138 réponses à ce sujet

[crimzontearz]

1 I love shotgun julia
2 Allan.....you honestly cannot blame people for believing your opinion is filtered and censored at best or orchestrated at worst here

[antares_sublight]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

That's fine. But I don't think it's fair to outright dismiss the person that feels the costs with the other two endings are too high, and if I am able to control the Reapers and use them for the greater good of the Galaxy (including rebuilding it) then that's a better solution.

(First, apologies if I came across as rude before, my points aren't directed at you in particular. Don't let me impede conversation, it's always a good thing to have a developer talking.) 

Which leads me to the big question in my mind today: what are the costs of the endings?

Destroy is obvious: arbitrarily, you will kill synthetics you just spent time understanding had souls and were becoming fully sentient with feelings, personality, etc. Shepard might die.
Synthesis: Shepard dies. Did BioWare mean for a "cost" of Synthesis to be the moral/ethical problems raised? Is capitulation to the reapers a "cost"? Is the continued existance of the reapers a "cost"?
Control: Shepard dies. Did BioWare mean for a "cost" of Control to be turning Shepard into a hypocrite and turning his back on his allies and accepting his enemies' premises? Is the possibility of Shepard-Controller continuing the cycle himself a "cost"? Is the continued existance of the reapers a "cost"?

If those aren't the intended costs for Control and Synthesis, then why have such a heavy cost for Destroy? If those are the costs, then they don't really seem like "winning" endings to me.

Modifié par antares_sublight, 31 mai 2012 - 08:36 .

[AngryFrozenWater]

For me there are several problems here:

The 3 options will not work for a player who thinks that self-determination is a basic right.

If the player sided with both the geth and the quarians then the geth will help the quarians rebuild Rannoch and the quarian's immune system. That means that the three options given by Star Child are solutions to a non-existing problem.

The protheans fought the synthetics in their cycle effectively. There was no need to wipe the protheans out. Not that I am a fan of the protheans, but exterminating them was a waste after they figured out a solution to their problem with synthetics.

So two cycles in succession did not require any intervention from the reapers. The civilizations of those cycles found their unique way of dealing with synthetics. All that remains is that the reapers themselves are a hybrid race that pose a threat to organics. Every 50,000 years.

The problem with reapers is that their goal to protect organics from synthetics by exterminating advanced civilizations is not a means; it is an end. Fighting synthetics merely has become a rationalization. Reapers have to use genocide to reproduce. It is their only method of survival and their way to stay on top of the food chain. It would be counterproductive for them to have emotion, ethics, morale or free will.

The ending failed not only because of the above, but also because this "problem with synthetics" was never the main problem of the game. The main problem were the reapers. Their cyclical maniacal genocidal behavior needed to be stopped. Shepard tried to do that with everything one could think of during 3 games and was let to believe that this was the right course of action. Shepard's solutions nearly always included some form of alliance, friendship, paragon or renegade action, but was never about finding solutions for an abstract problem that was pulled out of the writer's hat at the last 10 minutes of the game.

I truly think that the reapers were too strong. In ME2 the problem could be delayed by focusing on the collectors. In ME3 the writers didn't find a solution, so they went for the reaper-off switch and the RGB solution. Both of those came as a true surprise, because we were promised not to get those. That doesn't make me very happy, to say the least.

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

[nicethugbert]

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.

The endings were epic fail because I was not able to express my Shepard.  I wanted my Shepard to kick the Catalyst in the shins and shout "You little whipper snapper!  Rise and shine pooky!" just before I do ... something, whatever it is I do in the end.

Modifié par nicethugbert, 31 mai 2012 - 09:04 .

[trondjac]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

That's fine. But I don't think it's fair to outright dismiss the person that feels the costs with the other two endings are too high, and if I am able to control the Reapers and use them for the greater good of the Galaxy (including rebuilding it) then that's a better solution.

Hi Allan, 

I'm one of the persons that was utterly confused with the ending, and after a short while came to disagree that the endig did suit the Mass Effect serie. 
I understand that you think great of the ending. But I am woundering if you can understad us who think that the ending doesn't live up to what we came to expect, and I as other think that it should have been different?

[Iakus]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

That's fine. But I don't think it's fair to outright dismiss the person that feels the costs with the other two endings are too high, and if I am able to control the Reapers and use them for the greater good of the Galaxy (including rebuilding it) then that's a better solution.

A good solution, yes, but where do you get that from?  All the Catalyst tells us is

'You will die.  You will control us but you will lose everything you have"

There's even some doubt that Shepard can control them.

"Or, do you think you can control us?"

this is why when we debate "best" endings, it more akin to "least bad" endings.  We simply don't have the information to tell us that any of these endings are "good"

How much better would the endings have been if the choices had been presented more as

Destroy:  Destroy the Reapers, forget all the "you'll kill all synthetics, you're partially synthetic, etc" but the galaxy is frakked up.  It may take several (human) lifetimes to completely rebuild.  Relays are fried, etc.  But Shepard stays human.  With a human lifespan and human joys and sorrows.

Control:  None of this "you'll die but you'll control us"  Shepard can harness the power of the Reapers to help rebuild, or control the galaxy.  Shepard could rebuild the galaxy in a fraction of the time that the others could manage.  Lead the galaxy into a new golden age.  But at the cost of his/her humanity.  Shepard would have to leave organic life behind and become essentially a techno-god.

Synthesis:  Not gonna touch becuse frankly it's just too weird and space magic-y

but for the first two, wouldn't this inspire more questions of "What happens next?" rather than "WTF just happened here?"

Modifié par iakus, 31 mai 2012 - 09:53 .

[Kunari801]

iakus wrote...
How much better would the endings have been if the choices had been presented more as

Destroy:  Destroy the Reapers, forget all the "you'll kill all synthetics, you're partially synthetic, etc" but the galaxy is frakked up.  It may take several (human) lifetimes to completely rebuild.  Relays are fried, etc.  But Shepard stays human.  With a human lifespan and human joys and sorrows.

Control:  None of this "you'll die but you'll control us"  Shepard can harness the power of the Reapers to help rebuild, or control the galaxy.  Shepard could rebuild the galaxy in a fraction of the time that the others could manage.  Lead the galaxy into a new golden age.  But at the cost of his/her humanity.  Shepard would have to leave organic life behind and become essentially a techno-god.

Synthesis:  Not gonna touch becuse frankly it's just too weird and space magic-y

but for the first two, wouldn't this inspire more questions of "What happens next?" rather than "WTF just happened here?"

Yes they'd be better

[FamilyManFirst]

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 thing is, the three choices in Deus Ex had plenty of build-up throughout the game.  Granted, you didn't know the ultimate consequences of your choice, but you had a pretty good idea based on everything that had gone before.  The choices in ME3, however, have little or no build-up.
1) You can destroy the Reapers (lots of build-up) and the Geth and EDI (completely out of the blue).
2) You can control the Reapers (running completely counter to the build-up throughout the game).
3) You can synthesize synthetic and organic (out of the blue and off the wall).
Any choice destroys the Mass Relays, effectively destroying galactic civilization (almost no build-up).  All of this because of an impending technological singularity which was barely hinted at throughout all 3 games.

You see the problem here?  The choices in Deus Ex flowed naturally out of the conflicts and storylines that had been established in the game.  The choices in ME3 were jarringly out of place.

Throw in the many other problems with then ending (violation of the Dramatic Arc, separation of the dramatic climax from the literary climax, plotholes galore, etc.) and you get one epic fail.

[Helios969]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Helios969 wrote...

But this goes to a point I've raised on a number of occasions.  Is it EA/BW's objective to make art? or is it to sell games to the masses?  Ideally, you want to do both, but objectively and ultimately as a corporate entity you need to cater to the masses tastes.  Otherwise less people are inclined to play the product at potentially the cost of any artistic pursuit at all.  It's a fine line to be sure.

Ideally, as developers, we want to make the game that we want to make and hopefully the rest of the world agrees that it's awesome and buys it in droves.

As a developer, I understand that economies of scale are important and that making a game that ONLY I want isn't going to work very well for sustained development.  If I were to make a game that I think would have the widest appeal, it'd probably be an FPS in the vein of Modern Warfare games.  Or maybe some online social game instead.  Though that's not the type of game that I'm interested in playing, which means it's probably not the type of game I'd be very good at making either.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.  I definitely get that.  I'm a musician who likes to play in hard rock bands.  I would be less inclined to play with or enjoy playing in a pop band (unless they dumped a pile of money in my livingroom:)

Still I don't know what the solution is at this point.  I'm unhappy along with legions of others.  Do you as a decision maker (if you have/had that authority) kill an ending that has evoked such a visceral response?  Or is this all just a pipe dream so many of us have?

I really want Bioware to succeed and continue to make fantastic games.  DA:O immersed me in a way I wouldn't have ever thought possible.  That led me to the BW forum, which in turn led me to the ME universe.  But the series conclusion is so ambiguous and dismal that I am wary to ever allow myself that kind of emotional investment again in a game (at least not without a good idea of where it's heading.)  I hope it gets fixed so I can continue to enjoy this universe.

Modifié par Helios969, 01 juin 2012 - 01:25 .

[birdmojo]

I don't understand why we believe Star-Jar. Did I miss where it was demonstrated that we knew that he was talking to us in good faith?

It feels like it's an ending where the bad guy gives you a gun and says "if you shoot yourself in the head, I promise to go away" and the final cinematic is you shooting yourself in the head. Sure, you could speculate about how your selfless sacrifice saved everyone from the bad guy.

Sure.

[ozthegweat]

FamilyManFirst wrote...

1) You can destroy the Reapers (lots of build-up) and the Geth and EDI (completely out of the blue).
2) You can control the Reapers (running completely counter to the build-up throughout the game).
3) You can synthesize synthetic and organic (out of the blue and off the wall).
Any choice destroys the Mass Relays, effectively destroying galactic civilization (almost no build-up).  All of this because of an impending technological singularity which was barely hinted at throughout all 3 games.

1) As I said before, and as birdmojo says in the post above me: Starchild could be lying. Even the fact that EDI doesn't step out of the Normandy with the Destroy ending could be because then you would have a definitive answer that Starchild was lying, which BioWare doesn't want (lots of speculation).

2) The entire villain plot of ME3 (and the end of ME2) centered around that. I'm sure there are other stories where the hero discovers at the end that he could actually do what the villain wanted to do all this time; might even be tempted to do it or realizes that it's the only option.

3) That's the villain plot of ME1 (see #2)

Well the singularity has been hinted at. The rogue VI on Luna, the Geth conflict, the ban on using AIs, unshackling EDI. Shepard proved (or so I'd like to think) that we can prevent this singularity from happening, which is why in each of the three endings, the cycle is stopped.

[FamilyManFirst]

ozthegweat wrote...

FamilyManFirst wrote...

1) You can destroy the Reapers (lots of build-up) and the Geth and EDI (completely out of the blue).
2) You can control the Reapers (running completely counter to the build-up throughout the game).
3) You can synthesize synthetic and organic (out of the blue and off the wall).
Any choice destroys the Mass Relays, effectively destroying galactic civilization (almost no build-up).  All of this because of an impending technological singularity which was barely hinted at throughout all 3 games.

1) As I said before, and as birdmojo says in the post above me: Starchild could be lying. Even the fact that EDI doesn't step out of the Normandy with the Destroy ending could be because then you would have a definitive answer that Starchild was lying, which BioWare doesn't want (lots of speculation).

2) The entire villain plot of ME3 (and the end of ME2) centered around that. I'm sure there are other stories where the hero discovers at the end that he could actually do what the villain wanted to do all this time; might even be tempted to do it or realizes that it's the only option.

3) That's the villain plot of ME1 (see #2)

Well the singularity has been hinted at. The rogue VI on Luna, the Geth conflict, the ban on using AIs, unshackling EDI. Shepard proved (or so I'd like to think) that we can prevent this singularity from happening, which is why in each of the three endings, the cycle is stopped.

You miss my point.  My point is that there is no buildup, no plot support for the 3 choices, save for the destruction aspect of choice 1.

1) Sure, Starchild could be lying.  Or, everything after the Harbinger Beam might be an Indoctrination hallucination.  For that matter, everything after the Harbinger Beam could be a dying dream that Shepard has as he bleeds to death.  However, there's no support for any of that in-game.  Starchild's spiel is presented as gospel truth.  Shepard doesn't question it or show any suspicion.  There was no hint that Starchild should be mistrusted.  There were also no hints anywhere in the game that destroying the Reapers might result in the destruction of the Geth and/or EDI.  It's just thrown at you, boom! when the choice is given to you.

2) There are tragic stories where the hero is tempted to follow the villain's path, does so, and falls from heroism to villany, but ME3 isn't a tragedy.  There are heroic stories where the hero is tempted to follow the villain's path, refuses to do so, and is lauded as a hero, but Control is presented as a solution, not a temptation.  There are twist stories where the supposed villian is shown to be a hero after all, and the hero misguided, but that's not how the ME3 story goes.  TIM is presented as a villain right to the end, and is either killed by the hero because of it, or kills himself because he realizes that he's been duped into being the villian.  The possibility of controlling the Reapers is never presented as a heroic, or even reasonable, option until right at the end, when Starchild offers it to Shepard.  There's no buildup or support for it in-game.

3) Synthesis does, at least superficially, resemble the goal of Saren from ME1.  However, again, there was never any buildup or support for the idea that it might be a good option even then.  Afterword, the plot idea was abandoned until right at the end, at the Starchild's offer; that's why I call it "off the wall."

While there were occasional hints of things that suggested the possibility of a singularity, it was never presented as the Big Problem Of The Galaxy until the very last minute.  Again, no buildup or support.

With Deus Ex, when the choices were given to you at the end, you understood the background and many of the implications of your options because they had been built up throughout the game.  With ME3 the "solutions" to your dilemma, and indeed the dilemma itself, were sprung on you at the last minute.

That's lousy writing.

P.S.  What this really looks like, to me, is some hasty writing that tries (and fails) to "give the player the ultimate choice."  Destruction is supposed to be What You Were Working Toward All This Time, but Bittersweet!  Control is, "Hey, do you want to choose TIM's path, even though we've presented it as the Wrong Thing To Do for the entire game?  Here you go!"  Synthesis is, "Hey, did you think that Saren was right all along in ME1?  Well, here's your chance to make it so!"  If the various games' stories had been written more ambiguously, that might have worked.  However, Mass Effect has never been ambiguous; it has always been a straightforward Good Guys vs. Bad Guys story.  As a result, this ending fails.

[mxfox408]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

That's fine. But I don't think it's fair to outright dismiss the person that feels the costs with the other two endings are too high, and if I am able to control the Reapers and use them for the greater good of the Galaxy (including rebuilding it) then that's a better solution.

if that was true then why didnt the team expand on that? even the crappy star wars episode 3 had a better conclusion because they ended it with a brief explanation, not the ok game over roll credits then while your at it buy more DLC type **** of a message. bioware failed, and instead of admitting it they hide behing "Artistic Integrity" meanwhile giving us the finger then say they are polishing a turd. bioware lost my respect with the crappy PR they gave us. i expected more from them..

Modifié par mxfox408, 01 juin 2012 - 10:05 .

[wright1978]

The ending fails because the plot device used to deliver them is a genocidal untrustworthy maniac.
This causes a cataclysmic chain reaction. Shep passively suddenly acts like a passive fool before this crazy ghost creature. Then there's the absolutely nutty reason why the reapers murder trillions and turn millions others into sentient goo that it presents as fact. Then there's the huge disconnect between the three potential bones it offers Shep to chase after like its faithful dog and this nut job theory. Then there's the glaring issues/plotholes that just lack any kind of exposition, explanation and hover over the ending sequence. Finally no closure whatever is given to anything and i am not counting some idiotic Buzz Aldrin cameo.