138 réponses à ce sujet

[geekwithguns]

zovoes wrote...
they are all war crimes and could count as crimes against humanity, all of them. what about that makes any of them good?

Allan Schumacher wrote...
My comment to being "good or bad" was explicitly concerning how they are relative to one another.  Which still actually fits your idea that they are each war crimes.  If they are all roughly equivalent in how much they are war crimes, then no choice is any better or worse than the other choices.  They are equivalent.

Allan - by design or accident you nailed one of the core problems on the head.  They are equivalent, so equivalent with so few differences they feel the same.  Differences so small that every ending no matter what choices you make, what EMS you have, what paragon or renegade proportions/paths you chose - all end up equal, the same, bland and depressing.

Allan Schumacher wrote...
I agree that none of the options are really "good."  Personally that's what I like about them.  I think the execution of the ending could be better, but the fundamental choices that are provided are actually very interesting for me.  The only thing missing is a 4th "do nothing" option, but the "jerk developer" in me would make that result in a situation where the fleet puts up a good fight, but ultimately ends with Shepard and Co. fighting to preserve their knowledge (Liara's project) and fire it off for another cycle to discover.  If done well I think it still could have been very powerful too.

You are right, none of the options are really "good".  Now Bioware's writers might see that as their "artistic vision" but many of us play video games, watch movies, read stories and so forth to be entertained, to feel good at the end.  And the end of ME3 left me and from what I have read, a vast number of others...not feeling good at all.  The classic WTF!?, knife in gut, depressed and disgusted feeling is what I had at the end.  And let me clue you in - that feeling is not conducive to me spending another penny with Bioware.  I can get depressed for free watching the news - I pay Bioware to entertain me, make me feel ... heroic.

Your fourth option is valid, should have been there, then again a fifth option should have been as well - kick a** and take names.  Stomp the reapers into oblivion or run them back to dark space.  And no I do not mean that stupid destroy/red ending Bioware gave us.  I myself in another thread and many others have come up with very valid ways of kicking reaper butt.

I loathe the fact someone with 50% readiness and a 2800 rating basically gets the same endings with almost laughable "differences" from someone with 100% readiness and 7000+ EMS.

100% readiness and 7000+ EMS should equal = Reapers lose in a way the starbrat never considered - not as that despicable little brat dictates.

Allan Schumacher wrote...
Similar to Legion's loyalty mission, though,  I found the ending made me pause for a moment and more seriously evaluate the consequences of my actions.  I wanted to defeat the reapers, but at what cost?

....

I'm ambivalent towards the open ended ending.  I don't really mind it, but I don't think I would have necessarily enjoyed the ending more if a full epilogue also existed.  Both have there merits IMO.

The ending as is made me sick to my stomach, feel empty and...wondering why I have played ME for the last five years.  I wanted to defeat the Reapers but the price the writers demanded at the end was too high, they ignored all the other costs Shepard worked for and paid throughout ME 1/2/3.  My Shepard worked hard, damned hard and what's my reward?  All endings are morally ambiguous, open ended, equivalent and...empty.

Allan Schumacher wrote...
In terms of making the choice, I prefer an open ended ending.  This prevents any choice from being the "wrong" choice, and makes the choices more a reflection about the player/Shepard and what they feel is the best decision.  It tells a slightly different story than one that has full epilogues, where I feel more weight would be placed on the aftermath of the choice made, rather than the choice itself. 

The writers though left us no real choices.  As you said, all that exist as-is are equivalent.  Where is the "do nothing" choice?  I read a thread where a player was role playing a total screw-up Shepard, making all the wrong choices, getting everyone killed.  Where is the do nothing choice at the end that actually lets that player lose to the Reapers?

Where is the kick-a** and take names choice for the players that have 100% readiness and 7000+ EMS?

Allan Schumacher wrote...
Having the full epilogues also enables the player to make a choice based on information that Shepard actually cannot.  I found it interesting that, while there being some additional information, we don't reall see much more than what Shepard already knows.  We have to make the same difficult decision not knowing the full effect of our actions, the same way that Shepard must.

You don't give the players as a whole enough credit.  We are role-players for the most part - just look at the hundreds of threads.  We are not swinging an epeen touting a final score of 17 kajillion points.

I know it will cost me EMS but every time I am in the Citadel docks and hear that poor refugee talking to the customs agent, I side with the refugee because that's the role I am playing, that is what my Shepard would do.  I the player know this will cost my Shepard but I do it anyway.  The endings would be no different, people will still choose according to their character concept - and should have the options available - even if they know the various outcomes.

Choice - that's been a predominant theme of Mass Effect since the start - and you removed that at the end by giving us three "equivalent" choices.  Hate to tell you this Allan but 2 or two or a pair are the same choice even if written differently.

We want options 4 and 5, do nothing and lose, or kick a** and take names!

Bioware needs to remember a core business axiom - the customer is always right.  If you forget that, you end up with no customers.  Your writers need to decide if they are artists or want a paycheck - because pissing off your client base is not smart business.

Give us real choices at the end, not these horrible equivalents.

Modifié par geekwithguns, 31 mai 2012 - 09:03 .

[Mobius-Silent]

Allan Schumacher wrote...
When I say execution, I'm more referring to the context by which the choices were provided. Had the Catalyst been completely omitted from the end of the game, but some alternative way resulted in the same three choices being provided to the player would constitute a difference in the execution of the endings. As a result, I as a player have little issue with the actual choices presented to me as they stand. The choices I find interesting and make me think. The execution of it (i.e. via the Catalyst and so forth) is where I think people would have liked to see improvement.

Unless you're trying to tell me that people don't want to see changes to the Catalyst. After all, I'm the person (that hasn't been commenting on the EC since I don't know anything about it) that "just doesn't get it" so I probably could use a little hand here.

Even without the Catalyst (and, as presented, it's terrible and should go), I was really anoyed with the context of the choices:

• Destroy the Reapers, and we've bolted on that the Geth and Edi must die.... just... because, we have other options that target just the Reapers but you can't do that here... but even that doesn't matter because there will be more synthetics, so it's pretty pointless destroying this lot, it's just to make you feel bad really.
• Oh yes you can make this new poorly-explained new framework for life but you have to be torn apart because... um.... life-energy... or something...

There was no narrative coherence to the choices. It's like they were balanced by committee rather that shaped by the in-world events. It knocked me right out of my suspension of disbelief and made me angry at the writer[s]not the in-game situation. Deus EX HR spent the entire game explaining the implication of the its 3[4] endings and it was still massively unsatisfying IMHO (I know you were talking about the original DX but I think this is a more apt comparison) my choices there were no/no/no[are you kidding?]. Making a decision difficult only works is there are natual constraits to the axes of action because the natural reaction to "all these option are problematic in some way" is "Then lets do something else". DXHR and ME3's endings have artifical constraints and in the case of ME3 horribly nonsensical and thematically bankrupt constraints.

That is actually one of my lesser issues with the ending but it's still awfully bad IMHO.

Modifié par Mobius-Silent, 31 mai 2012 - 01:38 .

[Helios969]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

AIR MOORE wrote...

You are comparing a stand alone game that was (as far as I know) never intended to have sequels or prequels, but very well could... to Mass Effect 3?

It can "work" in a stand-alone game, because there was nothing stopping them from doing this namely: (Cohesion with the rest of Universe created in games 1 & 2, ability to create a sequel that could pick up on all this and show us exactly what happend, and notions this was a conclusion of the trilogy of our Shep all along, whereas DE had nothing of the sort).

There you have it, explained why it's fundamentally different than DE... and a very bad analogy if that is how you harken these two together.

In other words: I agree with you that it worked in DE, but it fails as an end to a trilogy in ME3.

When dealing purely with the notion of whether or not an open ending works, I find your explanation of why it's a bad analogy arbitrary.

Taken as a whole, the ME saga is coming to an end.  There's been talk that this will be the last game in the Mass Effect series, and certainly the last one with regarding Shepard's story. 

If you agree that it can work in Deus Ex because there's no certainty that anything will come after it, then the only distinction you have made is that ME3 is the third part of a game.  So am I correct in assuming that had the entire Mass Effect trilogy just been a single game from start to finish, you'd have less issue because the only meaningful difference is that Mass Effect's story takes place over 3 games instead of just 1.

If your issue lies with things like the Catalyst or the options that are provided themselves and whether they make thematic sense with the rest of the Mass Effect story, that is a different issue than whether or not the ending is open ended or provides closure.

Tisk, tisk... I wouldn't imagine you'd lose sight of that glaring
difference in these two games and why "3" can work in game "D" but not
"M". .

I try my best to not talk down to people when I disagree with them.  I'd appreciate the same courtesy.

The problem with this is it assumes that your entire demographic is on this forum or follows the game progress through other avenues, (I only finished this game 3 weeks ago and had no clue what kind of emotional torment I was in for.)  What percentage of players of ME1&2 actually do such?  I came into this game expecting ME2, more or less got that for 99% of it, and then suddenly I'm face-to-face with a previously unintroduced antagonist (that honestly is more fitting for a DA world than ME universe) presently me with 3 choices that were totally unrelated to how I played my character (and completely unaffected by the dozens of choices I had made previously.)

You've already discussed a "no choice" option, but what about a peaceful coexistence option?  How a character handled Legion/Heretics and Geth/Quarians could have opened up an option that got God-Entity to have the Reapers pull back (for now.)  Most characters were about team-building and coalitions, unification and learning to cooperate for the greater good.  How any of what I did through 2 and 99/100th games escapes me.  And like many others, I would have liked to have had my surviving Sheppard interacting with my LI.  I've been through hell, done the impossible by forging a multiracial, galactic alliance, walked the morally gray line for the betterment of all.  Don't I deserve to live out my remaining days in peaceful seclusion with the love of my life?  The end of Sheppard's story, doesn't have to mean being blown to pieces, shed my humanity and be transformed into a God-Entity to subjugate the enemy, or be distingrated and disseminated across the galaxy that somehow creates organic-synthetic hybrids out of existing sentients without providing a choice, (and ME universe has always been about freewill and choice.)

I and most others really appreciate the wonderful ME universe BW has created and the ridiculous amount of work that went into it by all the people, but an ending most of us feel is weak, subjected to endless threads of interpretation and bickering, the lack of impact our choices had on the existing ending, (and the war asset shortfall in SPG,) the severe depression a significant portion of players felt, and a satisfying resolution to our individual character(s) invalidates much of the positive experience (and for many the replayability of the series.)  You know, if we didn't care, there wouldn't be masses of people trying to affect the EC DLC (if such a thing is even possible.)

If 90% of players do not understand the ending or are happy with it, then the company should really consider what its fanbase is saying.  While there is a significant artistic aspect to creating games, EA/Bioware is not in the business of making art.  They're in the business of selling games and expansion packs to those games.

If we cannot get a more satifying conclusion, what vested interest do I (or any of us) have in DLC's beyond EC?  For me, the anwser is none.  I also think many people will avoid preordering games without a concrete fan consensus or avoid trilogies all together until a satisfying outcome is known through reviews.  While to long term ramifications are not concise, they are clear.

And I know I never want to experience the depression I felt after finishing ME3.  I didn't even know such a thing could happen.

(Sorry, I didn't intend to have such a long response:)

Modifié par Helios969, 31 mai 2012 - 10:52 .

[ElitePinecone]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

If your issue lies with things like the Catalyst or the options that are provided themselves and whether they make thematic sense with the rest of the Mass Effect story, that is a different issue than whether or not the ending is open ended or provides closure.

Hopefully you're still checking this topic Allan, I'm finding reading the discussion really interesting.

Where the Mass Effect series differs from, say, Deus Ex was best summed up for me in a blog post I read soon after the ending fracas: ME spent three games letting us experience and play through intensely personal stories about the people we'd met, known, saved, killed, defended, criticised, loved, hated, whatever.

It was a game about people (or asari, turians, drell, salarians...) - and even though there was a main plot about an apocalyptic race of machines coming to end all life in the galaxy, what touched me and many others most, and what made an impression on so many professional critics, was the strength of relationships and connections we had to well-written characters. Case-in-point, I found ME2's (and to a large extent ME3's) main plots underwhelming, but their companions and other characters were the highlights - the events on Rannoch and Tuchanka, say. I found the ambient conversations in the Citadel - the post-traumatic asari, the girl separated from her parents, the marine not wanting to fight her brother in Cerberus, the woman searching for her son - far more engaging than any of the attempts to shoehorn in organic/synthetic debates. 

ME was never about transhumanism or the nature of life in the universe or the payoff between liberty and security, like Deux Ex did so well. It was about the little things - the people, places, species and events that we participated in, affected, cared about. The thematic difference between JC Denton's arc and Shepard's made all the difference: in the latter's case I almost don't care that we defeated the Reapers and 'saved the universe' because all we can surmise from the ending is that almost everyone we got to know over three games is trapped on a deserted planet and the wider galaxy faces economic ruination.

We saved the galaxy, great - but for what? So that in ten thousand years organic life in a fictional universe lives on? What about the characters? The peaces we brokered or wars we helped start? The lives we affected?

Deus Ex pontificates and speculates about grand themes, and does it pretty well. It's a fine intellectual exercise to look at the endings offered and consider the eventual fate of the human species, because it's a thought-experiment in abstraction. Mass Effect should never be about the big themes. Its strength was always in minutiae and the connections with individuals as personifications of larger conflicts or issues - and when we get resolution for precisely none of them, and the plot veers into transhumanism at the last second, you could appreciate why some were totally bewildered.

[twisty77]

Welcome to the club. I couldn't bring myself to pick either Control(What TIM wanted) or Synthesis(what Saren wanted). So I chose Destroy. Plus, that's what I've been working for over the entire trilogy: to destroy the Reapers. So I did.

[Helios969]

ElitePinecone wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

If your issue lies with things like the Catalyst or the options that are provided themselves and whether they make thematic sense with the rest of the Mass Effect story, that is a different issue than whether or not the ending is open ended or provides closure.

Deus Ex pontificates and speculates about grand themes, and does it pretty well. It's a fine intellectual exercise to look at the endings offered and consider the eventual fate of the human species, because it's a thought-experiment in abstraction. Mass Effect should never be about the big themes. Its strength was always in minutiae and the connections with individuals as personifications of larger conflicts or issues - and when we get resolution for precisely none of them, and the plot veers into transhumanism at the last second, you could appreciate why some were totally bewildered.

Well said.  I would even go further and say ME was about relationships, both micro and macro, and the coming apocalypse is more setting than plot.  It's the lack of how those micro and macro relationships impacted the existing ending that is most troubling.

I don't really have a problem that they did the transhumanism/existentialist direction, the problem is that it wasn't foreshadowed in scope and depth to bring the player into it without breaking the suspension of disbelief - hence the mass confusion.  To make the existing ending work, BW would have to go back and strategically place added content throughout ME1-3.  That would seem an impossible task, so logically the existing one should be discarded.  However, I do not think that will happen.

Modifié par Helios969, 31 mai 2012 - 11:29 .

[Necrotron]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

It's a total cop-out to say it was just an issue of execution and the only problem was a little lack of closure. There are fundamental problems with the ending choices in themselves and the whole ending plot line, not just "execution". That's the biggest cop-out in this whole mess. The endings in themselves, not just the execution of the endings, are fundamental failures.

When I say execution, I'm more referring to the context by which the choices were provided. Had the Catalyst been completely omitted from the end of the game, but some alternative way resulted in the same three choices being provided to the player would constitute a difference in the execution of the endings. As a result, I as a player have little issue with the actual choices presented to me as they stand. The choices I find interesting and make me think. The execution of it (i.e. via the Catalyst and so forth) is where I think people would have liked to see improvement.

Very good point.  I found that with the catalyst in the equation I was unable to just 'consider the choices' because it felt like the enemy was forcing me into them.

Without the catalyst, I think I would have been frustrated with the choices still, since I don't like a sad ending (or non-ideal ending or an ending where you can't win), but...I would have been able to consider them without feeling like I was being tricked.  They all provide some interesting non-ideal solutions to the problem, and without the catalyst in the equation, they make for an interesting moral dilemma.

Control is the most peaceful, but doesn't provide a permanent solution.

Synthesis provides the 'best' solution if you believe it will work, but the debate on whether it will is a good one.

Destroy provides the most effecient solution to the problem with a great cost.

While I may not personally be a fan of 'not winning' choices for an ending, without the catalyst murking up the equation, would have been an interesting choice.

[PoisonMushroom]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Actually, I missed making my point. It's a moral vacuum. We are left
with speculations and no foundations to make a moral judgment for
ourselves. We have to try to head-canonize the endings, but in the end,
it's still just head-canon. Some part of us is always stuck wondering if
it's the way things happened or not.

Speculations on the
consequences of a moral judgment that affects the entire fate of
everything Shepard knows leaves everyone hanging.

Any morality of
the choices become meaningless. The ultimate moral decision has no
basis for people to place their the morality upon it.

I'm ambivalent towards the open ended ending.  I don't really mind it, but I don't think I would have necessarily enjoyed the ending more if a full epilogue also existed.  Both have there merits IMO.

In terms of making the choice, I prefer an open ended ending.  This prevents any choice from being the "wrong" choice, and makes the choices more a reflection about the player/Shepard and what they feel is the best decision.  It tells a slightly different story than one that has full epilogues, where I feel more weight would be placed on the aftermath of the choice made, rather than the choice itself.  Having the full epilogues also enables the player to make a choice based on information that Shepard actually cannot.  I found it interesting that, while there being some additional information, we don't reall see much more than what Shepard already knows.  We have to make the same difficult decision not knowing the full effect of our actions, the same way that Shepard must.

While an open ended ending lets you morally justify your decision, the full epilogue effectively has the writers judge the player on their decision.  Whether or not the decision was a good one to make is now determined by the contents of the epilogue.  It does provide closure, but is actually still just as susceptible to being disappointing for the gamer.  Closure works well if it fits in line with what you're expecting or hoping for.  If I pick the destroy ending thinking it's the best option, and it turns out that by wiping out the Geth total anarchy happens and the galaxy dies a horrible death, well that still kind of sucks.  But if the epilogue were to show the Quarians mourning the Geth, and attempting to recreate them to atone for their past actions, ultimately succeeding and having the Geth/Quarians working together and proving the Catalyst wrong, I think it'd be better received.  So it really depends on what is provided.  I loved the epilogues in Baldur's Gate saga, as well as Fallout 1 and 2, so I'm not at all against them.

I can fully see what you're saying here, and I think with the endings being the way they are, the open-ended aspect does make the endings a bit more interesting. It gives control the possibility of being anything between a better version of destroy to being completely useless. People have questioned the trustworthyness of the Catalyst and the possibility that the end moments are an indoctrinated dream.

That being said, I still don't think an open-ended ending is what this trilogy needed and to some degree I don't think it's what the ME team intended. Some questions seem to stem from a difference between the intended vision of the team and the way it was percieved by players. Indoctrination Theory is a good example of this. If there ever was any intention from Bioware to include IT, I don't think it was ever meant to be more than a little hint to make the player ask themselves 'what if?' Now we have the forums split on whether the endings ARE the endings or not. You could say this is just good debate, but I honestly don't think in this case it is. A lot of the pro-IT evidence is based on plotholes that can be explained away using IT, which is why it's such an appealing theory. 

I'm actually a big fan of open-endedness and ambiguity in endings, but this is absolutely not what I wanted from Mass Effect and I think that's because I don't really see how it benefits the game in this case. I also don't think telling the player what happens would undermine their own version of Shepard or the galaxy, since the game can track all these things anyway. I think if you're going to make things open-ended there needs to be a strong justification for it. Okay, so you don't know exactly what happened, but by not knowing everything, what do you learn? What does the game/book/film show you instead? I don't think things should be open-ended just for the sake of it. If the biggest theme in Mass Effect was the mystery of the universe, and you were constantly unaware of what the consequences of landing on your next planet, activating some technology or interacting with the next alien would be, then I think an open-ended finale might work, because it'd fit thematically and it would echo the nature of the universe you've been playing in.

By not knowing all the answers at the end, you should really be learning something more signifcant and ideally it should be thematically consistent with the rest of the game, otherwise in my mind, it just feels more like the game hasn't bothered to finish telling the story.

[ReXspec]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

ReggarBlane wrote...

But all we get are speculations for every choice. We have nothing solid as a reward for getting to an ending once and for all.

I get that someone wanted speculations for everyone, but I really don't believe that this was a good way to implement it.

That's fine but it's actually a different topic

You mean "morally good or morally bad", right?

I can definitely conclude that the ending was bad...

I think the crowd induced a, "No comment."  lol  

[Iakus]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I've been giving this a bit more thought as it commonly comes up, and the main reason I don't think it's a cop out is because a game like the original Deus Ex (easily in my Top 5 of all time) is a game that presented 3 choices at the end of the game, with no real epilogue about what happens afterward. It's also 3 choices where anyone could make an argument that any of the endings is superior to the rest. Had Ion Storm shown full epilogues of your decisions, it'd undermine this choice because it'd enable the player to make a more informed decision. If merging with Helios ends up resulting in a perfect Utopia (or backfires and ends up making humanity extinct and forces everyone to become cyborgs) then the player can more definitively state if that is the ideal ending.

The difference here is that Denton had differnt people advocating for the different endings, explaining the justifications for them and why the others were wrong.  There wasn't a ghostly kid with 2-3 lines for each choice.

In addition, Denton had to work for each ending.  There were different mission parameters fro each one.  Denton work work on any or all of them on teh final map.  Denton makes an active choice when he finally makes his decision. He is not herded towards a light with only a vague notion of what's going to happen. I should also mention that each choice in eus Ex came with a unique ending.

And btw, Denton also has to live with these choices as well.  Just saying 

Whereas a game like Fallout doesn't actually provide any real choice at the end, but the epilogue nature of it shows the consequences of the choices you made throughout the game. If you want the moment to be about the choice itself, I think an open ended ending can work really well because you're left only with your own internal justifications about why that is the correct choice.

And that's why I've always liked epilogue slides.  It shows the consequences of your chocies long after the events of the game ended.  So even if there isn't a big game-ender of a change, the game at least ends showing the consequences of other choices you made.

This is I think why I have no real issue with the choices as they are on a fundamental level. I think if the execution of them was a bit better done they would have been received a lot better, even if the choices were not any different.

For the chocies to be better accepted, they'd have to be

Far, far better explained

Have far greater variety among the possible outcomes (visually, there's almost no difference between destroys "Fried Earth" and "Shepard lives" endings.  If Earth is destroyed, we need to see far more of the horror around it.  the reactions of any survivors, and such.  If Shepard lives, we need to see Shepard limp off into the sunset with the LI on his/her arm

Make the choice something SHepard reaches out to make happen, not passively accept because the game demands it.

Modifié par iakus, 31 mai 2012 - 01:42 .

[antares_sublight]

"Your choices will matter" and "totally ambiguous open ending" are simply not compatible.

Also, let's not mix up "confusing and disjointed-from-the-rest-of-the-game ending" with "open ending".

The endings have a problem in both execution (BioWare's cop-out to not admit the deeper problem) and concept. I suppose, if the ending choices were integral parts of the story line farther back and were explained much better (their basis and reasons, not just after-effects) then I suppose that would help the conceptual problems. The execution is an obvious issue with a clear beginning point.

[Evenjelith]

ElitePinecone wrote...

Deus Ex pontificates and speculates about grand themes, and does it pretty well. It's a fine intellectual exercise to look at the endings offered and consider the eventual fate of the human species, because it's a thought-experiment in abstraction. Mass Effect should never be about the big themes. Its strength was always in minutiae and the connections with individuals as personifications of larger conflicts or issues - and when we get resolution for precisely none of them, and the plot veers into transhumanism at the last second, you could appreciate why some were totally bewildered.

This!

[wryterra]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

 The ending is not inherently weaker than one with epilogues simply because it's open ended.

Granted. However, I bought this game on the understanding, as cited by a BioWare employee in an interview with the press that it specifically would not have an open ending, it would have a definitive ending and not a Lost style ending that left more questions unanswered than answered. 

As a fulfilment of that promise, that assertion, it is inherently weak. 

[thefallen2far]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Note, the open ended nature of the ending means you cannot definitively conclude whether the ending is good or bad compared to the others.

How is that a good thing? If all the endings are the same, then why even have an ending cinematic? If you don't know what happens and you can justify the good and bad using your imagination, they could have saved a lot of money ending it after making the choice. That's it. No ending cinematic, no confusing, out of place Normandy scene. All that speculation is still there and we'd talk about just as much.

I guest there's a 4th. Don't choose. Let the crucible be destroyed and speculate what happens ignoring the character. It's as open ended as the other decisions. Yes, the tab says "critical mission failure" but you could "speculate" your mission was supposed to fail. You could speculate that failing in your mision saves the universe. You can speculate the Reapers are destroyed without the catalyst. Reapers are destroyed by conventional means, the mass Relays are in tact.no species die off, and all you needed was that "critical mission failure" screen to pop up.

You could also speculate the ending was half-***ed. You could speclate EA didn't give them enough time or resources. You could speculate they couldn't think of an ending. You could speculate they chickened out on a real ending so the made it "open ending" thinking they wouldn't be ridiculed.

You could speculate the whole ending was a dream. This, to me is the best case scenario.

I guess what I'm saying is speculation is only good if we're on your side. It's obvious we're not.

Unless you meant quality and you were comparing other game endings. Then yes, you could say "good or bad". Most people are saying "bad". There are some that like it, but 90% hating the ending. That means less people liked Superman Returns than the endings. So there you go, it's known in the same breath of positive conversations about Superman Returns. Own that pride.

[ed87]

Its ironic that the endings which were suppposed to be thought provoking, simply provoke a lot of thought into how much they sucked

[StElmo]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

ReggarBlane wrote...

But all we get are speculations for every choice. We have nothing solid as a reward for getting to an ending once and for all.

I get that someone wanted speculations for everyone, but I really don't believe that this was a good way to implement it.

That's fine but it's actually a different topic

You mean "morally good or morally bad", right?

I can definitely conclude that the ending was bad...

Aw, at least someone from BioWare is talking to us. Even if it's the guy from the crappy dragon age team  KIDDING! I actually like DA2, it looks gorgeous - haven't finished it yet, but thanks so much for being on the forums

[Wulfram]

The problem for me with Control isn't that TIM was in favour, but that Shepard was pretty much forced to be against it. So while I favour it from an objective stand point, it feels totally wrong from a narrative standpoint - as if Lord of the Rings ended with Frodo successfully claiming the One Ring and using it to bring peace and prosperity to the world.

Also, epilogues were needed for these endings because they changed the galaxy so profoundly. If we still had Mass Relays and the Normandy hadn't crashed on Planet Plothole, we wouldn't have needed them, because the rest of the game had created a good basis from which to speculate as to the future for the people we cared about.

[Gogzilla]

Allan Schumacher sure likes to argue semantics :l

Let me ask you a question to clarify what you been saying.
Considering all the feed back and backlash over the ending,
Can it be said that the ending to ME3 does not work as a result of its open ended nature and/or execution of content.
So it may actually need more closure and an epilogue sequence reflected past choices.

Now are you saying that the 'problems the fans have' may be because ME3 ending as an open ending is not executed to the level that is satisfactory to those fans.

Is it not possible that the problem may be the fact that it is as open ended as it is , and it needs the epilogue sequence ?

[Kyrick]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Note, the open ended nature of the ending means you cannot definitively conclude whether the ending is good or bad compared to the others.

There's been a lot of discussion about the three choices, and a common topic that comes up is that some people feel they couldn't choose the Control ending because it's what The Illusive Man wanted.

It's perfectly justified for you to feel that the Control ending is the best and most ideal of the three choices presented to you though.

This is beyond absurd reasoning if you're trying to evaluate something on moral grounds.  You can absolutely determine and conclude whether the ending is good or bad (moral judgements) compared to the others based simply on the fact that the ends do not justify the means.  At least not if you're trying to be ethical.

Claiming that just because you don't know what happened after means you can't definitely say whether the ending is good or bad compared to other endings is illogical.  Maybe if the Cuban Missile Crisis ended with a nuclear war, that would have been the best ending possible for humanity, right?  So why didn't those in charge evaluate that option as acceptable?  Because even though they didn't know the eventual outcome (and what outcome?  When?  One year later?  One hundred years later?  One million?) the act in itself was immoral and thus 'bad'.

It's why none of the choices in Mass Effect 3 at the end are 'good' in a moral sense.  Claiming that just because you don't know the outcome of an action means that you can't decide whether the action is good or bad is utterly false and leads down a very scary road when applied to other things.

[StElmo]

Gogzilla wrote...

Allan Schumacher sure likes to argue semantics :l

Let me ask you a question to clarify what you been saying.
Considering all the feed back and backlash over the ending,
Can it be said that the ending to ME3 does not work as a result of its open ended nature and/or execution of content.
So it may actually need more closure and an epilogue sequence reflected past choices.

Now are you saying that the 'problems the fans have' may be because ME3 ending as an open ending is not executed to the level that is satisfactory to those fans.

Is it not possible that the problem may be the fact that it is as open ended as it is , and it needs the epilogue sequence ?

Give the guy a break, he is not going to bag out his own company on the official forums. Stop goading.

[The Angry One]

StElmo wrote...

Gogzilla wrote...

Allan Schumacher sure likes to argue semantics :l

Let me ask you a question to clarify what you been saying.
Considering all the feed back and backlash over the ending,
Can it be said that the ending to ME3 does not work as a result of its open ended nature and/or execution of content.
So it may actually need more closure and an epilogue sequence reflected past choices.

Now are you saying that the 'problems the fans have' may be because ME3 ending as an open ending is not executed to the level that is satisfactory to those fans.

Is it not possible that the problem may be the fact that it is as open ended as it is , and it needs the epilogue sequence ?

Give the guy a break, he is not going to bag out his own company on the official forums. Stop goading.

Naturally, but cop-out defences tend to irritate people.
Saying that the ending is open-ended for instance and therefore can't be judged as comparitively good or bad is a weak justification.
It also proves that the ending is bad, because the finale of a trilogy cannot be open-ended. That defeats it's entire purpose.

[Thaa_solon]

When I beat ME1 I felt awesome
When I beat ME2 I felt heroic
When I beat ME3 I felt nothing......

[foppishdandy]

I think one of the big draws of the mass effect series was witnessing your choice's effects on the narrative, something I personally was expecting the ending would knock out of the park. I was more than disappointed that what we got instead was a jarring combination of last second character introduction, a choice that wasn't even close to scientifically possible in synthesis,a lack of closure, and after a confusing sequence of events we got a screen prompting us to purchase more dlc. In any case, I do appreciate Allan coming on here and communicating an inside point of view, even if he is with the DA team.

[Reddof Nonnac]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

...

Whereas a game like Fallout doesn't actually provide any real choice at the end, but the epilogue nature of it shows the consequences of the choices you made throughout the game. If you want the moment to be about the choice itself, I think an open ended ending can work really well because you're left only with your own internal justifications about why that is the correct choice.


This is I think why I have no real issue with the choices as they are on a fundamental level. I think if the execution of them was a bit better done they would have been received a lot better, even if the choices were not any different.

 
But by what you’re saying, while Fallout didn’t give you a choice at the end, it did give the player the one thing the ME3 ending really didn’t, and that is your choices though out the game mattered! 

ME3 boiled down to a 3 color RGB ending which is very different then what we were lead to believe would happen. While it may have worked for DE (Having never played it to the end I can’t comment) it really felt jarring to suddenly be thrust into this position with only a couple of dialog choices and then the plot hole of the Normandy that followed after making the decision. I was dumbfounded especially when EDI stepped off the ship after making the final push with me (I chose synthesis initially in my confused state not thinking about the actual meaning to it). I was waiting for any sort of epilogue showing how your choices throughout the series mattered in the aftermath only to have ‘Grandpa’ scene and then the ‘Buy More DLC’ screen.

To me the ME series has always been about the fact that choices and conversations matter and had repercussions both direct and indirect but still visible (Ash and Kaden, Wrex, the entire Omega Relay mission, etc) ME3 felt like the writers did not have a clear ending in mind when they got there. Looking back I think what they could have done and would possibly have been better is to have not had the starchild sequence and instead used the players own decisions throughout the game along with the EMS to trigger the type of ending sequence, which could include one with Joker bugging out with the Normandy, possibly if you had been really a purely renegade ****. I would think using this and making it very clear that your choices from the series made this outcome people could have more reasons to replay the entire series to try and come up with a different outcome by changing their choices in the series.
 

Modifié par Reddof Nonnac, 31 mai 2012 - 03:08 .