5087 réponses à ce sujet

[Kilshrek]

ManiacalShen wrote...

So when, at the end, you're left going, "Who is this Star Kid, what is up with these choices, and are you telling me that this thing can rewrite - or in the case of synthetics, CREATE - all DNA in the galaxy but can't selectively destroy the Reapers?" it's really not the same, in my opinion.  The bad consequences of your options didn't feel like they had to happen or necessarily even made sense, and I was not convinced that it was Shepard's place to either kill synthetic life just to take out the Reapers soonest or rewrite everyone's biology.  I mean, she just lucked out, being the only one who made it there alive.  Control I can kind of see, but man that feels like a trap, plus that whole thing were you JUST shot TIM for trying to support that idea.  That's why I bolded that bit of the post above; I agree with it strongly.

This part right here is where the end falls apart.

Shepard fought to protect and defend all life. That included the geth. And the rest is as you say.

ManiacalShen wrote...
Heroic sacrifice?  I can take it or leave it, because I see it as
being in-theme but too depressing for words.  Shepard hasn't had a life
of her own for years, to the point of being brought back from the dead
to fight this war.  Not everything is shiny perfect after the fact?  War
is hell - that's a solid theme of the series.  Even destroying the
Relays I get, even if it sucks, since civilization could be said to need
to jump the rails of Reaper-directed advancement.  But what exactly
happened, and how?  No.

And this is where there is no emotional payoff. No sense of achievement. That short scene with Stargazer at the end? That was supposed to be some sort of emotional payoff? It's kind of okay for a high concept thing, but when you spend more than 100 hours with a character, and the lives of those who intersect with the character, having all those threads cut so abruptly is jarring to say the least.

[M8DMAN]

I'd buy that guy a beer.

[nitefyre410]

Made Nightwing wrote...

So, my lit professor and I are nerds. I throw in 'but the prize' references on my essays about Odysseus and Achilles, he throws in Firefly references in his lectures, we get on great. Now, I've previously mentioned that he disliked the endings, but today he gave me a full rundown on what exactly he found displeasing about the endgame:

"I don't get it. You get a choice between control. I just shot The Illusive Man five minutes ago because I said that we weren't ready for that power. Why on Earth isn't there an option to express how faulty that choice is? And then Destroy? Dammit, I just saved the geth and quarians, they're working together as a re-united race. Why is genocide an option? WHY? And then Synthesis just completely mistakes everything about evolution. There is no apex of evolution, we continue to adapt and move forward or we die. Aside from that, I'm forcing a choice on the entire galaxy, without the option to tell the damn thing to go to hell! All three endings were so entirely removed from the themes of the whole series that they were completely unrecognisable! It's like Casey had just finished playing Deus Ex and Mac had just watcched teh season finale of BSG."

"If I'm going to speak about 'artistic integrity', I will be compelled to point out that the ending was in no way the artistic vision of the team. BW has already stated that the ending was thought up between Casey and Mac, without any part of the peer review process being consulted. It was not a product of the team, but individuals. Aside from that, saying that artistic integrity forbids them from changing the ending is ridiculous. Many novelists have re-written entire works because of negative feedback on them. Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist in chapters, publishing each one as they went, and each chapter would be based on the feedback that he got for that chapter. Conan Doyle brought Holmes back from the dead. Those are just wo examples, there are many more. BW broke their own artistic integrity when they allowed EA to set their deadline. Now there are many things that you can say about ME1, but you can never say that it was rushed. The graphics were glitchy, sure, but the characters and dialogue were finely polished."

"In conclusion, I must say again that all the endings were thematically revolting. It is absolutely critical in the name of good writing that the ending of a story must match the journey. Mass Effect has never been a story about the disparity between synthetics and organics. As a matter of fact, it has been quite the obvious. For three games, BW has hinted and pointed out that life could be so much more greater and mysterious than the organic perception. It's driven the point home, time and time again, that unity is possible. So why, then, at the very end of a series that has clearly been about unity and co-existence, would they end it with the point that different forms of life simply cannot co-exist unless their diversity is totally stripped away? It makes no sense. Furthermore, it is emotionally crushing that all this hope of co-existence that has been built up from the quarian-geth storyline  (Geth Prime:...and then we will help you rebuild your world.) is suddenly yanked away at the last second. Good day."

Dr. C. Dray.

  

Good  sir I would like to say that your professor is 100% pure awesome and I could not have had said it better myself.  

[Laurencio]

Made Nightwing wrote...

So, my lit professor and I are nerds. I throw in 'but the prize' references on my essays about Odysseus and Achilles, he throws in Firefly references in his lectures, we get on great. Now, I've previously mentioned that he disliked the endings, but today he gave me a full rundown on what exactly he found displeasing about the endgame:

"I don't get it. You get a choice between control. I just shot The Illusive Man five minutes ago because I said that we weren't ready for that power. Why on Earth isn't there an option to express how faulty that choice is? And then Destroy? Dammit, I just saved the geth and quarians, they're working together as a re-united race. Why is genocide an option? WHY? And then Synthesis just completely mistakes everything about evolution. There is no apex of evolution, we continue to adapt and move forward or we die. Aside from that, I'm forcing a choice on the entire galaxy, without the option to tell the damn thing to go to hell! All three endings were so entirely removed from the themes of the whole series that they were completely unrecognisable! It's like Casey had just finished playing Deus Ex and Mac had just watcched teh season finale of BSG."

"If I'm going to speak about 'artistic integrity', I will be compelled to point out that the ending was in no way the artistic vision of the team. BW has already stated that the ending was thought up between Casey and Mac, without any part of the peer review process being consulted. It was not a product of the team, but individuals. Aside from that, saying that artistic integrity forbids them from changing the ending is ridiculous. Many novelists have re-written entire works because of negative feedback on them. Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist in chapters, publishing each one as they went, and each chapter would be based on the feedback that he got for that chapter. Conan Doyle brought Holmes back from the dead. Those are just wo examples, there are many more. BW broke their own artistic integrity when they allowed EA to set their deadline. Now there are many things that you can say about ME1, but you can never say that it was rushed. The graphics were glitchy, sure, but the characters and dialogue were finely polished."

"In conclusion, I must say again that all the endings were thematically revolting. It is absolutely critical in the name of good writing that the ending of a story must match the journey. Mass Effect has never been a story about the disparity between synthetics and organics. As a matter of fact, it has been quite the obvious. For three games, BW has hinted and pointed out that life could be so much more greater and mysterious than the organic perception. It's driven the point home, time and time again, that unity is possible. So why, then, at the very end of a series that has clearly been about unity and co-existence, would they end it with the point that different forms of life simply cannot co-exist unless their diversity is totally stripped away? It makes no sense. Furthermore, it is emotionally crushing that all this hope of co-existence that has been built up from the quarian-geth storyline  (Geth Prime:...and then we will help you rebuild your world.) is suddenly yanked away at the last second. Good day."

Dr. C. Dray.

I thought exactly the same

[my Aim is True]

Couldn't have put it better myself. Thanks for sharing.
Bioware! Why u no listen to this man?!?!?!?!

[WhiteVV1ings]

Excellent points and spot on.

[sergio71785]

FatalX7.0 wrote...
It's not a gif. Gifs are animated.

Not necessarily. GIFs are capable of being animated, but they can still be used for still images (in fact, it's a good idea to use GIFs for "low color" images like the Fry pic, since you get no jpeg artifacts and small filesize).

[shodiswe]

ManiacalShen wrote...

Strange Aeons wrote...

Let's ignore the insanity of Shepard taking the word of the catalyst, an unknown creature who just appeared out of nowhere with absolutely no buildup or justification, at face value in making a choice that could potentially condemn the galaxy to a fate worse than death (really, the most sensible conclusion about the Catalyst from Shepard's perspective would be that it's a trap). These "choices" do not even rate as meaningful ethical dilemmas, where there's some doubt as to what's good and bad. They are outright evil, and not even in an abstract way: each manages impressively to contradict the specific lessons of the previous events in its own unique way.  After explicitly stating that he would not sacrifice his soul for victory, ME3's ending forces Shepard to do exactly that;  each "choice" demands that Shepard commit a senseless and unconscionable act and then calls the nebulous outcome victory.

Nothing in the preceding games established this sort of hopeless, futile tone, and for good reason: people do not generally play games only to have all their efforts reduced to nothing and then perverted into an atrocity.  People are revolted by the ending, in part because it's a betrayal of the themes of self-determination and strength through unity, as well as the unprecedented interactivity that they loved about the series. This is not some calculated philosophical meditation: it's just plain thoughtless and incompetent storytelling.

The only option that would actually be consistent with Shepard's character as established over three games is the one we weren't given: to defy the Catalyst and refuse to accept his false dilemma. 

I was going to respond to the OP, but actually I'll just tack some points onto this great post.

Where I think a lot of the disagreements come from is the idea of tones and expectation.  When people bring up the idea of an impossible choice and the legitimacy of a grimdark ending, they're not WRONG, exactly, but I disagree that such a thing is totally appropriate here.

Mass Effect is not a nihilistic arthouse piece.  It is an epic-scale, epic-length hero's journey.  Real life can be crappy, random, horrible, unfair, and totally nonsensical - but fiction does not have to be.  A lot of times, we don't WANT fiction to be.  It has its own set of rules by which it plays, used to draw precise emotional reactions from the audience.  Story turns should make a sort of meta sense, following those rules.  Audiences know these things, and if they want to see something that reminds them of how life sucks, and then you die (so you'd better appreciate it), they watch or read something known to be depressing.  This is not generally why people get emotionally invested in hero's journeys, however.

The games had tough choices, as suits a gritty setting, but there was always a perceived, worthy reason for making them.  I left Aralakh company to die and felt like a huge jerk, but I thought we needed those Rachni.  The Heretic choice in ME2, as well, was tough, and another poster was right to bring that up as possible thematic foreshadowing.  However, those two instances have key differences from the overall ending - someone was screwed either way, and it felt like Shepard's place to make those decisions.  Either the krogan soldiers or the Rachni were going to die, and Shepard was in command of the operation.  Her choice to make and live with, to own up to when she talks to Wrex.  The heretics were Reaper-tainted and, if left unchecked, would continue to cause destruction on multiple levels.  Legion, avatar of the non-indoctrinated Geth consensus, the only party who could be said to hold any responsibility or ownership over the other Geth (who were no longer able to decide for themselves), PUT that choice in Shepard's lap.

So when, at the end, you're left going, "Who is this Star Kid, what is up with these choices, and are you telling me that this thing can rewrite - or in the case of synthetics, CREATE - all DNA in the galaxy but can't selectively destroy the Reapers?" it's really not the same, in my opinion.  The bad consequences of your options didn't feel like they had to happen or necessarily even made sense, and I was not convinced that it was Shepard's place to either kill synthetic life just to take out the Reapers soonest or rewrite everyone's biology.  I mean, she just lucked out, being the only one who made it there alive.  Control I can kind of see, but man that feels like a trap, plus that whole thing were you JUST shot TIM for trying to support that idea.  That's why I bolded that bit of the post above; I agree with it strongly.

Heroic sacrifice?  I can take it or leave it, because I see it as being in-theme but too depressing for words.  Shepard hasn't had a life of her own for years, to the point of being brought back from the dead to fight this war.  Not everything is shiny perfect after the fact?  War is hell - that's a solid theme of the series.  Even destroying the Relays I get, even if it sucks, since civilization could be said to need to jump the rails of Reaper-directed advancement.  But what exactly happened, and how?  No.

I still can't see why Shepard doesn't get the option of atempting a diplomatic conversation examining the options, the catalysts motives and why the catalyst insists that those three options are the only ones present.. The catalyst should have an unlimted amount of options available, it's not bound by ABC.  Negotiate a deal, if you fail then you still got the three options. The catalyst said it itself, a new solution is needed, it doesn't belive in it's solution any more.
This is where you talk about options.
This situation is no different from the situation you had with Legion and Tali, you can save one of their peoples, or if you're crafty then you can save both of them.

This is Shepards chance to do what Shepards everywhere does best, like Garrus said, pacify the reapers with words... Now that would be a miracle, I think it seems nearly impossible considering the previous reapers you meet but then again they had no authority to question the reaper doctrine, they were mere underligns of the catalyst and harbinger... Now youre talking to the king of all reapers and it's expressing doubts about it's solution. Bring the argumetns home!!! Make it an epic battle of the minds, this is the most epic diplomatic mission shepard has ever had, talkign down the reapers that have been destroying life for an eternity and taken away natural evolution from both organic and synthetic life for the cause of maintaining order, yet at the same time it considers Organic life to define caos, synthetic life to define order, and yet it wants to stop order from winning comletely and does so by enforcing order every 50000years.
According to Javic organic life was turning the tide and winning against their synthetic nemesis in the previous cycle, in this cycle the geth were on the verge of being destroyed until the reapers intervened.
It's reasoning is flawed, no matter how smart or howmuch data it can analyse it's blinded by it's convictions it's "faith" that borders religious zealotry. Make it see it's wrong. I can't always be done but since the catalyst was expressing doubt..

[Kunari801]

RollaWarden wrote...

... I'm disappointed that such enormous potential for transcendence in storytelling through the medium of video games was squandered when (what I suspect happened--of course we can only speculate) the ugly corporate head of greed bulldozed creative development.  I had believed that in the ME series I was seeing a new level of interactive storytelling--the ascension of a new genre with production values, writing, and direction on par with any film, and transcending film through the interactive nature of video games. 


...Then in 10 minutes at the end of ME3, that potential died in three colors.  That's what saddens me the most: the wasted potential.  And now the artists are (forced?) to hide behind a wall of carefully planned PR statements and long palls of silence.  Worse still, our wholly justified and consistently accurate criticism of the endings has been twisted into yet another cynical marketing slogan.  Just a shame.

I'll tell all of you, fellow posters, what I tell my students, and what we've discussed in my fantasy literature class this semester.  Never give in.  Never surrender.  Hold the line.  Coninue to stand united, in one voice, championing the achievement that the ME series has represented through 99% of the series, and the potential it still has.  That potential still exists if the artists on the ME3 development team can come to terms with what they did to the series, and what they can still do to correct it with this summer's DLC.

Hold the Line.

Since I've made a claim about what I do for a living, I'll sign my post.  Cheers, everyone.  Time to start prepping for my classes today.

Best,

Dan Reardon
Assistant Professor
Director of Composition
Department of English and Technical Communication
Missouri University of Science and Technology

Brilliant sir!  

I'm not a professor nor a teacher, just some IT guy.  You, as the OPs Professor, put into words my feelings on the ending. 

Modifié par Kunari801, 16 avril 2012 - 03:12 .

[mirage2154]

Bump!

[lil_lene]

shodiswe wrote...

Jassu1979 wrote...

count_4 wrote...

Kudos to your prof. He nailed it.

Emerrgency Induction Porrt! One of my favourite scenes in the game.

That scene is pretty good considering it's just one of those little Normandy side shows  

Man this scene was awesome. I really wish it was more like the ME1 conversation or even keep them the same with the same flow but have it change camera angles to their faces (or Miranda's behind).

[eddieoctane]

When someone with a doctorate in literature says the endings are bad, a guy with an MD should shut the hell up on the matter and admit defeat. Just saying. I have a BS in engineering but worked as an ER tech while in school. Doesn't make me qualified to say anything on medicine. Working in the video game industry doesn't make Ray Muzyka, MD an authority on art, games, or narratives. Not his field, so his opinion has no standing. Unless you're going to admit that playing games for 20+ years makes me somewhat authoritative in the field as well. And there are far more people like me who hate the ending than people like Ray who approve.

[Cobra's_back]

Op nice work. Really agree with your message.

[RollaWarden]

ManiacalShen wrote...

...

Heroic sacrifice?  I can take it or leave it, because I see it as being in-theme but too depressing for words.  Shepard hasn't had a life of her own for years, to the point of being brought back from the dead to fight this war.  Not everything is shiny perfect after the fact?  War is hell - that's a solid theme of the series.  Even destroying the Relays I get, even if it sucks, since civilization could be said to need to jump the rails of Reaper-directed advancement.  But what exactly happened, and how?  No.

The entire post is outstanding, ManiacalShen; forgive my arbitrary quotation choice.  Your entire post needs to be read. 

While I wholly support the ideas of my colleage Professor Dray, I sincerely believe you forum members do not need us academics to "credentialize" your arguments.  Your post, ManiacalShen, was articulate, precise, wholly supportable, and concisely surmised.  Bravo.

Besides, I have my doubts the ME development team would regard pleas from academic scholars any more than they would your own--and I would argue that they shouldn't.  I remain hopeful that the ME3 development team will thoughtfully read all your excellent posts, and respond with a redemptive summer DLC.

"It is a dream, I have." (Arthur in Excalibur [1981])

Modifié par RollaWarden, 16 avril 2012 - 03:12 .

[sth128]

FatalX7.0 wrote...

aryon69 wrote...

I need that gif of Fry saying "Not sure if serious"

It's not a gif. Gifs are animated.

*** off topic branch below ***

Actually, the graphics interchange image format (ie. *.gif) is not restricted to animated image sequences. The main feature of GIFs is the colour space index which supports up to 8-bit per pixel (ie. 256 colours). It is often used due to its lossless compression as oppose to JPG which is lossy.

For example, if you are making an image full of text (of limited colour space), a GIF would produce better quality than JPG of equivalent file size.

[Aleru]

"I don't get it. You get a choice between control. I just shot The Illusive Man five minutes ago because I said that we weren't ready for that power. Why on Earth isn't there an option to express how faulty that choice is? And then Destroy? Dammit, I just saved the geth and quarians, they're working together as a re-united race. Why is genocide an option? WHY? And then Synthesis just completely mistakes everything about evolution. There is no apex of evolution, we continue to adapt and move forward or we die. Aside from that, I'm forcing a choice on the entire galaxy, without the option to tell the damn thing to go to hell! All three endings were so entirely removed from the themes of the whole series that they were completely unrecognisable! It's like Casey had just finished playing Deus Ex and Mac had just watcched teh season finale of BSG."

I dont quite agree with this entire paragraph.
The Control option... in that point your professor is right. Does not have sense, mostly because you dont have an option in the whole game that you can agree with TIM. Perhaps if bioware let you choose between a renegade path (control the reapers, agrees with TIM most of the game and even help cerberus), and a paragon path (destroy all reapers, does not agree with TIM and try to stop cerberus), that choice would have been explained.

Destroy option...  i do not agree with your professor. In the whole game you sacrifice a lot to achieve victory. Kaidan or Ashley in the first game (wrex too) and the council or the human fleet, Some of your squadmembers trying to stop the collectors and in the third game you can even loose the virmire survivor when trying to save the council. Sacrifice the krogans too or sacrifice the geth or the quarians. The whole series is about sacrificing something to achieve a greater good. Killing the reapers and freeing the galaxy of its menace is a greater good. If you have to sacrifice the geth in the process, thats fit the mood of the entire game.

Synthesis option... thats just...it. I dont quite like it. Does not make a lot of sense, there can be various forms of life and each one is evolving in their own way. Synthesis is the option of the reapers. Harbinger and the reapers wants to ascend the advanced organic life forms into Reaper form. Free of all weakness  and blah blah blah. The whole "apex of evolution" is a very reaper way of thinking. The only difference between the two are that in the synthesis you maintain your individuality and if you are a reaper, well... you dont.

"In conclusion, I must say again that all the endings were thematically revolting. It is absolutely critical in the name of good writing that the ending of a story must match the journey. Mass Effect has never been a story about the disparity between synthetics and organics. As a matter of fact, it has been quite the obvious. For three games, BW has hinted and pointed out that life could be so much more greater and mysterious than the organic perception. It's driven the point home, time and time again, that unity is possible. So why, then, at the very end of a series that has clearly been about unity and co-existence, would they end it with the point that different forms of life simply cannot co-exist unless their diversity is totally stripped away? It makes no sense. Furthermore, it is emotionally crushing that all this hope of co-existence that has been built up from the quarian-geth storyline (Geth Prime:...and then we will help you rebuild your world.) is suddenly yanked away at the last second. Good day."

And with this one, your professor is wrong. Its not until the second game that we can actually think that peace between organics and synthetics is possible (due to Legion). In the first game, the whole mood is "no way, synthetics must be destroyed".  (except perhaps for the tali loyalty mission in me1, when you can see that some geth are...hearing a quarian singer?). There are even a general distrust over AIs. So no... that plot twist started in me2.

[elegolas1]

EnvyTB075 wrote...

Made Nightwing wrote...

sporeian wrote...

I wanna go to your college...NOW!

And now would be an excellent time for me to advertise Campion College in Toongabbie, NSW, Australia..

THAT.......was unexpected.....

?

[frylock23]

I wonder if he's the one who got in trouble with his admin for posting a Firefly/Serenity poster?

[sth128]

elegolas1 wrote...

EnvyTB075 wrote...

Made Nightwing wrote...

sporeian wrote...

I wanna go to your college...NOW!

And now would be an excellent time for me to advertise Campion College in Toongabbie, NSW, Australia..

THAT.......was unexpected.....

?

Maybe Envy didn't know that Australia is part of the common wealth and is filled with educated people, colleges, and sci-fi fans.

[MinatheBrat]

Your professor said that nicely OP.
Thanks for posting!

[Dockerr]

And he didn't even *need* to talk about the mass relays, the plotholes with the catalyst and sovereign or the normandy crashing.

Does his opinion matter more because he's a literature professor? Yeah, it kinda does.

[JadedLibertine]

The OP's professor expressed everything I thought but was too inarticulate to put into words. I will borrow those opinions and pass them off as my own.

At least BioWare can now take some comfort from the long afterlife that ME3 will have being cited by academics as a cautionary example.

[ManiacalShen]

RollaWarden wrote...

ManiacalShen wrote...

...

Heroic sacrifice?  I can take it or leave it, because I see it as being in-theme but too depressing for words.  Shepard hasn't had a life of her own for years, to the point of being brought back from the dead to fight this war.  Not everything is shiny perfect after the fact?  War is hell - that's a solid theme of the series.  Even destroying the Relays I get, even if it sucks, since civilization could be said to need to jump the rails of Reaper-directed advancement.  But what exactly happened, and how?  No.

The entire post is outstanding, ManiacalShen; forgive my arbitrary quotation choice.  Your entire post needs to be read. 

While I wholly support the ideas of my colleage Professor Dray, I sincerely believe you forum members do not need us academics to "credentialize" your arguments.  Your post, ManiacalShen, was articulate, precise, wholly supportable, and concisely surmised.  Bravo.

Besides, I have my doubts the ME development team would regard pleas from academic scholars any more than they would your own--and I would argue that they shouldn't.  I remain hopeful that the ME3 development team will thoughtfully read all your excellent posts, and respond with a redemptive summer DLC.

"It is a dream, I have." (Arthur in Excalibur [1981])

Thank you!

[Repossessor]

Made Nightwing wrote...

"If I'm going to speak about 'artistic integrity', I will be compelled to point out that the ending was in no way the artistic vision of the team. BW has already stated that the ending was thought up between Casey and Mac, without any part of the peer review process being consulted. It was not a product of the team, but individuals."

Dr. C. Dray.

^ This, this, this.  So much this.

[Norrax]

like a boss!