102 réponses à ce sujet

[Jealous Beauty]

Yet they're not actually changing the ending, just extending and clarifying it.

[Troglyte]

Fact: Star-Brat looks like the kid we see on rooftop, vent and shuttle deathray mostly cinimatics.
Fact: Cinimatics cost money/time
Not Fact, but generaly: Cinimatics are made AFTER writers are done writing.
Unknown: When did they add Dreams of child chasing? Last minute or early on??

So given the amount of time and money spent on "the kid"/Star-Brat long before the ending it would seem that the deus ex machina ending was long planned and therefor not rushed.

That doesn't mean the 3 one ending wasn't rushed however. But since somewhere I read a twitter about dropping any "extra" info like "how long reapers have been..." and keeping star-brat's dialog "high level" it would seem that this train wreck was long in comming.

Bad ideas happen in the coperate world, after all some braintrust at Coke-a-Cola thought New-Coke was well thought out.

[Baihu1983]

Im starting to think The IT was planned all along but Hudson thought it was too video gamey so took direct control over it.

[Muhkida]

Jealous Beauty wrote...

Yet they're not actually changing the ending, just extending and clarifying it.

To say not changing but extending is pretty much self-contradictory.  To add in an extra scene or dialogue (not saying they are), no matter how small it is, is in fact a change.

Modifié par Muhkida, 22 avril 2012 - 08:19 .

[warrior256]

My guess is that they wanted to create some sort of artistic ending that fans would be talking about for decades to come. Something that had an open end so that fans could attempt to determine how the galaxy would turn out after the third game. In other words, they wanted to create an ending that would go down in history for it's open-ended epicness. What actually happened was.. well what they wanted, but instead of a lot of positive speculation, there is only negative speculation.

[grey_wind]

Poor planning. Final Hours shows they didn't have a clue what the ending should be in NOVEMBER. That was just an incredibly stupid thing to do. Had the ending been put into development at the start of production, we wouldn't have this mess. They'd have proabbly skimmed out on Tuchanka and Rannoch, but I'd have forgiven that for a really solid ending.
Instead, they really managed their priorities horribly: Redesigning Normandy, Diana Allers, unnecessary remodelling for some characters rather than graphical updates, etc.

Modifié par grey_wind, 22 avril 2012 - 08:26 .

[ardensia]

 

sfam wrote... 
2. Budget and Time Constraints: 

   

Zolt51 wrote...
Why don't you just go back to Occam's razor and take the most simple path: They wanted to be a bit "provocative" with their ending and completely failed to gauge the response of the fans.

I'm voting for a combination of these two. They got the production of the game extended for three months initially, and they had a TON of stuff to cram into ME3. We all know some of it just didn't get handled, or handled in depth. Possible squad members got dropped. Storylines the Rachni queen one were brought up but never went anywhere dramatic. And so on. But asking your boss for another extension when you're already technically running late doesn't usually come off as cool.

I think they always intended the end to be provocative, to make the players think. Setting aside the plot holes and bad writing, the last decision we are asked to make requires some of that ruthless calculus of war they mention throughout the games, and I don't think they quite realized how deeply people were immersed in the world they created. If you actually manage to convey to the players the weight of the galaxy that is on Shepherd's shoulders (and I think, for the most part, BioWare did this), then you're going to have people who crack a bit under the strain. None of the options are easy, and they're ones that, if Shepherd lived through the firing of the Catalyst, she'd likely question for the rest of her life.

That's not an easy note to leave your players on, even when it's well-presented. Which it's not.

[FBI-Azzurri]

sfam wrote...

Here's mine:

1. Interpretive Ending with Later Paid DLC: Bioware intended to make a "interpretive" ending that wasn't clear, but got the masses talking up a storm about it (the intial marketing comments back this up).  I'm guessing their intent was to have so much dialogue about the ending that people would be clamouring for a paid DLC that answered their questions.

Clearly they way overshot the mark on that count - they got the masses talking, but convos were all about hatred and dispair.

2. Budget and Time Constraints: Bioware had to cut corners on their intended interpretive ending, and ended up cutting way too much.  We've gotten a sense from this out of some of Weeks' convo, but probably they thought that since its an intepretive ending anyways, its OK if not many answers are provided, as the paid DLC will fill in the detials. Perhaps this might also have provided the rationale why only Casey and Mac worked the ending - less minds perhaps leads to less time and budget problems.

Again, the whole Earth mission was cut short, and the ending cut scenes were virtually nonexistent. Again, they went way too overboard, so much so that the ending Normandy scene looks like the result of a bad over-editing job from a movie, where essential details were omitted.

3.  Star Child Narrative was for ME4: The only reason I can think of why Casey and Mac would horribly divert the story with the Star Child is to set up a new narrative for the next installment of ME, or perhaps a whole series of DLCs.  There is no other reason that makes a lick of sense for diverting the whole purpose of the series.  Put another way, if the Reapers all die, what's left for us to do?

In the end, my guess is these three things led to the absurd mess of an ending that we were left with.  I don't think in any way Bioware intended for the outrage they've seen happen, nor expected it.  They may have been worried about the rushed ending, but I doubt they thought it was the disaster it turned out to be.

Read my post. It covers why the ending sucked: social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/11193774

[eddieoctane]

Someone thought ME4 would be a good idea and left the ending ambiguous enough to tack one on.

Casey decided he was sick of the series and wanted to kill it off his way, rather than relinquish control to the company who paid him for it, not unlike a goblin from Harry Potter (My personal favorite, if only because Casey's smugness is as off-putting as those little buggers' faces.)

Mac and Casey are terrible writers, were unable to come up with an ending well into the 11th hour, and Star-Jar and an inferred genocide were the best they could come up with a few weeks before Sony and Microsoft needed the game for testing on their end.

I have a hard time believing EA would nuke a lore-rich and expandable universe into oblivion. I doubt they had any input into it.

[Hieronymus90]

EA

[ArcanistLibram]

No one was around to look at the ending and say "No."

[wryterra]

EA

[adembroski]

sfam wrote...

2. Budget and Time Constraints: Bioware had to cut corners on their intended interpretive ending, and ended up cutting way too much.  We've gotten a sense from this out of some of Weeks' convo, but probably they thought that since its an intepretive ending anyways, its OK if not many answers are provided, as the paid DLC will fill in the detials. Perhaps this might also have provided the rationale why only Casey and Mac worked the ending - less minds perhaps leads to less time and budget problems.

Again, the whole Earth mission was cut short, and the ending cut scenes were virtually nonexistent. Again, they went way too overboard, so much so that the ending Normandy scene looks like the result of a bad over-editing job from a movie, where essential details were omitted.

Time constraints, perhaps. Budget, no. EA is one of the more free spending publishers out there. There's that old axiom, "Good, Fast, Cheap, pick any two", and it applies in a big way to game development. EA picks good and fast (though they define fast inappropriately, their deadlines tend to be very short). Resources are rarely a problem with EA.

Of course, Edmonton is in-and-of itself a resource issue. Location is a VERY big deal to a game developer because, based on where you are located, it might be hard to convince talent to relocate to you. That's why software development tends to center in a few locations (San Francisco and Austin), to maximize accessable talent.

For the record, they do treat their employees very well, contrary to popular belief. One fact of the gaming industry is that you are always doing the job you're in-line to be promoted too. You're always operating one level up from your pay grade, and that can get frustrating, but the whole point is to ensure those who are put in critical positions already have experience with the duties of that position and are qualified for it.

Modifié par adembroski, 22 avril 2012 - 08:57 .

[kalasaurus]

justafan wrote...

I think it's as simple as they miscalculated what fans wanted.

They thought we would want open ended ending, where we could headcanon in a happy or depressing epilogue as we saw fit. Instead, most fans wanted closure, for better or for worse.

Time constraints might have had a hand in this, but I doubt you go making a series like Mass Effect without having a serious idea about how you are going to end it.

That's what I think too.  And with an open ending, people will want to buy more DLC because the cliffhanger-type ending will leave people wanting more.  It's so open-ended, everyone gets what they want in their headcanon apparently.

They might have been afraid that by wrapping it up too neatly with no loose ends, people might have been angry that it didn't end the way their Shepard's story would.  Or worse, people got all they wanted from Mass Effect and won't buy more DLC.

I also think ME ended the way they intended, although the copy/paste multicolored ending cutscenes and Normandy scene with zero context do look rushed and cheap.

Modifié par GlassElephant, 22 avril 2012 - 09:00 .

[sth88]

I think Mac/Casey/whoever wrote the ending thought they had come up with a deep, symbolical, philosophical ending, perhaps intending to lead people into discussions on real-world morals. In making this ending they supplanted the established themes of the franchise with their own beliefs/preferences, and forgot major plot points that conflicted with the new information they planned on giving the player.

Furthermore, they either skipped the peer review process, or railroaded it through out of hubris. I have trouble believing that the whole writing team could have looked over this ending and given it their stamp of approval, there are just too many plotholes and contradictions.

[_Kerghan_]

Part egotism, part EA deadline, with a strong dash of wanting to give the Mass Effect universe a hard reset rather than end up having to deal with hundreds of permutations that specialized endings would create when they make the inevitable Mass Effect 4, set hundreds of years after the events of ME3.

[Oldbones2]

NoUserNameHere wrote...

- The bespoke endings make future DLC/sequels easier to pull off.

- The reused content in each ending is the result of epic time constraints.

- The bat-guano tone of the endings was an attempt at being profound.

So a little from collumn A, a little from collumn B.

Pretty much this.

Bioware wanted an unforgettably ending, EA wanted it done cheaply, and both companies wanted sequels I guess.


Can't imagine the ****storm when they cannonize Synthesis.

[Wentletrap]

sth88 wrote...

Furthermore, they either skipped the peer review process, or railroaded it through out of hubris. I have trouble believing that the whole writing team could have looked over this ending and given it their stamp of approval, there are just too many plotholes and contradictions.

Agree.  Maybe such review was skipped because of the aforementioned budget / time / EA factors.

The BW that gave us such satisfying endings to Baldur's Gate, Jade Empire, DAO and ME1 would never have left us 3 with just copypasta'ed endings, and a pitch for DLC. 

Modifié par Wentletrap, 22 avril 2012 - 09:13 .

[Lennyoh]

lordofdogtown19 wrote...

 

That put such a big smile on my face, very nice use of the reference =)

[EricHVela]

Drew Karpyshyn, or rather, lack thereof.

[GLR-0053]

wryterra wrote...

rEApers

[Jealous Beauty]

[Arturia Pendragon]

[kalasaurus]

Jealous Beauty wrote...

Now I'm going to think of Cartman whenever I see the phrase "artistic integrity" pop up on these threads...

Modifié par GlassElephant, 22 avril 2012 - 09:32 .

[SolidisusSnake1]

Money, Time, and Casey Hudson REALLY likes Deus Ex.