xsdob wrote...
I just think as soon as the first insult was thrown at those who like the ending, the first hate thread against the IT theory, ,the first thread about how the other 2 choices are wrong and players who picked them should feel bad, and the first insult thread at anti-ending folks were posted, that we ended this great thing.
That was, in my opinion, the end of the great mass effect community, when we decided turning on eachother was more important than respecting other opinions.
I do agree with this. But unfortunately this happens everywhere. You aren't going to stop people from being people and vehemently asserting that someone else is ignorant in order to make themselves appear smart.
People that complained about the ending were being consumers. But they were also very passionately involved in these games. It was natural that things would get heated. This does not happen when people don't care about things. It's something you see when people that have broken up still love each other-they will fight like crazy because they still care and they are hurt.
Bioware exacerbated things. They created a great game with an ending that was purposely ambiguous and then called it art. That instantly causes friction between people. There were some that liked the ending that figured the other people were just too dumb to understand it, even though very smart people have written at length what the problems are. You also then had people calling those that complained whining babies, entitled brats, and so on, when all they did at the beginning was complain about a business, a company that was not honest. They did what any good company wants a customer to do, they didn't just walk away, they tried to tell the company what was wrong. They tried to educated the company. I've worked in CS and I have a business. The person you don't want as a customer is the unhappy silent one. You want vocal ones because they help you do better. And if you are really good and do your job, you can make the loud, unhappy one your best customer even if you can't satisfy their complaint.
If you even take just one minor point you will see what Bioware and EA did purposely. They said multiplayer would not be required for success in the game. But, it is. If you have a 360, one of the strategies for MP says it will help you get good at MP which is needed to be successful in SP. So, then what about people without xboxlive gold or broadband. In fact, they won't even get the EC when it comes out and they can't play MP. Bioware ignored a certain segment of their own fans and they were not honest with them.
Complaining is not whining. But people were continually called names and yes both sides, all sides got out of hand. But I have noticed that one "side" consistently tries to point out examples within the game to prove their points and another "side" avoids these things and tends to use made up stuff they consider imaginative in order to prove their point. This is Bioware's fault. We didn't pay for a game where we had to make up the ending or make up stuff just so the ending kinda sorta makes some itty bitty bit of sense. We were told the ending would answer all our questions. It only raised more. We were also told it would be the result of all of our choices made along the way, but it isn't. Explore the different Destroy endings you can get and then direct me to how this makes sense and how all the choices that any Shepard make could lead to this.
Again, Bioware was the company that made promises to get you and me to buy something. They created the problem. They own it. Disgruntled customers have a right to complain and a company has the responsibility to tell others to stop attacking their customers. They have adopted a "hands off" policy which only exacerbated the problem. And they did worse. A fan was also said to be threatening Bioware because he wrote in and said if ME3's ending wasn't fixed, he wouldn't buy another Bioware game-Bioware contacted gaming media about this, thinking that was newsworthy. Characterizing it as a threat implied it was somehow a "violent" act and it set fans up as adversaries with the company and each other. What that fan did was something that existed long before I was born, it's called a boycott and it is the right of any consumer.
Of course, no one is without sin. I know I'm not. I think the ending is about as far from intellectual as you can get-in fact it is juvenile, illogical, magical, fantasy supported by mind-numbing statements that cannot be supported within the game itself and that have no basis in real logic. In short, the content of the ending is stupid. And to try and make people think they are super smart because they like it is another fault of Bioware's. It isn't intellectual. It's moronic and that is just the content. As well, it's context is non-existent. It was never foreshadowed within 3 games (IT which I don't adhere to has more foreshadowing than this). It also breaks with the way good stories are told. The main antagonist for 100 hours is now replaced by someone that is clearly the antagonist, but which some fans find as believable, trustable, and even helpful. So, the conflict was created by Bioware.
They are also responsible for the IT disagreement. I don't begrudge anyone their belief in it-it's the only thing that makes sense of this mess, but I have reasons for not liking it. First, it means the game was incomplete when released and it would point to Bioware wanting people to pay for DLC to explain it. There again is another problem for any customer withoug xbox gold or broadband. Not good. Second, it destroys Shepard's character. People already think Shep's crazy and have since ME1 with the vision. Shepard's image could not recover from fullscale indoctrination and making one of these ridiculous choices while indoctrinated (if the choice is even real).
But IT makes sense for these reason-there's a lot of content that fits with IT. The only problem there might be in the laziness that cropped up in ME games. The devs left things in that point to Dark Energy too. They may have just left this stuff in because they did not want to redo areas of the game they had finished even after they disposed of certain endings. My personal feelings about IT doesn't make me hate the people that think it makes sense. It does make some sense. I just personally don't like it as it is since it also leaves the kid in the game.
The other thing I have found is that once you say you don't like the ending, the freaks come out of the woodwork. And I don't mean anyone with the desire to discuss things rationally. I mean there are others that just love the ending as it is (which should mean they are happy), but they will post merely to taunt people that don't like the ending. One person repeatedly calls others names, insults their intelligence, and displays a real lack of knowledge about the games, but no matter what anyone does, he returns to poke fun at people. I know people on all sides of the issue are often involved in heated debate, but I end up seeing one particular side as distinctly unarmed.
If I say the starkid is evil, they will say he might have good intentions and I can't have a rational discussion with someone that can think that. Sorry, I can't. Doesn't mean I call them names, but I don't see this as making any sense.
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