting the "quick load" key would be considered "cheating". All games are like this, whether their story is "shoot the bad guys" or "solve a living being's existential dilemma and teach them the value of their place in the world".
Mass Effect itself is marketed and presented as a game with a narrative that's driven by the player. While the player is unable to sculpt the every aspect of the story from the ground up, they have direct influence over which preordained paths it will take. We are presented with many options that can color the story differently for each player, and if a player wants things to go a certain way, why would that present a problem, or be a problem in and of itself?
Perhaps my failure to understand your position lies in that I haven't understood any explanation given as to what exactly a "Save Game Problem" is. I'm sorry for that.
Thanks! I'm quite grateful for this thread, as despite my newfound inability to enjoy myself with ME3, the discussion here has allowed me to crystallize (or more like metallize, rather) my thinking on a number of issues in gaming as a whole. So double thanks. (Also, your erstwhile student has been playing hooky for some time...)
@Taboo:
I don't think the ethical issue of killing the enemy in wartime is the proper framework to use. All three Mass Effect games took great pains to ensure we never directly fought enemies we could be ambivalent about killing (to the point of suddenly turning Cerberus into direct foes instead of uneasy allies in ME3, so we had some humans to fight). There wasn't a pacifist playthrough available a la DXHR (not including bosses) - in fact, we didn't even generally have nonlethal means to subdue rather than kill (excepting a few dialogue sections and the colonists on Zhu's Hope). I think a more pertinent moral consideration is the legitimacy of (at least certain categories of) civilians as military targets - something which has been argued back and forth endlessly - especially the notion of "acceptable losses" amongst one's own population amidst discussions of nuclear war. (And while I appreciate the question, this particular thread almost got derailed into another version of that insoluble argument, so I'm hesitant to discuss that here rather than in your better-suited thread.)
@Kita:
By the term "Save Game Problem", I'm referring to the potential undermining of authorial intent by the player in pursuit of a subjective "optimal" outcome. I'll go into more detail below.
@osbornep:
I think Ebert's logical leap from the difficulty of presenting tragedy in games to their unsuitability as an art form in general was...specious. Architecture has a similar problem (well, without decades or centuries of decay overlaid upon it). Sculpture has difficulty conveying narrative (there are exceptions, but they're usually a series rather than a single work). The novel, that seeming pinnacle of critical validation, has an inherent difficulty in conveying visual information (especially complex, shifting images which our visual cortex interprets with ease). And even his beloved film, with its inherently unforgiving pacing, so often chokes on conveying complex ideas and introspection with any degree of efficiency or grace (ever seen mathematical concepts presented properly in a movie? Anyone? Bueller?).
Bissell's example of horror as a strength of gaming is also pertinent, though, as is its ability to convey action, tension, and especially triumph (as drayfish mentions via Todd Howard) more directly than any other form I can name. Each medium available is a compromise on some level, a tradeoff between strengths best suited to imparting meaning to a work - and videogames have tools available to them which are difficult or impossible to recreate in other media.
However (although I'm somewhat loathe to admit it), the issue Ebert raises has a seed of legitimacy, but the souce of it is not the medium itself but the conventions which have arisen. Like comics before them, with their legacies of superheroes and power fantasies, videogames are so frequently associated with clumsy and sub-par attempts at relevance and meaning. Avoiding this is extraordinarily difficult to accomplish, as is better-elucidated here: http://www.magicalwa...s-a-system.html
There is also the tension, if not outright conflict, between the author's intended imparted meaning and the player's desire to "win" (as edisnooM and frypan point out) - when unpleasant consequences can be avoided given sufficient motivation (to reload, to restart, even to reinstall if such barriers are erected), what value of loss can be imparted by the author instead of essentially chosen by the player? (Whether this is a desirable thing in the first place is another, related but separate discussion.) How can a videogame attach meaning to anything but victory, if such a state is defined? So often the answer is given in the form of mere completion - if the (ergodic) text is made difficult to traverse, then simply reaching the end is a victory in itself, and rewarded as such. Other times, the authorial impulse towards pulling the player through a set narrative becomes overwhelming, resulting in such travesties as the infamous Cuba level of CODBLOPS (), wherein the level can be completed without firing a shot except in scripted sequences. (What is it with the COD series and debasement of the form, anyways?) In some cases, the ludonarrative dissonance breaks the text itself - witness the arc of Niko in GTAIV compared to the allowed, even encouraged sociopathy of the player which undermines the pathos of their avatar.
Other forms of branching narrative encounter the same problem in some fashion. Choose-your-own-adventure books and their ilk are stripped-down examples, wherein undesirable outcomes are a bookmark away from irrelevancy, and the convention of savegames is the videogame equivalent of strategically-placed fingers. This, I think, is the root of Ebert's accusation. With the association of completion with victory, the impact of any tragic ending is undermined by either the player's contradicting feelings of accomplishment (by reaching the end in the first place, which is not a guarantee) and/or the player's ability to revisit the game in search of a more palatable conclusion (the Savegame Problem I mentioned earlier to KitaSaturnyne).
While this can still have value, as demonstrated by frypan and CARL_DF90, with their victories made sweeter by intimate knowledge of the cost of failure, it still places a barrier upon the conveyance of tragedy or pathos. There are games whose structure is more amenable: Tetris is the ur-example, with its inevitable loss and metaphorical payload of Soviet self-destruction, and the recent DayZ is an exercise in pure survival for as long as possible with a whole host of complications and moral grey areas. This kind of game, however, is unsuited to anything even resembling a conventional plot, so their lessons are hard to transfer to more narratively-minded works.
Mass Effect attempted to deal with this problem by placing additional limitations on each playthrough's ability to revisit prior decisions, by placing them in previous games. ME was constructed as a trilogy, so decisions could be made without (relatively) immediate payoff, and by corollary made that much more difficult to revisit at the point wherein their consequences were delivered. This promise was only marginally fufilled during the games themselves, thus building an expectation of fufillment in the ending of ME3, where the strain of divergence could be most reasonably contained as far as resource limitations were concerned.
However, I think the prospect of allowing for complete loss and ultimate victory and a number of states in between, in the fashion of ME2, seemed insufficiently ambitious for the devs. I believe the reason we got the tripartite Sophie's Choice instead of a longform ME2 Suicide Mission was a reflection of that desire to impart a particular form of tragedy, unassailable by savegame manipulation or metagaming, in search of a counterpoint to Ebert's dismissal in general if not in the specific. That it failed for so many players was, I believe, a misconstruing of the nature of the player's emotional involvement with the game. As CulturalGeekGirl describes, the roleplaying aspects of our choices affect our perception of our avatar and reflect our desired existence within the game world, even those choices which are "merely" expression of preference. That this capacity for subtlety of intent on the player's part was so completely ignored by the game is a repudiation of the player's engagement as a whole.
Addendum. I think this quote from Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is illustrative:
We cross our bridges when we come to them, and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.
It's hard to imagine how to construct satisfying gameplay around such a premise ("Press A to introspect and brood. Press B to think back to better days. Press C to angrily destroy everything in your room.");
Ha! Wasn't that supposed to be Alan Wake, though?
Edit: Also, my defiance of the pagination gods continues unabated. I am pleased.
How does it undermine authorial intent when the author includes the possibility of a more palatable narrative for different types of players?
If I'm playing a game where the main character's best friend dies, but the option exists where the best friend lives, why is it a problem if I want to experience the story from the latter perspective, and how does it undermine the intent of the author or the progression and conclusion of the narrative?
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I agree with you; it is a little bothersome that the total value of my choices can be calculated so simply. But maybe if those numbers translated into more concrete effects in-game, we all would have overlooked it.
