116 réponses à ce sujet

[MaximizedAction]

OP, I've seen the ending tackled from an very basic analytical level.
I think even without knowing the basics of story writing pretty much everyone felt something weird from the point Harbinger's laser hit you. This oddness is of course intended, as it's accompanied by an appropriate audiovisual atmosphere (weird music, dream-like situation) and your armor is burned off, no player really expected this. So that's fine.

This leads up to the Citadel and that's where really odd stuff starts happening, and weird as in: The first time I played this I must've been in some sort of shock, because I didn't even comprehend that it felt nothing like Mass Effect anymore. Everything from that on, in retrospect, feels like glued on, literally, without having the decency of smoothing the glue spot.

And the only resolution to this, the 'twist' seems to be Indoctrination. I'm sorry for mentioning this, but Indoctrination is exactly that sort of thing that, when you look back at the story leading up to the ending, jumps into your face. There are too many scenes in the story that otherwise stand alone as plotholes. For example all the stuff in the infamous Indoctrination vid.

And Indoctrination seems to me like the only way to avoid writing off the ending as amateurish, lazy or stupid, which just seems very irrational in an multimillion dollar production that has Martin Sheen as a main VA in it.

It's possible, but seems just very unlikely. Even more unlikely than the unheard-of claim that Bioware has planned a community wide 'player-indoctrination' right from the start?

And that is the problem with this situation. No one has really any evidence what really happened that lead to this ending. And Bioware's recent actions haven't made it any clearer, if not more irrational and unnatural.

And if humans despise one thing, it's being left in the dark.

Bioware probably aimed for confusion->speculations->fun discussions from , but in reality we went from
confusion->frustration->anger. And we're stuck.
Failed experiment.

[macrocarl]

I'm being serious when I ask this: Is it really the 'plot structure' being messed with that bugs you so much or is it that you just don't like it?

[SolidisusSnake1]

macrocarl wrote...

I'm being serious when I ask this: Is it really the 'plot structure' being messed with that bugs you so much or is it that you just don't like it?

The plot structure being messed up is what makes people not like it. As I said its like watching a light hearted comedy that suddenly turns into a grotesque horror film, its not what you signed up for so you arent going to like it.

[sdfgdsfsdfsfs]

Oldbones2 wrote...

You think that's bad.


What do you think all those goodbyes were BEFORE you charged the beam.


They were denouement (resolution). And it happened BEFORE the climax cause apparently an epilogue was too much to ask for.


And don't tell me that if they weren't there, then you wouldn't get to say goodbye. I know. But ME 3 has a tragic ending. And in tragic endings you never get to say goodbye.

That's part of what makes them so tragic.


Seriously, who wrote this ending.

How could the same people who gave me the AWESOME cutscene of the fleets I worked over three games to build arriving in Sol, turn around and forget how to end a story.

The whole "walk around London and say goodbye to your squad" bit felt very forced and artificial anyway. Once it was obvious they were just having me talk to the characters one by one it took me out of the story and also made me think they were being lazy.

Modifié par sdfgdsfsdfsfs, 17 avril 2012 - 12:05 .

[optimistickied]

The 3-act structure used in Mass Effect expresses plot slightly differently than the classic narrative arc. The climax occurs when the central conflict causes the main character or characters to undergo a violent change or transformation, effectively resolving the outstanding conflict. It is also referred to as the second turning point. This structure is expressed through character development.

People may not like it or desire more clarity or even dispute its logic, but it isn't a writing violation, if such a thing even exists in 2012.

[R8edR]

SolidisusSnake1 wrote...

-The Reapers arent "trapped in Dark Space", the reason for ME1 and the Citadel is that they have always followed a set pattern when it comes to harvesting. The Citadel is a trap, by opening the Citadel relay they instaneuosly appear at the very heart of the Galaxy and destroy the very seat of Galactic government making the other planets easy prey. Also through control of the Citadel they could shut off the Mass Relays cutting each system off from one another. ME1 changed this plan and so they had to start the cycle the hard way through a straightfoward invasion moving through Batarian space and eventually reaching Alliance and Council space. The ending of ME2 showed them waking up and starting to head toward the Milky Way.

The Reapers are trapped in Dark Space.  Vigil (The Prothean VI) on Ilos specifically says that the reapers are trapped in dark space.

[SolidisusSnake1]

R8edR wrote...

SolidisusSnake1 wrote...

-The Reapers arent "trapped in Dark Space", the reason for ME1 and the Citadel is that they have always followed a set pattern when it comes to harvesting. The Citadel is a trap, by opening the Citadel relay they instaneuosly appear at the very heart of the Galaxy and destroy the very seat of Galactic government making the other planets easy prey. Also through control of the Citadel they could shut off the Mass Relays cutting each system off from one another. ME1 changed this plan and so they had to start the cycle the hard way through a straightfoward invasion moving through Batarian space and eventually reaching Alliance and Council space. The ending of ME2 showed them waking up and starting to head toward the Milky Way.

The Reapers are trapped in Dark Space.  Vigil (The Prothean VI) on Ilos specifically says that the reapers are trapped in dark space.

Heres the thing "trapped in dark space" makes no sense. Dark Space is simply the space between Galaxies, you cant be "trapped there". At the end of ME2 we see the Reapers all weaking up and heading towards the Milky Way so we know they arent "trapped". The Citadel simply made it convenient for all the Reapers to invade the Galaxy in a single suprise attack rather than have to spend time travelling from Dark Space to the Milky Way and starting a traditional invasion.

[Hudathan]

There is no such thing as a system of specific rules that all storytelling must follow in order to be entertaining.

[SolidisusSnake1]

Hudathan wrote...

There is no such thing as a system of specific rules that all storytelling must follow in order to be entertaining.

You seem to not understand, I am not saying all story needs to follow these exact set of rules, however ME does because it has been set up that way. ME is not Pulp Ficiton or 2001 it is a standard space opera that has followed the three act structure in every game just like Star Wars or LOTR. To suddenly abandon this structure at the very end and change themes goes against the very fundamentals of writing. As someone else has said its as if Star Wars had the ending of 2001, it doesnt fit because they are two different types of Sci-Fi stories.

[cavs25]

They wanted lots of speculation...so they committed themselves to murdering the ending.

[R8edR]

It is implied that the reapers go to the end of space, not inbetween galaxies. It was implied that they go there so that no one stumbles upon them. By saying they're trap, doesn't imply that they are trapped in a cage, but that they are so far away that without they relay they can't make the trip.

As for protocol. It was also implied throughtout the series that this wasn't seran's first try.  He tried indoctrinating the rachni, in the rachni war, which failed.  If the started moving towards the galaxy at the end of ME2, then the trip will only take a couple of months.  Why not do it after the signal failed? or even after Saren failed with the rachni?  way wait the 100 or more years?  Why risk making everyone aware of you?  It simple, bad writing.

Modifié par R8edR, 17 avril 2012 - 01:16 .

[SolidisusSnake1]

R8edR wrote...

It is implied that the reapers go to the end of space, not inbetween galaxies. It was implied that they go there so that no one stumbles upon them. By saying they're trap, doesn't imply that they are trapped in a cage, but that they are so far away that without they relay they can't make the trip.

As for protocol. It was also implied throughtout the series that this wasn't seran's first try.

Dark Space IS the space in between galaxies, "the space beyond the galxies horizon" (Vigil) the reason it is specifically called Dark Space is because there are very little to no stars there. Of course they can make the trip to the Milky Way it will simply talk some time. It took them 6 months to reach the Milky Way proper after the end of ME2, so its not like it was a breeze of a walk.

[clos]

Artistic Integrity. It explains it all. As a matter of fact, next time you don't go to work claim artistic integrity, or when a cop pulls you over for speeding. It works for everything.

Professor: "Casey, why did you write about clowns at the end of this paper? It's supposed to be about WW2."
Casey: "Artistic integrity. BTW, I will not take any more questions about the ending from you."

[2484Stryker]

blatant disregard for good storytelling rules =/= artistry

Seriously, if I gave a pen to my five year old cousin, he could probably write a better ending in terms of providing "lots of speculations for everyone!".

In fact, here's my version of BioWare's ending:

Shepard meets the catalyst. The end.

Modifié par 2484Stryker, 17 avril 2012 - 01:21 .

[UnstableMongoose]

Rules were made to be broken!

[Twilight_Princess]

Ytook wrote...

The twist ending I was expecting was that the crucible would be a reaper trap leading a civilisation that is sufficiently advanced as to have a chance of defeating the reapers into a killing ground with false hope protecting a false objective, then you would have to win by conventional means and all your assets and choices would culminate in whether you would be victorious, (that would also explain the collectors actions in 2 as the reapers where actually scared and desperate, trying to bolster their forces with humans whose genetic makeup makes them easy to process, while eliminating Shepard as a force for unification against them). I held into that thinking how great the ending was going to be... and then Casper showed up...

Now that's a twist that even admiral ackbar would be proud of! And you know what? I was sort of expecting something like that to happen since everyone seemed to pour all of their hope into this thing without fully understanding what it was. Perhaps the reapers learned that hope was something they could always exploit when it came to organics and so they made a fake weapon in the event there was a difficult cycle.

Modifié par Hyrule_Gal, 17 avril 2012 - 01:32 .

[R8edR]

6 months is a breeze, I'm sorry to stay, and makes no sense why they don't do it after the signal fails. They wait 50000 years, then the signal fails. They then try using the rachni, in a war that last 300 years, and fails. They then wait almost 2000 years to try again. Your right 6 months doesn't sound like a breeze, more like me moving from my living room to my kitchen

[Ryven]

Norskebanan wrote...

They tried to abandon conventional storytelling and plot resolution in an effort to make Mass Effect 3 a hallmark for creative writing. It was a conscious decision on their behalf. They're talented enough writers to follow established parameters for ending a series and were obviously capable of producing a resolution that the fans would have loved. Instead, they made Mass Effect 3 something it was never supposed to be, which resulted in a gross distortion of literary devices. Think of it as trying to fit a square block into a circular tube.

I think this sums it up nicely. Good post.

[Rjames112]

You're making an assumption that the rising action/falling action plot structure is the only structure out there that can be used. It's simplistic at best and only acts as the initial skeletal structure of a plot.

As for the comments about idiots, they're not you love ME1 and ME2? Same writers. Gamble also has done very well amidst the belligerent, entitled comments posted.

That Will Smith movie is a great example about introducing plot points too late in the arc. I think the Star child was akin to this; it was an introduction that didn't work but it doesn't make them idiots.

[Seryl]

optimistickied wrote...

The 3-act structure used in Mass Effect expresses plot slightly differently than the classic narrative arc. The climax occurs when the central conflict causes the main character or characters to undergo a violent change or transformation, effectively resolving the outstanding conflict. It is also referred to as the second turning point. This structure is expressed through character development.

People may not like it or desire more clarity or even dispute its logic, but it isn't a writing violation, if such a thing even exists in 2012.

Does 2012 have different rules and structure for writing than every other year that preceded it?

Even if the 3-act structure expresses plot differently than the classic arc does, the point is that denouement doesn't ever come before climax. You can have the "If we don't make it through this, ..." conversations, but that isn't denouement. It's actually building MORE suspense. If it's done right, you feel the attachment that the main character has to the one he's speaking to. Shepard speaking to Liara, and being given her gift, was intended to show the closeness those two had and what would be lost should he fail. Shepard speaking to Javik is intended to show how far he's come and how, literally, the weight of the galaxy, both past, present and future, is riding on him. Every single one of those conversations is intended to build up more suspense and tension. It isn't the denouement.

I genuinely don't blame the entire writing team for this debacle because I doubt they had anything to do with it. I don't believe that Mac is as good a writer as Drew is, but he's not stupid. Yes, ME3 had more plotholes than the other two did, but it was still competently done, right up until Harbinger's beam. I tend to believe that Casey Hudson pulled rank to do that ending because the tonal shift of the game was so large it felt like it was written by somebody else.

That is why Bioware failed. What people that are defending this ending don't realize, with the constant refrain of "Artistic Integrity", is that you have to learn the rules of your craft before you can bend or break them. The writing before the end was good enough that I'm inclined to think that the writing team knows how to write. Casey, on the other hand, either had such a legendary amount of hubris that he didn't realize this, or nobody had the stones to tell him "No, that ending sucks".

[R8edR]

The lead writer for me3 was the same as me2. However me1 had a different lead writer, I believe Drew k., who was also a lead writer on me2, so me2 had two leads. Who actually did more I don't know, however drew was not the lead in me3 and I think it showed. I know he mentioned that he would still do work with bioware, so I'm not sure if he did contribute anything to me3.

[indyracing]

I hope no one minds me pasting my rant on Deus Ex Machina (and other things) here...

For starters, I finished on Saturday, with only knowing that many were upset with the ending. I did not know any details, but knew there was a general feeling of disappointment. So I had thought I braced myself for something bad. I failed. My initial reaction is this thread social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/11404479 if you at all care.

Today at work I listened to a few podcasts that I had saved for when I finished that contained spoilers. These all addressed the "outrage" in some fashion, but they all seemed to be fixated on how "entitled gamers feel they deserve a happy ending" or something similar, and all of them brushed aside plot holes completely (mentioning they'd get to them later, and never doing so). Not one of these podcasters, who tend to be reviewer types and developer types even mentioned how the sudden appearance of the God Child was at all unusual or odd.

I don't understand that.

For me, the moment he shows up, I went into complete WTF mode. The more he talked (nonsense), the more into WTF mode I went into. So much so that when I made my choice, I didn't even know (or care) which choice I was making. That moment is the moment the story just completely falls apart and decends into stupidity.

I was vaguely aware of the phrase Deus Ex Machina (I never played Deus Ex), with a general understanding that it was a bad storytelling technique that poor writers used to get themselves out of corners they had written themselves into - generally to get a good ending out of an impossible situation. I did a little reading on it today (not enough to write a paper or anything, but enough to confirm that what I thought it was is generally true, and that the God Child actually is a Deux Ex Machina), and also some recollections of past examples of what I've read/seen/played - enough to realize that, unless used in a comedy/comical way, it's IMO always bad storytelling.

Probably the most well-know example that I'm aware of is the eagles showing up at the end of Return of the King to save Frodo and Sam AFTER the Ring is destroyed. I bold the after because the Deus Ex Machina doesn't help resolve THE key plot point, but does resolve how Frodo and Sam don't die. It's bad, but it doesn't solve the entire story.

In ME 3, the Deus Ex Machina is used to, from what I can read, guarrantee the Mass Relays are destroyed. That is the common item in the endings. It renders the actual battle inconsequential (you know, the big Unified Galaxy Fleet that you gather - or at least that I gathered). It doesn't actually matter what War Assets you get once DEM shows up.

Actually, the moment DEM shows up, nothing in the three games, to that point, matters at all (except who your Love Interest is, and who you took on ME 3 missions the most), which is the exact opposite of what Chambers said would happen.

So then you make and A, B or C choice - something that Hudson said, specifically, that you wouldn't be doing.

And from what I can tell, the goal of the DEM was to make sure that for future Mass Effect games, the Mass Relays had been destroyed.

As for what I wanted - which a lot of critics of the outrage of fans seem to focus on - it wasn't any type of ending specifically (happy or sad or total destruction), but one that made sense to the story. DEM eliminates that completely. I am not upset at all at the state of the Galaxy after the credits roll. I am upset at how the story took a sharp U-turn away from it's internal logic to force me to go there.

The God Child was full of crap. I had just made peace earlier between the Quarians and the Geth (Tali didn't die and Legion sacrificed himself to "free" the Geth in their way of thinking). EDI thanked me for making her alive (I don't remember the exact words). The entire 3 games I never once saw the biggest threat as Synthetics vs Organics (every time I fought "reapers" it was an organic - I didn't even realize the reapers were fully synthetic until he told me - I had always thought of them as similar to Moiya from Farscape - the ship if anyone remembers - because that's what they look like). Where was my option to challenge him and refuse his choice? I would have been happier, if the writers must insist on the DEM God Child, to fight him to my death and let the reapers reap until the cycle starts anew. Better than to make his stupid choice.

But what I also wanted, which seems to be something along the lines of what the DLC this summer will bring, is to know what happened to my squadmates. I cured (well Mordin did), the Genophage. Even if it meant seeing Wrex die, I would have liked to see Wrex sacrifice himself to save a squad of Turian snipers or something. To see a small Geth ship ram a Reaper in order to save a Quarian vessel (or vice versa). To see Jack in action with her students. To know exactly why Joker chickened out and fled (seriously, WTF?), and why, of all people, Javik went with him (who's only purpose after being awakened was to destroy the Reapers - why did he simply not die trying?). To find out how Liara got away from the beam that knocked me out and got back on the Normandy?

In short, I was expecting the ending to be, at the very least, well-written.

It wasn't.

What I got was a jumbled mess that doesn't take into account anything I did in the 100+ hours I played, doesn't seem to reflect the themes the story focused on (teamwork, overcoming seemingly impossible odds, and choice), and doesn't give any decent closure to any of the characters I adventured with throughout the game, and gives a forced ending seemingly because the end simply had to have the Mass Relays destroyed.

What I got was a very poorly written ending to an otherwise great, epic story - a story that deserved an epic ending (and all along I presumed Shepard would be dead at the end of ME 3 - so epic doesn't = Shepard lives), but didn't get one. And one where, at the final choice, the ability to BE SHEPARD was taken away from me, because Shepard wouldn't have chosen any of those 3 options (at least mine wouldn't have).

Oh and a prompt to buy DLC!

The only alternative is (what I presume is the Indoctrination Theory) if from the moment Shep gets knocked out approaching the Conduit until the moment Shepard takes one breath lying on Earth, it's all a dream. If that's true, then I didn't even get an ending at all, which is actually worse than getting a really badly written one.

But in short, the God Child is a perfect example of simply the worst way possible to tell a story.

[optimistickied]

Seryl wrote...

optimistickied wrote...

The 3-act structure used in Mass Effect expresses plot slightly differently than the classic narrative arc. The climax occurs when the central conflict causes the main character or characters to undergo a violent change or transformation, effectively resolving the outstanding conflict. It is also referred to as the second turning point. This structure is expressed through character development.

People may not like it or desire more clarity or even dispute its logic, but it isn't a writing violation, if such a thing even exists in 2012.

Does 2012 have different rules and structure for writing than every other year that preceded it?

Even if the 3-act structure expresses plot differently than the classic arc does, the point is that denouement doesn't ever come before climax. You can have the "If we don't make it through this, ..." conversations, but that isn't denouement. It's actually building MORE suspense. If it's done right, you feel the attachment that the main character has to the one he's speaking to. Shepard speaking to Liara, and being given her gift, was intended to show the closeness those two had and what would be lost should he fail. Shepard speaking to Javik is intended to show how far he's come and how, literally, the weight of the galaxy, both past, present and future, is riding on him. Every single one of those conversations is intended to build up more suspense and tension. It isn't the denouement.

I genuinely don't blame the entire writing team for this debacle because I doubt they had anything to do with it. I don't believe that Mac is as good a writer as Drew is, but he's not stupid. Yes, ME3 had more plotholes than the other two did, but it was still competently done, right up until Harbinger's beam. I tend to believe that Casey Hudson pulled rank to do that ending because the tonal shift of the game was so large it felt like it was written by somebody else.

That is why Bioware failed. What people that are defending this ending don't realize, with the constant refrain of "Artistic Integrity", is that you have to learn the rules of your craft before you can bend or break them. The writing before the end was good enough that I'm inclined to think that the writing team knows how to write. Casey, on the other hand, either had such a legendary amount of hubris that he didn't realize this, or nobody had the stones to tell him "No, that ending sucks".

A lot of the restrictions imposed on storytelling have been lifted. This is a postmodern world. Things have changed since Aristotle. That's what I meant.

What, in your opinion, is the denouement and what is the climax? Is it an anticlimax? Is the reaper conflict resolved or no?

[The Anti-Saint]

EA assumed control.

[ticklefist]

Bro...