5087 réponses à ce sujet

[Zolt51]

Hmm.. "revolting". I think that one is new. Adding it to my collection of retaker angst quotes, for when I need a good laugh.

[SkaldFish]

Zolt51 wrote...

Hmm.. "revolting". I think that one is new. Adding it to my collection of retaker angst quotes, for when I need a good laugh.

Yikes, what just fell on my shoulder?

Oh, crap. Watch out for the seagull.

[Drogonion]

The professor's critique is ... perspicacious. Bioware should take heed.

[Kunari801]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

... Mass Effect was the most special video game series I had ever encountered. It was everything that I dreamed creating games could be. That it should come so far only to falter so badly on the last step... can you see why that would be such a tragedy?

That's well said.   It's like a runner way ahead in 1st place that stumples at the last meter.   The ending of ME3 was just that, it hurt what had seemed to be one of the greatest game series of our time.  

I hope the DLC can redeem the Mass Effect legacy somewhat, I know some won't be happy no matter what, but most --I hope-- will be open-minded enough to give the DLC a honest shot. 

[sAxMoNkI]

Zolt51 wrote...

Hmm.. "revolting". I think that one is new. Adding it to my collection of retaker angst quotes, for when I need a good laugh.

Interesting insight, I hadn't thought to interpret the OP's post in that way. Thanks for sharing

[Lyrebon]

Vromrig wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Vromrig wrote...

M0keys wrote...

Could we please stop discussing that issue, Vromrig!?

You're going to get this incredible thread locked!

If I could exist without being attacked, possibly.

Not asking much, rather, did not ask much.  Expressed view.  Attacked.

Have not attacked. Have responded without attack. No response. Implications... Unpleasant.

Subject stil refuses to engage. Fear that this implies greater instability than initially believed. Hope for recovery... dwindling.

No recovery necessary.  Have not fallen.

Also, need work on voice.  About delivering clear, concise point, in most logical manner.

Why it's employed.

[Spectre-00N7]

That was well said, and I too found that by selecting one of the three choices I was completely destroying my character.

[zarnk567]

Zolt51 wrote...

Hmm.. "revolting". I think that one is new. Adding it to my collection of retaker angst quotes, for when I need a good laugh.

.............Someone did not read the OP's post. His professor never claimes to be one..... not everyone who hates the ending is a retaker......

Modifié par zarnk567, 19 avril 2012 - 06:20 .

[Hawk227]

optimistickied wrote...

Well, I think if nothing else, there's an ideological difference. Like we talked about earlier, in Destroy you're formally condemning synthetic lifeforms, whereas in Control, you're essentially imposing your will upon the Reapers and making them heel to your command. The Catalyst uses the word obey. This is something most people find repugnant and inappropriate, whereas I just find really interesting. The Catalyst is providing our options here, so we are using its morality system. We know from the Reapers, its idea of morality is skewed, so all three options are not necessarily moral. However, we played the trilogy waiting for a showdown with the Reapers. We were prepared to kill them out of survival. It is a violent game with war as its backdrop, so having to make a decision that is not pleasant didn't come as a surprise.

In all three endings, the Reapers are dealt with, while the synthetic/organic conflict lingers on. Control and Destroy have seemingly the same outcomes (abeyance), but one preserves current synthetic lifeforms, while the other ends them.

What you brought up about the Reapers returning in Control is something I totally hadn't even considered. I guess it's possible, isn't it? However, with the Mass Relays destroyed, it's unlikely they'll ever return. So then the question would be, what's the point of controlling the Reapers if you can't do anything with them? Once Shepard has asserted his will, what will he do with it? Send them away, but to do what? You'd touched on that earlier. I think. It's a scary thought, the idea of Shepard entrapping his consciousness in these Old Machines, and squandering eternity in some black corner of Dark Space. I mean, would Shepard be so selfless? Would anyone?

I can't really answer that, but it contributed to why I picked Synthesis. I even walked up to the Control station, and just couldn't do it. It seemed too tragic, especially considering Saren and the Illusive Man. What if Shepard lost his sanity or worse, what if he didn't? In Synthesis, at least Shepard's legacy would be visible; I could give him glory. For me, at the time, that was important. It was as if I picked Synthesis by deduction.

Er, anyway, yeah, Control/Destroy are similar, but I feel like they diverge in some significant ways.

Also, the quality of the endings didn't concern me at the time. What about you? Like, in hindsight, I can take what I've been reading and really start to break it all down, but when I was experiencing it, I had to pause and sit there and think about what to do, about what each choice could potentially mean; I thought about the very first time I turned the first game on, and how everything had lead up to this moment, and how I had to, as a player, do right by Shepard, who stood before me bloody and confused and battered all to hell. If I played it now, I'd probably hate it. I've read too much on it, but... at first, it was pretty cool.

I an see what you're saying. I agree they differ philosophically, but they don't differ in a real practical sense. We can make new geth right? They won't be the same Geth, but they'll still be a sapient synthetic race. And this won't take long, a few years, maybe a generation. The catalyst is a practical fellow, having the Reapers cull organic life before it can create its own extinction is a bizarre and cruel, but oddly practical solution. I would expect the new solutions (2 of them aren't even solutions to the problem he's so worried about.) to differ in a practical manner. Maybe that's weird?

When I first finished it, I hated it. Within a couple lines from the Catalyst I had been completely divorced from the narrative that had engulfed me for 35 hours over 4 or 5 days. For reasons expertly described by strange aeons and Drayfish, I found every choice abhorrent, not just for moral reasons, but for Narrative Reasons. For 3 games I saw the Reapers as this Post Singularity (although at the time I didn't know the actual term) menace who used organics simply for procreation (ME2 storyline). Every 50k years they harvested the galaxy to build more reapers and cull any eventual opposition and no one had ever been able to do anything about it. That sounds kind of simple, but the simplicity made it really effective for me. "We Will grind you up into paste and make you into one of us, and there is nothing you can do about it!"

You exist because we allow it, and you will die because we demand it.

Then the catalyst was telling me they were a solution to a conflict that the game had just taken great pains to downplay (Geth/Quarians, EDI). They weren't even the problem anymore, now they were the solution. The way that the Catalyst was so inconsistent with his pronouns (I created them, you want to destroy us), and the way he seemed to steer me towards control and synthesis (the two that jumped out at me as bad/dumb) made me really suspicious. I sort of superficially picked control, because at the time I could better grapple w/ the idea that I could do it even though TIM couldn't, and I didn't want to destroy the Geth, and even though I was sort of out of it I felt inherently that synthesis was bad (I was making everyone reapers, homogenizing the galaxy, with a mechanic that made no sense). But it wasn't really a reasoned choice, it was more like submission. "Fine, I guess I pick blue."

The ending felt like it belonged in Deus Ex, not mass effect. I learned later that the origninal DE had essentially the same three choices (merge with technology, destroy technology, work with illuminati to control advancement). This thread has sort of reinforced that. I feel like the endings work in a vacuum, but not within the actual 100 hr Narrative. For me I think it could've worked (though it still would've needed adequate foreshadowing) if you could question the Catalyst, point out why he's crazy or why you agree with him (like with Mordin in ME2) and then gotten the choices I described earlier: 1)Better explained synthesis, 2) Stand aside and let Reapers reap, or 3) destroy just the reapers. I think most people would've picked 3, and hardly any would pick 2. But then the options would've matched the scenario, there wouldn't have been the feeling that we were cornered into 1 of 3 ridiculous choices we would never have otherwise made.

I'll reiterate that I still don't see a reason why Shepard standing there means his solution won't work. I don't see how its connected to the quarian/geth. Is it because this cycle is fighting back? This cycle was only successful because the protheans changed the keepers so the Reapers couldn't take the Citadel by surprise, but once this cycle is over they could just fix the Keepers and get back to normal, easy, reaping. So what changed? Would it have still changed if Anderson was there? Or some random marine?

[mikeloeven]

My thoughts Exactly THE OP just put what probably 80% of the ME3 Fan base is thinking into a well written essay. he should mail this directly to Bio-ware corporate with several pages of signatures

Modifié par mikeloeven, 19 avril 2012 - 07:41 .

[Forsythia]

I've only read the OP, and what a great post. It's almost telling the writers of the ending to be ashamed of themselves. Oh wait, they should.

[operageek]

This is a perfect description of my feelings about the ending, expressed very elegantly. I want to put my 2 cents in and say that, more than any other thread I've seen on the boards, I hope Bioware takes a look at this one. I don't know how they can fix these problems without changing the ending, but I will hold out hope anyway... I want so badly to be able to wholeheartedly love this game!!

[CitizenSnips]

Art.

[Pelle6666]

That is great!

[Graius]

+1. This should definitely be sent to Bioware (if it hasn't already been read by them) as it neatly summarises the end sequences' principal flaw: that the endings were incongruent with all the previous story and its themes.

[Avarenda]

Hawk227 wrote...

I an see what you're saying. I agree they differ philosophically, but they don't differ in a real practical sense. We can make new geth right? They won't be the same Geth, but they'll still be a sapient synthetic race.

Thats like saying 'It doesn't matter if a whole bunch of  people die, babies will born soon to replace them anyway.'

We cant 'remake' the geth because being sentient means being unique. Its one of a kind, irriplaceable.

If you had a family member die, but someone offered to clone them would you be like 'yeah, sure. Sounds great!'

No.

Even if they look like your loved one, the truth of the matter is they're NOT and that they CANNOT be replaced.

[ed87]

This narrative has not until this point been about dominance, extermination, and the imposition of uniformity – indeed, Shepard has spent over a hundred hours of narrative fighting against precisely these three themes..

Good one

[optimistickied]

Hawk227 wrote...

optimistickied wrote...

Well, I think if nothing else, there's an ideological difference. Like we talked about earlier, in Destroy you're formally condemning synthetic lifeforms, whereas in Control, you're essentially imposing your will upon the Reapers and making them heel to your command. The Catalyst uses the word obey. This is something most people find repugnant and inappropriate, whereas I just find really interesting. The Catalyst is providing our options here, so we are using its morality system. We know from the Reapers, its idea of morality is skewed, so all three options are not necessarily moral. However, we played the trilogy waiting for a showdown with the Reapers. We were prepared to kill them out of survival. It is a violent game with war as its backdrop, so having to make a decision that is not pleasant didn't come as a surprise.

In all three endings, the Reapers are dealt with, while the synthetic/organic conflict lingers on. Control and Destroy have seemingly the same outcomes (abeyance), but one preserves current synthetic lifeforms, while the other ends them.

What you brought up about the Reapers returning in Control is something I totally hadn't even considered. I guess it's possible, isn't it? However, with the Mass Relays destroyed, it's unlikely they'll ever return. So then the question would be, what's the point of controlling the Reapers if you can't do anything with them? Once Shepard has asserted his will, what will he do with it? Send them away, but to do what? You'd touched on that earlier. I think. It's a scary thought, the idea of Shepard entrapping his consciousness in these Old Machines, and squandering eternity in some black corner of Dark Space. I mean, would Shepard be so selfless? Would anyone?

I can't really answer that, but it contributed to why I picked Synthesis. I even walked up to the Control station, and just couldn't do it. It seemed too tragic, especially considering Saren and the Illusive Man. What if Shepard lost his sanity or worse, what if he didn't? In Synthesis, at least Shepard's legacy would be visible; I could give him glory. For me, at the time, that was important. It was as if I picked Synthesis by deduction.

Er, anyway, yeah, Control/Destroy are similar, but I feel like they diverge in some significant ways.

Also, the quality of the endings didn't concern me at the time. What about you? Like, in hindsight, I can take what I've been reading and really start to break it all down, but when I was experiencing it, I had to pause and sit there and think about what to do, about what each choice could potentially mean; I thought about the very first time I turned the first game on, and how everything had lead up to this moment, and how I had to, as a player, do right by Shepard, who stood before me bloody and confused and battered all to hell. If I played it now, I'd probably hate it. I've read too much on it, but... at first, it was pretty cool.

I an see what you're saying. I agree they differ philosophically, but they don't differ in a real practical sense. We can make new geth right? They won't be the same Geth, but they'll still be a sapient synthetic race. And this won't take long, a few years, maybe a generation. The catalyst is a practical fellow, having the Reapers cull organic life before it can create its own extinction is a bizarre and cruel, but oddly practical solution. I would expect the new solutions (2 of them aren't even solutions to the problem he's so worried about.) to differ in a practical manner. Maybe that's weird?

When I first finished it, I hated it. Within a couple lines from the Catalyst I had been completely divorced from the narrative that had engulfed me for 35 hours over 4 or 5 days. For reasons expertly described by strange aeons and Drayfish, I found every choice abhorrent, not just for moral reasons, but for Narrative Reasons. For 3 games I saw the Reapers as this Post Singularity (although at the time I didn't know the actual term) menace who used organics simply for procreation (ME2 storyline). Every 50k years they harvested the galaxy to build more reapers and cull any eventual opposition and no one had ever been able to do anything about it. That sounds kind of simple, but the simplicity made it really effective for me. "We Will grind you up into paste and make you into one of us, and there is nothing you can do about it!"

You exist because we allow it, and you will die because we demand it.

Then the catalyst was telling me they were a solution to a conflict that the game had just taken great pains to downplay (Geth/Quarians, EDI). They weren't even the problem anymore, now they were the solution. The way that the Catalyst was so inconsistent with his pronouns (I created them, you want to destroy us), and the way he seemed to steer me towards control and synthesis (the two that jumped out at me as bad/dumb) made me really suspicious. I sort of superficially picked control, because at the time I could better grapple w/ the idea that I could do it even though TIM couldn't, and I didn't want to destroy the Geth, and even though I was sort of out of it I felt inherently that synthesis was bad (I was making everyone reapers, homogenizing the galaxy, with a mechanic that made no sense). But it wasn't really a reasoned choice, it was more like submission. "Fine, I guess I pick blue."

The ending felt like it belonged in Deus Ex, not mass effect. I learned later that the origninal DE had essentially the same three choices (merge with technology, destroy technology, work with illuminati to control advancement). This thread has sort of reinforced that. I feel like the endings work in a vacuum, but not within the actual 100 hr Narrative. For me I think it could've worked (though it still would've needed adequate foreshadowing) if you could question the Catalyst, point out why he's crazy or why you agree with him (like with Mordin in ME2) and then gotten the choices I described earlier: 1)Better explained synthesis, 2) Stand aside and let Reapers reap, or 3) destroy just the reapers. I think most people would've picked 3, and hardly any would pick 2. But then the options would've matched the scenario, there wouldn't have been the feeling that we were cornered into 1 of 3 ridiculous choices we would never have otherwise made.

I'll reiterate that I still don't see a reason why Shepard standing there means his solution won't work. I don't see how its connected to the quarian/geth. Is it because this cycle is fighting back? This cycle was only successful because the protheans changed the keepers so the Reapers couldn't take the Citadel by surprise, but once this cycle is over they could just fix the Keepers and get back to normal, easy, reaping. So what changed? Would it have still changed if Anderson was there? Or some random marine?

But I think living without the dread of Reapers is what the Catalyst is offering. Organics must be the custodians of their universe. It is up to them to challenge this prophecy. It warns Shepard of the dangers of playing God, of creating artifical life, of abusing technology, but is nonetheless supplanted. It has realized organic life is worthy of self-determination despite knowing that organic life is doomed.

Whereas the old solution kept order, the new solution permits chaos.

I don't think the endings are remedies from destruction, only the removal of a divine authority that had always been repressing organic life.

In a way, I don't think your idea of the Reapers is contradicted by the Catalyst. It admits organics were being robbed of their forms. Organic life had never been capable of opposing them. They were very literally grinding us into paste and there really was nothing we could do to stop it.

Much earlier in this topic, I'd talked about synthetic life being a symbol of technology. I stand by that. I think the polarity between nature and technology had created a constant tension throughout the story. When I confronted the Catalyst, I never felt as though this theme was downplayed, because I looked at it both literally and metaphorically.

Sorry you felt divorced from the game though. That sucks.

I've never played Deus Ex and I'm not familiar with its ending. I know I haven't properly addressed your points here (I just got out of school), but I do appreciate where your coming from and your perspective has definitely influenced my own.

Since I don't believe in IT, I think Shepard's resistance to Indoctrination may be worth noting. I also think he is rewarded for his efforts by a presumably omniscient Catalyst who chooses to reveal itself to him. Why it selects Shepard to be the deliverer of organic life is... left to conjecture. We don't know. I don't know. I'll think about it.

(I feel like my post here has a lot of nonsense and spelling errors. I have so many excuses though. I grew up underprivileged, natch.)

[DSGrant]

The professor's post was a much more articulate explanation on the enormous literary mistakes of the ending (and appropriately so given his academic profession) than I offered here:

http://social.biowar...0195/1#11486503

[Hawk227]

Avarenda wrote...

Hawk227 wrote...

I an see what you're saying. I agree they differ philosophically, but they don't differ in a real practical sense. We can make new geth right? They won't be the same Geth, but they'll still be a sapient synthetic race.

Thats like saying 'It doesn't matter if a whole bunch of  people die, babies will born soon to replace them anyway.'

We cant 'remake' the geth because being sentient means being unique. Its one of a kind, irriplaceable.

If you had a family member die, but someone offered to clone them would you be like 'yeah, sure. Sounds great!'

No.

Even if they look like your loved one, the truth of the matter is they're NOT and that they CANNOT be replaced.

I agree with you completely. Obviously I didn't word it right. Although, no promises that this will be better...

I guess what I meant was that, if you wiped out Batarians they would be gone. You could not recreate a species of Batarians. That race would be gone forever. If you wiped out the Geth, you could start over and literally make new Geth. On the individual level, they would not be the same (just as killing your sister and then cloning her wouldn't be the same), and it would in no way make good on the original genocide. But you would once again have Geth.

I had asked if there was a really a tangible difference between Control and Destroy, and Optimisticked said (or rather I interpreted) that in one you are eliminating technology and starting over, essentially restarting the clock on synthetic life. I was pointing out that wasn't much of a restart, because within a generation (guess) we'd caught back up.

[Kloreep]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

I object only to the "people being upset means it was successful in some way" meme. It's something I see over and over again in discussions of writing, and I think the premise there is faulty. Some really great artistic stuff causes huge, culture-war grade discussion, some mediocre stuff does, and really, truly awful stuff seems to cause more discussion than anything else.

...

Here's something I do consider valid: the fact that you, personally, enjoyed the ending means it was partially successful.

Was about to say that I didn't agree with your previous post before this one, then you posted the first bit of this quote.

To all of this quote, *thumbs up*

optimistickied wrote...

Also, the quality of the endings didn't concern me at the time. What about you?

Yep, they did.

Admittedly, it's largely an emotional thing based on circumstance. I would have disliked the ending no matter what, and my previous posts have explained why. But that I was so upset is definitely a matter of circumstance.

First, the ending has the disadvantage of being the ending. There's nothing after it to "cleanse the palette" (unless you count that short and meh stargazer scene) so I walked away with the most highly objectionable scenes as the most recent and freshest in my mind. Second, it has the disadvantage of being placed into an otherwise awesome game: everything before that seemed to me at worst mediocre and at best really damn good, so the ending was set up to be a sharp and unsignalled drop going up against some high expectations. (I'd seen murmurings of discontent, but also hadn't gotten much of a read on them beyond "the ending may be a downer," which didn't sound worrisome at all.) Third, like CulturalGeekGirl, I stayed up late to finish - played straight through from the Cerberus base assault, not realizing just how far from the end I still was. So mentally, I was both deep into it and tired.

I knew something was going very wrong with the game soon after the platform raised Shepard up. The only thing I could immediately put my finger on (though it's a biggy) was that I called bull on pretty much everything the Catalyst was telling me. Yet, my videogame-senses were tingling and telling me that yes, there's no nuance here, I'm really just expected to swallow this exposition and make this DX-style ending choice accepting this as true. So I briefly considered destroy, but rejected it on account of the Geth. (Though the quote didn't come to mind, "submission is NOT preferable to extinction" sums it up.) I ended up going with synthesis, because at least it was merely confusing, at least it merely sounded impossible and stupid, rather than being outright repugnant. Like Hawk227, it didn't feel I'd picked it in a reasoned way, just drifted into it as the least worst way of submitting to this bizarre twist the game was determined to enforce.

I continued to be further shocked and dismayed by the nonsensical events of the Normandy scenes. ("AREN'T THEY DEAD??? Teleportation! WOW! I... um... WOW.") And then the music swelled and there was a fade to black and I realized that was it. I angrily started slamming on the escape key, but it didn't do anything because apparently there was one last thing, so then I sat through the stargazer scene. Then got to the credits, ESCed out of them, and walked away fuming.

The first people I talked to about it afterwards were fellow sci-fi fans, but not fellow ME fans. I wasn't all that articulate yet and they had no ME-specific knowledge, so that best I could describe it to them was "it was gorram Battlestar Galactica all over again." (There may have been more, and less fictional, curse words in there.) Even if it didn't give them any actual critique, it at least got my emotional experience across to them: in the middle of experiencing the ending to a series I'd loved, the story somehow botched so bad as to take me from ardent fan to yelling at the screen in less than an hour. (In ME's case, in far less than an hour.)

So yeah, heh... I'll admit cool-headed critique only goes so far as an explanation for my own reaction.

azerSheppard wrote...

Your proff should read up on AI design, it'll take more than a lit degree to understand the one true future, which is an inevitable tech singularity (or something so advanced it may as well be a singularity).
AI will always pose this danger, nomatter how benevelont it is to organics.

tho ME writers have little understanding of the concept, and as to why only the first game made sense AI wise.

I'm not sure if I understand your post, but I think I generally agree with you. I don't object to the singularity as a concept. But I don't feel that ME earned it, or handled it particularly well in the few moments like the ending where it did though on it.

optimistickied wrote...

It has realized organic life is worthy of self-determination despite knowing that organic life is doomed.

I too am unsure what about this cycle proved this to the Catalyst. That the organics of this cycle can fight a mean war? As someone else (Hawk?) pointed out, we would never have gotten this far if we hadn't stood on the shoulders of the Protheans. And it doesn't sound like either they or we did much to advance the Crucible, we were merely remarkable in actually building the thing. Ultimatley, neither the Prothean Empire nor our cycle were able to break the cycle on our own.

The only way I can figure it makes sense to me is to think of it as an exact test set up millennia ago: "organics must build the Crucible and hook it up to the Citadel, and then an organic must make it to this control room. If organics can do that well we were wrong." In which case I question why they arrived on this weird and seemingly arbitrary standard of "proof" against their view.

optimistickied wrote...

I don't think the endings are remedies from destruction, only the removal of a divine authority that had always been repressing organic life.

Fair enough, that does make the Catalyst a bit more sensical to me. Though I still have the problems listed just above.

optimistickied wrote...

Much earlier in this topic, I'd talked about synthetic life being a symbol of technology. I stand by that. I think the polarity between nature and technology had created a constant tension throughout the story. When I confronted the Catalyst, I never felt as though this theme was downplayed, because I looked at it both literally and metaphorically.

I'm still curious about going back to the analogies I set up earlier, if you found interest in them. What separates bioengineering as a method for control from other technology? If nothing, why is intelligent synthetic life identified with technology more than intelligent organic life? I think the Krogan, or Cerberus' experiments with the Rachni & Thorian, or some experiments (like on the Yahg) that we see in Priority: Sur'Kesh, and so on... they show how a biomodification-inclined empire like the Salarians could be just as menacing as a synthetic species (or an organic species that successfully controls synthetics) - whether said empire ends up as an agent of order (experiments are successful and their control and power grows) or as agent of chaos (created rebels against the creator and yada yada).

optimistickied wrote...

(I feel like my post here has a
lot of nonsense and spelling errors. I have so many excuses though. I
grew up underprivileged, natch.)

You're one of the best-spoken (best-written?) posters here. You trying to brag or something, ese?

Modifié par Kloreep, 19 avril 2012 - 11:00 .

[Cobra's_back]

bump still great read.

[Hawk227]

optimistickied wrote...

But I think living without the dread of Reapers is what the Catalyst is offering. Organics must be the custodians of their universe. It is up to them to challenge this prophecy. It warns Shepard of the dangers of playing God, of creating artifical life, of abusing technology, but is nonetheless supplanted. It has realized organic life is worthy of self-determination despite knowing that organic life is doomed.

Whereas the old solution kept order, the new solution permits chaos.

I don't think the endings are remedies from destruction, only the removal of a divine authority that had always been repressing organic life.

In a way, I don't think your idea of the Reapers is contradicted by the Catalyst. It admits organics were being robbed of their forms. Organic life had never been capable of opposing them. They were very literally grinding us into paste and there really was nothing we could do to stop it.

Much earlier in this topic, I'd talked about synthetic life being a symbol of technology. I stand by that. I think the polarity between nature and technology had created a constant tension throughout the story. When I confronted the Catalyst, I never felt as though this theme was downplayed, because I looked at it both literally and metaphorically.

Sorry you felt divorced from the game though. That sucks.

I've never played Deus Ex and I'm not familiar with its ending. I know I haven't properly addressed your points here (I just got out of school), but I do appreciate where your coming from and your perspective has definitely influenced my own.

Since I don't believe in IT, I think Shepard's resistance to Indoctrination may be worth noting. I also think he is rewarded for his efforts by a presumably omniscient Catalyst who chooses to reveal itself to him. Why it selects Shepard to be the deliverer of organic life is... left to conjecture. We don't know. I don't know. I'll think about it.

(I feel like my post here has a lot of nonsense and spelling errors. I have so many excuses though. I grew up underprivileged, natch.)

I see what your saying about choices being about removal of divine authority. But I have trouble reconciling that with what the Catalyst says. He delivers his premise about the created rebelling against its creators. Then he says his solution won't work, and that we have to find a new solution. He's still using the word "solution" to refer to the Organics vs. Synthetics conflict. Then he gives you three options, only one of which is a solution.

For the reapers as villains, I think the motivation matters. In ME1 it sounded like they did it just because they could. In ME2 you learn about the colonists being made into a proto-reaper and it throws the reproduction angle in there. Both of those things are scary. Not just "we're grinding you into a paste and you can't stop us". "We're grinding you into paste, you can't stop us and we're doing it simply to make more of us." When that changes to "We're grinding you into paste, you can stop us if you want, but we're only doing it to help you" it kind of kills it for me.

Maybe this is unfair, but a little part of it is that it's impossible not to get this scene. You can do the absolute bare minimum and still meet the catalyst. No matter what, shepard can stop them. If you do the minimum it doesn't turn out as well, Destroy is your only choice and Earth is incinerated, but the rest of the galaxy is free.

I saw the generic Organic/technology theme (apparently I don't know what to call it), but for me it faded out after ME1. In ME1 you can talk to Kaidan about L2 implants, and you meet the biotic terrorists that are all pissed about their L2 implants, there's the rogue AI on the citadel and the rogue VI on Luna, and theres the rogue scientists doing awful things in the name of ... science. But these are all optional quests. I only met the rogue AI on my most recent (maybe 4th time) playthrough. In ME2, I didn't see these things (I'm also a little obtuse). Cerberus put you back together, but that seemed to be for the best. Everyone had moved on to L3 and L4 implants, so that wasn't an issue. I'm sure the bad things in the name of science was still there, but it was apparently no longer plot relevant. You have an awesome, helpful, funny loyal AI on board. Then you meet Legion and you start to get the idea that even the Geth conflict wasn't as it seemed. These last two things were even cemented in ME3. You see the Quarians initiated the morning war, EDI takes on a physical form to see the world like an organic would even adjusting her protocol and falling in love with Joker. By the time the end came around I was seeing the intertwining with technology as an unambiguously good thing. But like I said before, I was genuinely worried about the Krogan. I've generally kept Paragon but if Eve hadn't been so cool, I wouldn't have cured the genophage. So the end was almost an unsupported rebuttal of the last 2 games for me. I was substantially more worried about an Organic race than I was about technology and specifically synthetic life.

I never played the first Deus Ex, but I played the newest one. And its very much about these issues (and so was the first apparently). As you go through it you see the good and bad in technological advancement (people are actually replacing organic limbs with robotic upgrades, and getting microchips to make them more charismatic). You meet people with differing opinions (It's all good, it's all bad, we need to regulate it) and its up to the player to decide how they feel at the end. It seemed a much more appropriate journey

Your interpretation of the catalyst as omniscient and rewarding of shepard is interesting. I would disagree (naturally). He very heavily implies that Shepard will die in the destroy option, but it is possible for him to survive. Also, the choices you get, and the catalysts attitude toward you, are tied to your EMS level. With low EMS he treats you as an annoyance, and your given only one option. As your EMS improve new options are made available (control, and then synthesis). Does he reward you more as you better unite the galaxy? That seems plausible. But why start with destroy? In his eyes that's the worst solution. But if you distrust the Catalyst it would be the best solution, the Reapers can't rebel against your control, and you don't homogenize the galaxy into reapers. I'm not sure any of this negates what your saying, but it seemed a relevant point.

As for IT, I actually am a believer. It fixes the narrative coherence issues for me, it's reasonably well foreshadowed, it makes Arrival relevant again, and it makes for a really interesting storytelling mechanic. Indoctrinate the player! I think that's cool. If you're at all curious I would suggest poking in on the main hallucination IT theory thread (with 1500+ pages). Any articulate well reasoned voice is welcomed, whether they agree with us or not. Also, sorry for being so long winded. I don't even have a good excuse like being a lit professor.

Modifié par Hawk227, 19 avril 2012 - 11:47 .

[Giga Drill BREAKER]

I approve of op's profs opinion

[drayfish]

Sorry for another long one (so please feel free to ignore, as always, and be sure to pull on your hyperbole-pants), but the discussion going on here about the development of games as a medium is too fertile...
 
Earlier in this discussion (on page 27), Optimistickied, in conversation with Hawk227, gave a fantastic account of the experience of the final decision: the weight of possibility that those decisions contained, the hesitance after almost making one choice, and then following the consequences of that selection through to its end. Quite gripping. Obviously I have my own issues with the details of the ending which marred my personal investment in that decision, but it still makes me extremely happy to see that people can, did and do legitimately engage with this moment in the fiction with such emotional intensity.
 
Optimistickied's account made me remember those first moments in my first play though of Mass Effect 1 when my internal-monologue finally clicked to realise: 'Oh wait: you're gonna remember all this stuff? So this matters?! '  It was thrilling. I guess it's that feeling that I have been chasing though all the games since. Once your brain embraces that meta-narrative structure, once you become invested in the notion that you are helping shape this universe (as Bioware has repeatedly invited us to do so), you resonate with this story in a way that, arguably, films, fiction, and theatre cannot match. 
 
You're no longer simply watching a Shepard help a Legion through a moment of burgeoning individual identity. You are Shepard, Legion is your friend, and when he asks you if he has a soul, you put your controller down for a moment and bawl like an infant. You invest in the themes of the work in a uniquely intimate way because you are helping (and again I don't say writing, but helping) advance the narrative.
 
...And I know that at this point it might sound like I'm just banging on an angry-drum, but I think this helps explain that fury that some fans have felt – that sense of betrayal that echoes after the credits roll – a frustration that bakes cupcakes, that signs petitions, that 'retakes' Mass Effects. As audience members we have been invited to help steer this car (sure, by necessity we were sitting on Bioware's lap the whole time), but that sense of freedom and abandon that we could imagine for ourselves, that we could feel through the thrum of the engine under our hands, was like no other narrative engagement up to this point. (...By the way, I do not endorse children helping to drive a car – nor writing an expansive tripartite narrative structure).
 
Any artistic engagement involves some suspension of disbelief. Watching theatre is foremost about forgetting that there should be a fourth wall blocking your view, or wondering why doorframes and backdrops look so shaky; video games likewise operate under comparable structural parameters, and certainly we are still in an age where the demands of game design necessitate some funnelling of the fiction, but up until those endings I thought the Mass Effect universe did a superb job at vibrating those invisible narrative walls well enough to allow me to utterly invest in the premise. The end of Mass Effect 2, for example, with its branching consequences, multiple death scenarios, and potential for complete failure, remained wholly consistent, and yet gave you the capacity to guide your ideological engagement with the scripted events. You could save the collector base or blow it all to hell. Don't like Thane?  Well in the vent you go, sir...
 
For those of us unsatisfied with the ending of Mass Effect 3, having that agency taken away, being told that we were no longer allowed to participate in the thematic drive of the work, frankly, stung.  And in a fiction in which one of the major, repeated horrors visited upon characters is to have their free will stripped away (Geth, Indoctrination, etc.), this kind of narrative imposition felt even more distasteful. 
 
But again, the beauty of this franchise is that it is only because the journey was so great, the sense of freedom and investment so profound, that it can provoke so dramatic a reaction, elicit such hatred or inspire such defence, offering the capacity for vibrant debate on all sides of the argument.
 
(By the way: there was an early console called the Odyssey? That is brilliant...)

Modifié par drayfish, 20 avril 2012 - 01:49 .