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[George-Kinsill]

 I know there is a split between anti-enders and pro enders mainly surrounding the idea of a dark/bittersweet ending. The pro-enders seem to think that a dark ending is fitting for Mass Effect and since they played their Shepard that way, it makes the ending for them better. Most anti-enders seem to agree that a dark/bitersweet ending should be an ption, along with a happy ending. Pro-enders then counter that a happy ending would diminish the value of the possible dark ending.

However, I believe the belief that the dark ending would be diminished by the option for a happy ending is false. In fact, a dark ending would be enchanced by the option for a happy ending. This is because it is your choice and those that get a dark ending will have to live (or die) with the fact that it is thei fault, not someone else's, that you got the dark ending.

In the curren endings, you get a dark (and I think poorly executed) dark ending no matter what. All the Mass Relays blow up, your crew is stranded on a reandom planet, Shepard is most likely dead, and none of the allied races will see their home planets ever again. While this is all sad, the sadness is diminshed by the anger fans feel; they did not have a choice in the matter, there is no way to stop it and if you played countless hours of multiplayer, all you get is a scene of Shepard breathing and some how surviving implausibly.

If the mass relays blew up though because you were not prepared, made bad decisions or recruited the wrong allies, this anger towards BioWare would be pretty much non-existent as you could only blame yourslef. The death of your friends and allies are on your hands.

One of the most common ways to get over someone's death is with the knowledge that it was not your fault; you couldn't do anything to stop it. While it will take some time to acept this fact, it will be accepted eventually. If you had a choice in the matter, you could not get over the deaths/consequences with this logic.

Something that did this right is ME2's suicide mission. On my first playthrough, I decided to do a few side quests before going on the SM. Because of this, half my crew died, including Kelly Chambers, which meant my fish would die too. Due to my poor decisions, my crew died. It was  MY fault. I had to live with that guilt, making it hurt far mor than if they died no matter what.

I even had a friend who is a huge Talimancer that accidentally got her killed in the SM on his first/canon playthrough. It was his poor choice in fire team leader that got her killed (he chose Legion). He was greatly tempted to load a save file to save her, but he decided against it to not lessen the consequences of his choices. Even though everyone else lived, this created a true bittersweet ending for my friend. Tali's death was on his hands.

Essentially, the possibility of a happy ending gives the player more choice. More choice results in more ownership and responsibility. This equates to personal responsibility for the end result. ME3's endings lacked a possible happy ending, so the dark endings lacked the sense of ownership, diminishing their value.

As for people who disagree and still hld onto the belief that there cant; be a happy ending as it would diminsish the ending, I hae 2 more things to sa:

1. No ending is going to truly be happy. Billions died, earth, Palaven, Thessia and a crap ton of other worlds are ruined. Friends are dead and much of what was lost will never be replaced. It will only be happy in the sense the Reapers are dead and you minimized what losses where you could.

2. If you are the type of person that will choose the happy ending if given the choice and thus needs BioWare to take away the option for a happy ending, don't ruin ME for the rest of us. Mass Effect is about choices. If you can't handle choice and need to be gien a dark ending, play a game like Nier, which has very dark/bittersweet endings but they are all wonderfully executed.

If you read all of that, thank you, and please give your thoughts.

[Allan Schumacher]

1. No ending is going to truly be happy. Billions died, earth, Palaven,
Thessia and a crap ton of other worlds are ruined. Friends are dead and
much of what was lost will never be replaced. It will only be happy in
the sense the Reapers are dead and you minimized what losses where you
could.

I don't think this works for the same reason that many have said the current endings are unsatisfying because they're less emotionally invested in the faceless masses and the fact that the future no longer needs to worry about systemic extermination at the hands of the Reapers.


The problem I have with a situation like the Suicide Mission is that the ending is effectively a game score.  Especially given how easy it can be to achieve, not achieving a nearly flawless playthrough more says "You didn't win as well as you could have if only you had played better."

I prefer endings that are qualitatively similar.  That is, an ending where it's not as obvious which one is the "more ideal result."

My preference for a "happier ending" would have preconditions that involve making more difficult choices (not just playing the game better or more thoroughly) at earlier points of the game (ideally significantly earlier parts of the game to prevent save scumming).  In fact, I'd even make it more interesting and set up the situation that the only way to have a "happier ending" would be for Paragons to have to choose a renegade option earlier in the game, and for Renegades to have to make a paragon option.  Make it so that if you want things to work out, sometimes you have to make choices you don't think are appropriate choices at other points.  (I'm actually not a fan of morality scoring systems like Paragon/Renegade because I think they make decisions that could be interesting just academic: "This gives me Paragon?  I'm picking that").


As for player choice, I am more just a fan of "does the game react to my choice in some capacity" as opposed to "I'd prefer to choose specifically how the narrative proceeds."  I think this has been the one thing I've learned the most since frequenting the forums though, as it seems many people (at least people on the BSN) prefer their choice to be more along the lines of "How would you like to proceed through the game" as opposed to difficult choices with no obvious good outcome.  As an example, while I think it's interesting for the crew to all die in ME2, it's really a situation that requires the player to consciously make "bad" game decisions in order to achieve.  That's less interesting in my opinion, but it is indeed a "choice" we can allow.

[Allan Schumacher]

ReggarBlane wrote...

@Allan I dunno if it's that.

There's evidence that suggests (and not any more than just suggests) there were supposed to be things that showed how we affected the progress of the ending, such as having one or more Hammer sequences that didn't fail. Even if we killed Wrex, the Krogan are still present for the Hammer Massacre. No amount of TMS changes that scene. The video files actually have "fail" tacked onto them.

It's that once we get to the Hammer Scene, nothing changes no matter what the player did. There's no feedback to the player's efforts except which choices the player can make at the very end.

My comment regarding my preference for choice actually transcends just ME3 (ME2 is probably a better example since it's endings are more variable than ME3s).

Sorry for the confusion.

[Allan Schumacher]

crimzontearz wrote...

good luck with that...in a game like ME I have an individual save at the beginning of each level for me to go back to regardless of how far I am in the game

Eh, if you don't realize until 20 hours later that a choice you made has (or has not) allowed you to have a more ideal ending, the effect I'm looking for is still accomplished.  Especially if you don't realize it until the ending itself is actually being played out.  Doubly especially if you don't actually learn it until you replay the game or read up about it on the internets.

At that point, reloading the saved game prior the decision isn't much different than someone replaying the game from start and making metadecisions to drive to the conclusion that they'd like to experience.

[Allan Schumacher]

You know Alan, I'm starting to wonder if the people left over at BioWare just hate games all of a sudden. I mean the way you guys keep wanting to remove things that are too "Video Gamey" from *shock* A VIDEO GAME! All the talk about whatever artistic crafting you want to throw out is all well and good, but at the end of the day you're making video games for public consumption, and the one thing video games should be is fun and entertaining for their audience. In short playing a video game should be enjoyable. And, shockingly enough, having a happy ending is enjoyable to people. One would think these things would be obvious but lately BioWare has shown a complete lack of understading this simple concept.

I get having choices that are difficult and not simply defined by red or blue. That's great, making things interesting along the way I'm all for. But if at the end of the day the customer does not enjoy the gaming experience, as is happening now with ME3 due to its ending, then you as a game developer have failed at a fundamental level.

How do you define enjoyment?

I *love* it when a game can illicit an emotional reaction from me. I think it's exceptionally powerful. Whether it be anger, happiness, sadness, or anything like that, I enjoy it. What do you have to say to all the people (and they do exist) that do enjoy the endings to Mass Effect 3? Are they just wrong? Did we fail them on a fundamental level? If we didn't fail them, well then things become a lot muddier don't they?  Keep in mind that I'm still a consumer of video games myself.  I find the Modern Warfare games disinteresting, though there's something about Diablo that keeps me coming back (Hardcore mode...) and I love it when a game can make me pause and think about the decision that I'm actually going to make.

Fallout 1 and Planescape: Torment are both endings that are not happy. Fallout 1 is probably the most poignant ending I've ever experienced, and it's easily one of my favourite games of all time. It might also be of interest that these two games also allow you to complete them by circumventing the boss fight entirely (and in fact, IMO, have rather bland boss fights and the significantly more interesting options are the ones that avoid the fight). Deus Ex is another one of my all time favourites, and it's a game where all three endings are decidedly open ended and there's no real boss fight either.

I like a game series like Mass Effect because I like being immersed in the story. Because of that I'm able to overlook aspects of the gameplay that really aren't all that fun for me, because it did stuff like that so well. Two of the weakest parts of ME1 and ME2 or me are the boss fights. I thought it was silly to still have to fight Saren after he puts the gun to himself, and it made me roll my eyes and conclude "I guess we just need a boss fight." ME2 is just the same, where I feel the ending would have been superior if they had just skipped over the fight with the reaper at the end.


As for us not liking games, I'll just disagree. I applied at BioWare because I *love* gaming. I've had my run ins with gaming compulsion growing up and found a way to leverage my passion into a career. I booked time off for Alpha Protocol and Deus Ex Human Revolution, and more recently there's others around work that have taken time for games like Skyrim and Diablo 3.  Gaming talk permeates throughout the office.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 31 mai 2012 - 05:17 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Kunari801 wrote...

I too love it when a game evokes an emotional reaction, like a good book or movie.  I too love to get immersed in a good story.   But I wonder what emotions were the team trying to evoke in ME3's ending?  (I know you can't answer for them)  Did they evoke the emotions they wanted to evoke? 

I think at this point it's fair to say that they didn't succeed for a large number of fans.  I do believe that they were aiming for a bittersweet interpretation, and were hoping for 'lots of speculation' to mean people discussing the endings and what the future might hold for the galaxy in a more positive light than we've seen from a lot of people.

(Note: my opinion on the subject)

I believe the Tuchanka & Rannoch arcs do evoke the proper emotional mix of bittersweet victory while the endings missed the mark.  

I think Tuchanka and Rannoch accent the ending (in a negative way) because to me both of those story arcs are among my favourite in my gaming history.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 31 mai 2012 - 05:53 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Optimystic_X wrote...

THANK YOU. I've been saying this for weeks/months in the "happy ending" threads. The response has been, invariably, "Y U NO LIKE HAPPY??"

To be fair, I've entirely underestimated the level of emotional investment some players have (I don't mean this as a diss either... I actually consider myself a player that gets emotionally invested too) and what their expectations were.  I didn't follow ME3's development (and especially not the hype) at all, so I went into the game blind.

I just want to make it clear that though I feel there are strengths in having endings that are all relatively equivalent in their outcomes, the fact that people found the ending disappointing is not lost on me.

[Allan Schumacher]

If there's one thing game development has taught me is that no matter how amazing you make something, someone is always going to hate it. By the same token, no matter how crappy you make something, someone is always going to love it. Just saying that there are people out there that love the ending doesn't justify it in any way.

No, but it doesn't mean we should outright dismiss what the smaller group is saying. I think it's also hubris to completely overlook the issues that people may have had with a game like Baldur's Gate 2 even if the majority really like it.

In the end you've taken the stance of superiority over your fans and supporters. You're sending the message to the fans that happy endings are just so beneath you, and that your amazing artistic integrity is more important then making games enjoyable. It's pure hubris.

I think this is just an interpretation and it's a bit unfair to make such a sweeping statement based upon the quality of the endings.

If this was actually the case, wouldn't story arcs like Tuchanka and Rannoch have played out very differently than what is provided? Or are those moments that we weren't displaying any sort of artistic integrity and just giving the fans what they wanted (i.e. those story arcs aren't actually what anyone on the team wanted?)