402 réponses à ce sujet

[cavs25]

The writers should have watched braveheart and 300 before doing the "refuse" ending.

[jimw884]

I actually kinda like the reject ending. The only thing I feel it was missing was that display of all the races final acts of defiance. Sure they're gonna die, but that heroic blaze of glory would still be pretty satisfying.

Edit: Just noticed the braveheart and 300 examples.  Something akin to that would have been pretty cool.

Modifié par jimw884, 28 juin 2012 - 06:02 .

[Alushadow]

but there is no sense in that only logical choice is killing them all
thats why shep survive that way
since from ME1 u go to kill the reapers or find a way to stop them
refusing the child is just accepting the extinction of the entire galaxy
why? when u can blow the hell outta the child by shooting the goddamn machine
i always found bullet to be extremely effective against non intellectual entity's

[AKOdin]

I thought the addition of a "refuse" ending was positive. As opposed to an insult, it felt like a logical additional choice a skeptical Shepard might opt for. A tie in to EMS rating would enhance that (ie, sub par EMS the T'Soni beacons are damaged/wiped out scene, acceptable EMS future cycle is warned, excellent EMS future cycle is shown prevailing due to widespread T'Soni information).


As far as fleshing it out more: Some combat cinematics/dialogue that changed based on the player's EMS would have been nice and helped replay value. Additional scenes acknowledging that the Rachni were assisting/betraying/wiped out, the Geth/Quarians doing something impactful, etc... I think without DA:O style epilogue paragraphs it would be difficult to establish such differences cost-effectively.

[Ingvarr Stormbird]

People, don't feel bad about anything said on Twitter. Twitter is non-canon. It's personal opinion of whatever person tweets. So yes, Gamble now thinks that next cycle have built and used the Crucible - so what? It's not in game, so it's not canon, its his current interpretation, nothing more.
To go ingame, he will have to turn this personal interpretation into collective team consensus, which probably will alter it greatly. Until (if) this actually happens - canon (game/books) says nothing about how next cycle defeats Reapers.
Or if it was even "usual" cycle. Asari (stargazer) survive, human (child) survive. They should've been all harvested you know! Did they survive in stasis chambers ala Protheans, but successfully?

And finally, even if next Cycle built and used the Crucible, no ground to feel bad about it. For all we know, they could've built improved "Crucible 2.0" based on information we gave them. Which did not require to make flawed choices, and allowed to kill Reapers without killing all synthetics.

[Wyatt Shepard]

"A personal insult." *groan*

Really? a PERSONAL insult? Like some dude from Bioware came to your house and slapped you in the face with his dueling gloves?

Hyperbole much OP?

Look, fans were complaining, with some justification, that Shep was weirdly accepting of the star brat's rationale and never once went "uh, yah, you make no sense you creepy little hologram kid." Bioware changed so we can do that if we choose, including shooting the little creeper in the face.

But the consequences of doing that wasn't made to be a nice cut and dry, hollywood moment. Don't like it if you wish, criticize if you like, but welcome to life 101. Sometimes you do what you think is right and the results pretty well suck.

But yah, criticize and tear the ending to pieces, hate it if you like, but anyone who thinks the business/artistic strategy of Bioware, or any video game company, is to "personally" insult it's customers just sounds loony to me. Bioware didn't come to your door and punch your mother in the face. It made a game, and you don't happen to like it. Fair enough. You are allowed not to like it, but to suggest it was a "personal" insult......ugh.

ok rant over.

[the slynx]

Ingvarr Stormbird wrote...

People, don't feel bad about anything said on Twitter. Twitter is non-canon. It's personal opinion of whatever person tweets. So yes, Gamble now thinks that next cycle have built and used the Crucible - so what? It's not in game, so it's not canon, its his current interpretation, nothing more.

As far as I'm concerned, the whole finale of the game is non-canon. I struggle to imagine a great series like Mass Effect having these poor endings.

That said, the way Gamble worded the tweet implied not so much that this was his interpretation, as that the message the final scene was trying to convey was that they did in fact use the Crucible. You're correct in that he didn't specify how, so perhaps they came up with something less absurd than Star Kid's fare.

[Udalango]

I like Reject the most of all the choices. Mostly cause I think Star Brat is immensely stupid, and even with the "Fixed" endings I roll my eyes everytime he comes out

Also because I feel like if the Star Brat is telling the truth and that he can prove synthetics kill us all, and somehow we get preserved in goo form that it makes Shepard the bad guy.
If I think he is lying that means we give into the bad guys and do kinda what they want unless we pick destroy
1.Reject
2.Destroy
3.Control
4. Space rape

So if it was an insult it was a REALLY REALLY bad one.  Cause I liked it way way more than the other endings.  If anything the original endings and Biowares condescending attitude regarding the fans was the insult and the EC was the "Apology"

Modifié par Udalango, 28 juin 2012 - 08:12 .

[wryterra]

Wyatt Shepard wrote...

"A personal insult." *groan*

Really? a PERSONAL insult? Like some dude from Bioware came to your house and slapped you in the face with his dueling gloves?

Hyperbole much OP?

Look, fans were complaining, with some justification, that Shep was weirdly accepting of the star brat's rationale and never once went "uh, yah, you make no sense you creepy little hologram kid." Bioware changed so we can do that if we choose, including shooting the little creeper in the face.

But the consequences of doing that wasn't made to be a nice cut and dry, hollywood moment. Don't like it if you wish, criticize if you like, but welcome to life 101. Sometimes you do what you think is right and the results pretty well suck.

But yah, criticize and tear the ending to pieces, hate it if you like, but anyone who thinks the business/artistic strategy of Bioware, or any video game company, is to "personally" insult it's customers just sounds loony to me. Bioware didn't come to your door and punch your mother in the face. It made a game, and you don't happen to like it. Fair enough. You are allowed not to like it, but to suggest it was a "personal" insult......ugh.

ok rant over.

Personal, using the definition 'of, pertaining to, or coming as from a particular person'. Or persons in this case, Mac Walters and Casey Hudson. The 'coming from' definition not the 'directed to' definition. 

I love how everyone assums 'personal insult' means insult to just me and me alone when I specified, in my OP, that I meant 'myself and gamers who agree with me', which is a whole swath of us. 

People who don't understand words have more than one definition... ugh. 

[MuKen]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

It is indeed a shorter conclusion.  Would it have been more easily accepted if it was expanded upon, but ultimately the consequences still the same?

At least for my part, absolutely yes.  I LIKED the plot of the ending, it made sense and was bittersweet.  I didn't like the heavy implication that I as a player played wrong given by this ending not having the same work put into it as the others.

Especially since there is so much more to tell.  We can guess fairly accurately at what happened to a lot of our teammates in the other endings.  We have no clue how things panned out in this one, the story of the generations-long process of reapers cleansing a cycle is an immense one according to Javik.

[GdawgTuk]

I am sure glad I wasn't the only person who saw the secret "FU" in there.

Bioware: "we are listening and we care as much as you do so we are going to extend the unlikable and give you the option to be told off. Thanks for your continued support and especially your money."

After he said, "So be it" I half expected it to just flash to the Nyan cat animation and song for hours on end with the words, "buy our DLC" in the middle. There's your 1.9gb download.

Modifié par GdawgTuk, 28 juin 2012 - 04:52 .

[wryterra]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

wryterra wrote...

Hey Allan, thanks for adding the BioWare tag on one of my threads, heh.

I've already answered this earlier in the thread but I'll answer again happily: Yes I would have preferred no refuse option at all compared to what was provided. 

My reason for saying that is because what was added, as I think I've made clear by now, I find insulting. Especially now I've learned that it doesn't actually count as a game completion for the purposes of achievement. That seems to be a deliberate comment that it is a way to end the game, not complete it. As it wasn't in the original ending that means this insult has been deliberately added. 

We actually did get an 'oh well you lose'. Liara's ideo, talking about our past experience, said nothing about our past experience. It reenforced the 'oh well you lose'. Correct me if I'm wrong but she covers the points: we built a crucible, it didn't work, we died. I'd have loved to hear how she described Shepard's history on the time capsule but all we got was 'Shepard failed'. Is that not dismissive? We know that 'archive' contains our entire history but the only bit BioWare chose to include in the ending was 'Shepard failed'.

It is indeed a shorter conclusion.  Would it have been more easily accepted if it was expanded upon, but ultimately the consequences still the same?  I'm referring to Liara speaking more positively (rather than just Shepard failed) and having it fleshed out more with a fight of the fleet going down in a heroic, principled blaze of glory - willing to die than compromise who they are?

The Stargazer isn't dismissive, I'll give you that but then the Stargazer scene is a couple of lines and I'm sure it was included to maintain the structure of the ending, not because the fans demanded a better Stargazer scene. That said I was interested that the Stargazer looked a little Asari like, as described in the original leaked ending.

Well, be careful when you say the words "and I'm sure."  If you already feel as though the decision was done as a slight to fans, it becomes easy to interpret reasoning for why things are done to support your perspective.


If people are curious why I might be taking this discussion a bit more personally, is that frankly - based on the feedback I had read from the fans - this is very much in line with what I would have done and if you find any of my posts on the matter from a few months ago you'll see that that was the case.

I absolutely agreed with many fans that it was lacking to be able to refuse the Catalyst's premise, especially as I found the Catalyst to be unreliable myself.  I told them straight up that if it was my say (and no, I had no influence haha) though, it'd still result in a fail case.

The coles notes of it is along the lines of "providing a choice that is so clearly the best choice invalidates the choice at all."  I've actually stated that one thing I dislike about the ME2 ending, as interesting as it is from a reactivity standpoint, is that it doesn't actually reflect player choice but more whether or not the player played the game well.  Surviving the suicide mission is more akin to getting a higher score.  Choice for me is interesting when there becomes no obvious correct choice.  It also comes down to whether or not "choice" in games means "driving the narrative in the way that I want" or "providing alternative routes that each have their own consequences."

I stated then that I find it a more interesting choice if it doesn't result in success.

So when people say that they find this to be a gigantic middle finger to them, they're actually kind of saying that they feel that my idea is a middle finger to them, when I know for a fact that that is not at all the case.  I found it to be an interesting idea that provided an alternative choice that makes the player reflect on themselves and/or Shepard.  Even knowing the consequences, are you willing to die for what you believe in?

So yeah, reading up that fans feel that the direction I felt the game should go in is just insulting to them is a bit frustrating to read.  If you feel that I'm on this boards to troll the fanbase and mock and laugh at them, then I'm not sure where you're coming from.


It sucks that you feel this is an insult.  At this point there's not much I can do about it but try to talk with you.  I'm just trying to place some perspective on it because it's along the lines of what I would have done and I have zero interest in insulting fans with additional content.  Maybe if I was ultra decision maker master sergeant supreme I would have done some things differently, and at the same time there's still reconciling costs and time issues, but the general theme would still be "You're free to stick to your principles, but ultimately the Reapers are too much for us."  Why?  Because I feel it's more interesting.  It's perfectly valid for you to tell me you disagree with that premise.  Maybe it's not more interesting for you.  It is interesting for some though.

If it was me, I'd rather work a few less crunch days then work late making content that was designed to simply flip the fans the bird.  It'd be cheaper and faster.  Just keep the left over money and give the team some time off.


Anyways, no issue with your response specifically.  It's does help me understand your perspective.

Cheers.

Hey Allan,

Don't take my response personally. My negative reaction is not to the idea that Shepard refuses to make a choice and because of that everyone dies. I hope I've made that clear in this thread. I like that there's that option. As I said when I first saw it I thought it was a wonderful surprise because it added what I genuinely believed would be Shepard's reaction. Shepard has stood up to and defied Saren, Sovreign, TIM, she's not known for blindly accepting the choices these antagonists offer her. 

I find nothing insulting in the idea that an option for Shepard to refuse has been added. 

My view of it as an insult is that it is executed in a way that is unsatisfying, brief and dismissive.

Shepard gives a bold speech about fighting and dying free then literally stands there motionless as the camera sweeps around her showing everyone dying. She doesn't attempt to radio Hackett, the Normandy or anyone. She doesn't attempt to leave the Catalyst chamber to find a way off the Ciatdel, she stands there absolutely inert for the whole ending. Having vowed action what we are shown, in a DLC specifically designed to show us more in the endings, is absolute inaction. 

Then we get, as I said, a brief shot of Liara giving us just the 'Shepard failed' conclusion, to remind the player they failed. Not that you stood up for your beliefs, that you failed.

The Stargazer scene. When I said I'm sure it's there to maintain the structure of the ending I'm talking simply from a design point of view. The last image on the storyboard has been that rising shot from the winter planet with the Stargazer and the child looking out into space as they begin 'one more story'. That's always been the final image. The fact that that hasn't changed here is more about maintaining that final image than making 'Refuse' any more satisfying an ending. 

And then you aren't given the achievement for completing the game. The message here is either, it's an oversight which implies less care went into this ending, or it's a deliberate choice on behalf of the team that choosing the 'Refuse' ending does not count as game completion. That definitely seems dismissive. 

---

All that said, if we had seen our team who were with us until the end be with our goals until the end. That would have helped. Mass Effect is not a franchise that shys away from sad moments done in slow-motion with an emotionally stirring soundtrack. Think the death of Shepard, the flashbacks to the original Normandy crew in the DLC, the summation of the suicide mission, even the faces of the dead at the end of all the other EC endings. 

If the consequences of our choice must be the death of all we loved, don't make those deaths off-screen non-events, make them emotionally impactive. 

I'm sure more could have been found for Liara to say too. Hell the Protheans lasted centuries against the Reapers, right? How long did we live? What heroic things did our squad mates achieve in the war? 

If we'd got that, then yes, it would have been a satisfying option. 

[Hvlukas]

I don't get this sentiment, I really don't. In itself it seems illogical. Consider why Bioware did the Extended Cut in the first place. Yes, I know this seems like an invitation to some to respond sarcastically and with lots of resentment, but still, isn’t it fair to conclude that Bioware made the Extended Cut because of either: 1) Damage control, 2) Easing the fans or 3) because they really wanted to give fans the experience they thought they already had given them, aka clarify their intent.

In neither of those scenarios is it by any means a logical choice to insult the fans. None of the above points would be gained by implying a *fåck you”. The Extended Cut costs too much to be just a mean joke, and even the one little scene with the reject option probably costs a big bundle. I just can’t see the meeting at Bioware happening, where someone said: “So I want to spend 100.000 dollars on screwing the fans in this one scene”, with Mike Gamble answering: “That sounds really interesting, go on..”.

To me, it’s far more reasonable to think that fans are interpreting the reject choice based on disdain for the company and concluding there’s malice at play, than to think Bioware actually wanted to give anyone the middle finger.

Plus I think a RPG games such as Mass Effect 1-3 create fans that are very involved (which is a good thing) who crawl in under the skin of the characters and begin to imagine the stories and conversations not present (which is also a good thing), but ultimately it can create a problem between the creator and the user, in the sense that ownership of the universe becomes blurred, since a lot of what’s going on in the games are in our imaginations (we’ve essentially added value, flavor and bonds between characters to the games), which leads to one vital issue any game such as this will have to overcome: How do you end a story as a creator, when the user in his or her mind is the originator of a lot of the story? Is it really possible to end a story in satisfying way, without breaking the good imagination of the users?

So in as such, if the ending, and the reject choice specifically, needed to not be seen as a middle finger, the games would from the start probably have to be less open, more tight and far, far less customizable, so to avoid breaking anyone’s head canon. But at the same time, these are the exact qualities that made the game great in the first place.

In short: It’s not in my opinion a middle finger from Bioware. The cause for such a feeling has probably more to do with the dynamics between Bioware, the game’s roleplaying elements and the player’s imagination. Bioware can only control the first two, while attempting to control the third would have destroyed everything about the games that attracted us. Thus: Bioware can't succesfully shot down a story without breaking the elements of millions of gamers thoughts and hopes and imaginings. It's a co-authorship (or so the game makes us feel), and that leads to some issues with any ending written by only Bioware.

Feel free to disagree.

Modifié par Hvlukas, 28 juin 2012 - 09:01 .

[Allan Schumacher]

@wryterra

That's fine, and just to be clear I wasn't so much talking directly to you when I said that the idea that this is something done just to take a pot shot at the fans, because this sentiment is actually quite common on the boards.

The achievement thing may actually just be a bug. The events that fire for the other endings would have already been a part of the base game and already present. Achievements and trophies are also something that have Microsoft and Sony have some pretty tight controls over. I don't work directly with online, but I know we had to slash a ton of achievements for DAO consoles due to numbers requirements, and there are certain restrictions over what types of achievements can exist, what their values can be, and so forth.


Having said that, you are absolutely right that that ending could have been better fleshed out. I don't know what the decision process was (and trying to come up with explanations is nothing short of trying to make excuses), but in the end I still feel that providing this option is better and provides a more interesting choice for the player (I fully agree with all the posters that felt that the player should have been able to reject the premise suggested by the Catalyst).

It seems like it's more down to the execution of it, which sucks because obviously that means it missed the mark with you. Like I said there's not much I can do about it, but you felt strongly enough about it to make a thread so I opted to talk with you about it since it's about the only thing I felt I could do haha.

Anyways, I'm sorry that you feel it was a personal jab. It can be tough for myself to separate the details of what it is that people don't like about it. I know there are some that just distill it down to "I want to win conventionally and it's crap that I can't with this choice" and they feel insulted because things don't play out the way they want and in fact the losing outright regardless makes it feel like a snub. I am glad that you don't seem to feel this way, though it doesn't really help your situation haha.


Cheers.

Allan

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 28 juin 2012 - 09:00 .

[sadako]

GdawgTuk wrote...
After he said, "So be it" I half expected it to just flash to the Nyan cat animation and song for hours on end with the words, "buy our DLC" in the middle. There's your 1.9gb download.

After the original ending. I would have burst out loud laughing, then proceeded to throw the me3 discs in the oven.

[wryterra]

Hvlukas wrote...

I don't get this sentiment, I really don't. In itself it seems illogical. Consider why Bioware did the Extended Cut in the first place. Yes, I know this seems like an invitation to some to respond sarcastically and with lots of resentment, but still, isn’t it fair to conclude that Bioware made the Extended Cut because of either: 1) Damage control, 2) Easing the fans or 3) because they really wanted to give fans the experience they thought they already had given them, aka clarify their intent.

In neither of those scenarios is it by any means a logical choice to insult the fans. None of the above points would be gained by implying a *fåck you”. The Extended Cut costs too much to be just a mean joke, and even the one little scene with the reject option probably costs a big bundle. I just can’t see the meeting at Bioware happening, where someone said: “So I want to spend 100.000 dollars on screwing the fans in this one scene”, with Mike Gamble answering: “That sounds really interesting, go on..”.

To me, it’s far more reasonable to think that fans are interpreting the reject choice based on disdain for the company and concluding there’s malice at play, than to think Bioware actually wanted to give anyone the middle finger.

Plus I think a RPG games such as Mass Effect 1-3 create fans that are very involved (which is a good thing) who crawl in under the skin of the characters and begin to imagine the stories and conversations not present (which is also a good thing), but ultimately it can create a problem between the creator and the user, in the sense that ownership of the universe becomes blurred, since a lot of what’s going on in the games are in our imaginations (we’ve essentially added value, flavor and bonds between characters to the games), which leads to one vital issue any game such as this will have to overcome: How do you end a story as a creator, when the user in his or her mind is the originator of a lot of the story? Is it really possible to end a story in satisfying way, without breaking the good imagination of the users?

So in as such, if the ending, and the reject choice specifically, needed to not be seen as a middle finger, the games would from the start probably have to be less open, more tight and far, far less customizable, so to avoid breaking anyone’s head canon. But at the same time, these are the exact qualities that made the game great in the first place.

In short: It’s not in my opinion a middle finger from Bioware. The cause for such a feeling has probably more to do with the dynamics between Bioware, the game’s roleplaying elements and the player’s imagination. Bioware can only control the first two, while attempting to control the third would have destroyed everything about the games that attracted us.

Feel free to disagree.

Very well, I will disagree  

At no point do I imagine anyone tried to justify a budget to insult the players with expensive CG. I imagine that the option was added as a direct result of it being a widely called-for ending. However, the feelings of the writing team came through in their production of it and the resources assigned to it. 

In other words it wasn't intended as an insult but attitudes and execution that come through their execution of it, because you always put yourself into a creative work, are insulting in their outcome. Take, for example, the idea that you don't get the completion achievement. I doubt the reasoning was 'it'll really ****** off players'. It might have been 'well, it's a defeat, so it's not really a completion so let's not give them the completion achievement'. It sounds fair but it invalidates the choice, becoming an inadvertant insult. 

As I've said before in this thread you can give someone exactly what they asked for, but the way you give it to them speaks volumes. 

[MuKen]

The achievement thing may actually just be a bug. The events that fire for the other endings would have already been a part of the base game and already present. Achievements and trophies are also something that have Microsoft and Sony have some pretty tight controls over. I don't work directly with online, but I know we had to slash a ton of achievements for DAO consoles due to numbers requirements, and there are certain restrictions over what types of achievements can exist, what their values can be, and so forth.

I am quite glad to hear that.  Honestly, that got to me the most.  The fact that I was being told I lost the game over making this choice.  I still don't like the lack of closure in this one ending, when the whole DLC was about providing closure, but I suppose it can hardly be expected we'll get an extended extended cut.

[wryterra]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

@wryterra

That's fine, and just to be clear I wasn't so much talking directly to you when I said that the idea that this is something done just to take a pot shot at the fans, because this sentiment is actually quite common on the boards.

The achievement thing may actually just be a bug. The events that fire for the other endings would have already been a part of the base game and already present. Achievements and trophies are also something that have Microsoft and Sony have some pretty tight controls over. I don't work directly with online, but I know we had to slash a ton of achievements for DAO consoles due to numbers requirements, and there are certain restrictions over what types of achievements can exist, what their values can be, and so forth.


Having said that, you are absolutely right that that ending could have been better fleshed out. I don't know what the decision process was (and trying to come up with explanations is nothing short of trying to make excuses), but in the end I still feel that providing this option is better and provides a more interesting choice for the player (I fully agree with all the posters that felt that the player should have been able to reject the premise suggested by the Catalyst).

It seems like it's more down to the execution of it, which sucks because obviously that means it missed the mark with you. Like I said there's not much I can do about it, but you felt strongly enough about it to make a thread so I opted to talk with you about it since it's about the only thing I felt I could do haha.

Anyways, I'm sorry that you feel it was a personal jab. It can be tough for myself to separate the details of what it is that people don't like about it. I know there are some that just distill it down to "I want to win conventionally and it's crap that I can't with this choice" and they feel insulted because things don't play out the way they want and in fact the losing outright regardless makes it feel like a snub. I am glad that you don't seem to feel this way, though it doesn't really help your situation haha.


Cheers.

Allan

Thanks, and it's always helpful to be reminded about the people on the other side of the game. I know you're on the DA team but you know what I mean? 

I can honestly say it was never about conventional victory for me. I never expected Shepard to survive, regardless of the outcome, actually. A conventional victory would be an interesting writing exercise to see the team try and execute but by no means is it something I demanded from the ending. 

I think the problem is that we can't see inside the process as well as we'd like. I'm trying to tell myself that given the size of the DLC as is, much more in the refusal ending would have put it over the 2GB limit. Sadly, though, I can't help but wonder how ineffecient the video codec is that what we got couldn't be fit in less. 

And for want of saying something positive, I actually greatly appreciated the extensions of the other three endings. I was one of the people arguing that in storytelling a decision without evident consequence is irrelevant and therefore the ending of ME3 was a non-event. As it stood, yes, we could fill in the blanks ourselves but that was also the problem. AFAIK every ending was a Reaper victory because they were a forced choice by the God of the Reapers. Why would any of them be a victory? The Catalyst has no established voice of authority and has every reason to lie. 

Now we have consequence, relevance and meaning for those choices. I may still not like the sudden hang-up on organic vs synthetic conflict in the dying moments of the trilogy when I never saw that as a theme. I may object to the Deus Ex Machina being an ancient reaper off switch offering an RGB ending choice. But I know what happened when Shepard did X now and that means a surprising amount to me. 

I just regret that Refuse had to be there the way it was, in that the DLC's entire purpose was to make the endings satisfying, with clear and evident consequences and epilogues because they had been too brief and vague before. Yet Refuse is sub-original-endings in terms of its' narrative. 

It's getting easier to write about it objectively now I'm a couple of days from seeing it, but I still feel like the ending was, if not a personal insult, insultingly under-done. 

[Xa1u5]

At first I thought, man that was a good joke.

But on a more serious note, I think there were plans for the reject ending long before the EC was planned. I suspected as much, Liara's time capsule as a setup to this just makes much more sense now. Perhaps it got scrapped originally the way so many things of ME3 got not enough development time, lack of resources, time and budget.

In light of there being even a new stargazers scene, I didn't register it as a stab towards the complaints people had.

On yet another note, it got people talking... a lot... coincidence?

A really bad development I see with all the ending discussion is the "lore by Twitter" aspect, don't get me started there...

Modifié par Xa1u5, 28 juin 2012 - 09:21 .

[Hvlukas]

wryterra wrote...
In other words it wasn't intended as an insult but attitudes and execution that come through their execution of it, because you always put yourself into a creative work, are insulting in their outcome. Take, for example, the idea that you don't get the completion achievement. I doubt the reasoning was 'it'll really ****** off players'. It might have been 'well, it's a defeat, so it's not really a completion so let's not give them the completion achievement'. It sounds fair but it invalidates the choice, becoming an inadvertant insult. 

As I've said before in this thread you can give someone exactly what they asked for, but the way you give it to them speaks volumes. 

Thanks for clarifying that. 

I think it would have changed the story very much, if you could complete the story by rejecting the premise of the kid. Since the original ending had us choose victory packed with either plague, cholera or HIV, and thereby make some sort of point about victory at an expense; I think it would have made a giant change in the story and what the writers wanted to say (whether they did it successful or not is an entirely different matter, and not the topic here). I’ll just say, that I do believe in artistic integrity, and I understand why someone won’t go back and change his or her message; so it’s really from this viewpoint I’m making my comment.

I can understand why the writers didn’t go that route. Now, with the reject option implanted, they’ve found away to give us a way to refuse the kid’s premise, take a moral high ground; but keeping with the sacrifices of the previous three choices, this one too has a prize. And I personally like that. The story is the same, only this time it’s more clear that Shepard never really had a choice; s/he either choose or die without accomplishing anything. The Reapers are simply too powerful for you to not dance by their tune. And I'm not sure if the malice people see in the reject option, really isn't just a reaction towards the malice of the story itself?

But we’ll have to just agree to disagree before the beer's get flat.

Modifié par Hvlukas, 28 juin 2012 - 09:26 .

[iAFKinMassEffect3]

Personally I see it as the best ending, the other endings are pretty bad.
If you wanna see "happy" pictures that are all the same then watch the video's on youtube.

[Eire Icon]

JohnTheJohn wrote...

Why is it an insult, it was obvious the Reapers weren't gonna be destroyed without the crucible.

Exactly its said in the game numerous times that a conventional victory is not possible. The Catalyst gives you the option to destroy him and the reapers......................why would you reject that ?, to me it just makes no sense

If they had actually allowed a conventional victory, for me personally it would have ruinned the entire game

[wryterra]

Hvlukas wrote...

wryterra wrote...
In other words it wasn't intended as an insult but attitudes and execution that come through their execution of it, because you always put yourself into a creative work, are insulting in their outcome. Take, for example, the idea that you don't get the completion achievement. I doubt the reasoning was 'it'll really ****** off players'. It might have been 'well, it's a defeat, so it's not really a completion so let's not give them the completion achievement'. It sounds fair but it invalidates the choice, becoming an inadvertant insult. 

As I've said before in this thread you can give someone exactly what they asked for, but the way you give it to them speaks volumes. 

Thanks for clarifying that. 

I think it would have changed the story very much, if you could complete the story by rejecting the premise of the kid. Since the original ending had us choose victory packed with either plague, cholera or HIV, and thereby make some sort of point about victory at an expense; I think it would have made a giant change in the story and what the writers wanted to say (whether they did it successful or not is an entirely different matter, and not the topic here). I’ll just say, that I do believe in artistic integrity, and I understand why someone won’t go back and change his or her message; so it’s really from this viewpoint I’m making my comment.

I can understand why the writers didn’t go that route. Now, with the reject option implanted, they’ve found away to give us a way to refuse the kid’s premise, take a moral high ground; but keeping with the sacrifices of the previous three choices, this one too has a prize. And I personally like that. The story is the same, only this time it’s more clear that Shepard never really had a choice; s/he either choose or die without accomplishing anything. The Reapers are simply too powerful for you to not dance by their tune. And I'm not sure if the malice people see in the reject option, really isn't just a reaction towards the malice of the story itself?

But we’ll have to just agree to disagree before the beer's get flat.

I'm not saying that choosing Refuse should be a victory. I'm not saying it shouldn't have a price. I'm saying that by making it brief and vague they're dismissing the choice. 

I'm saying that not getting the *achievement* for having completed the game by making that choice makes it seem like they utterly dismiss anyone who choses that ending.

It's got nothing to do with wanting to 'win'. 

[wryterra]

Eire Icon wrote...

JohnTheJohn wrote...

Why is it an insult, it was obvious the Reapers weren't gonna be destroyed without the crucible.

Exactly its said in the game numerous times that a conventional victory is not possible. The Catalyst gives you the option to destroy him and the reapers......................why would you reject that ?, to me it just makes no sense

If they had actually allowed a conventional victory, for me personally it would have ruinned the entire game

This isn't about victory. Read my responses to Allan Schumacher. This is about the execution of the ending being, in itself, insulting. 

[Xa1u5]

wryterra wrote...

-snip-

I'm not saying that choosing Refuse should be a victory. I'm not saying it shouldn't have a price. I'm saying that by making it brief and vague they're dismissing the choice. 

I'm saying that not getting the *achievement* for having completed the game by making that choice makes it seem like they utterly dismiss anyone who choses that ending.

It's got nothing to do with wanting to 'win'. 

I agree here. I think the statement made is very clearly that the writers didn't want to establish a different means to end this story. I can live with that. The problem that remains is, it contradicts the setup and how the protagonist is portrayed up to that point, coming full circle with the mediocre writing throughout. There should have been a process to establish that Shepard is conviced of the fact that using the crucible is the only solution. At the moment, one can only do that with metagaming, as a player we know much more than Shepard ever does at the time he is confronted with the Catalyst.

Modifié par Xa1u5, 28 juin 2012 - 09:41 .