24 réponses à ce sujet

[MrFob]

According to BioWare, the EC did not change the original message of the endings but it just expanded on what was already there. In fact, the main counter argument against just scrubbing and replacing the ending was the integrity of the artistic vision of the original cut.

I could have accepted that but I have a hard time seeing that in the EC.

I am obviously and rather wildly speculating here but may I suggest that the ambiguity of the original cut was part of the artistic vision? Was not “lots of speculation for everyone” even conceptualized by the lead writer?

What we were left with before the EC was a state of uncertainty. We could not be sure if control or synthesis worked in the way the star kid describes them to Shepard and we could not just overlook the genocide associated with destroy or its other massive repercussions for galactic society. The Normandy is crashed on an unknown world and the last shot captures your former companions literally staring into an uncertain future. It was a horrible state to leave the audience in for sure but that was - that must have been - the main impact of the endings.

What do we have now? We have clarity. We are left with a victorious galaxy, celebrating their success, the genocide that was committed to get there kindly neglected and forgotten, all the damage repaired in due time or we are in a state of sudden bliss due to the forced evolution of a galaxy which fortunately seems to be all fine with it. On the other hand, we might be left in a world now under the protection of our benevolent god-Shepard, watching over us with his tamed killing machines. Everything worked out. Even the Normandy flies to the stars again after a short recreational vacation on Gulliver’s planet.

Does anyone honestly want me to believe that we were supposed to infer any of these scenarios from the original endings? Does anyone honestly think this was what BW intended all along?

If I am wrong and they did in fact mean to get to this point, then the incompetence in the original cut goes even deeper than anyone could imagine.

If I am right, then the whole argument of their artistic integrity was exactly what most people here on the boards feared it was, a bunch of PR hokum and in fact they didn’t give a damn about it in which case they might as well have rewritten their endings altogether (probably with a better result)..

[Thaa_solon]

Yep

[Naerivar]

Short of time and crappy writing. Me 3 I mean

Your post makes a good point

[D58]

I think the mass relays were suppose to be destroyed and reapers helping out was not suppose to be there in the original endings,maybe normandy was suppose to be robinson crusoe too but not sure realy

[YonatanJ]

I agree. "Artistic Integrity" isnt even valid anymore once they actually changed things like Mass Relays and the Citadel not blowning up, The Normandy not being stranded and more.

Modifié par YonatanJ, 28 juin 2012 - 01:40 .

[richard_rider]

www.nerddogueto.com.br/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/i-know-that-feel-bro.jpg

Modifié par richard_rider, 28 juin 2012 - 01:45 .

[Peregrin25]

My personal opinion on the Extended Cut was while all choices had major alterations the basis of the original endings were there but altered in a means to make it better, and they did make them better. However to my opinion. I think it should have been the way it is now right from the beginning. I don't care if they had time constraints, being rushed by EA for what ever the case may be.

If they had done this in the first place. They wouldn't have dug themselves a hole that well are going to take years to crawl out of even if they did a good job reconstructing the end of the Mass Effect 3. There really is no excuse for what they did.

I am however happy that I can enjoy the trilogy as a whole once again. I still think what the Extended Cut delivered should have been there from the start. If they wanted to clain Artistic Integrity, well that is how you keep artistic integrity by doing the right thing from the start... a quick note about artistic integrity, from research I have done online, from actual artists and art critics, Artistic Integrity is an excuse because Artistic Integrity is not a real thing. It's a means for someone that is butt hurt or got their panties in a bunch because someone didn't like what they did, so they claim artistic integrity to say that is the way it is because it is what I envisioned.

Way I see it, not everyone is going to like the same thing that the artist things is amazing.

But I am glad BioWare did what they did. It will be some time before I can fully trust they will be the BioWare we have all come to love in the past, but I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt now. However, I will be cautious in the purchase of future games from BioWare. They have started the mending of a wound that is still not fully healed and it will take time before I can see BioWare in the same light that I once prior to ME3.

[MrFob]

Peregrin25 wrote...

My personal opinion on the Extended Cut was while all choices had major alterations the basis of the original endings were there but altered in a means to make it better, and they did make them better. However to my opinion. I think it should have been the way it is now right from the beginning. I don't care if they had time constraints, being rushed by EA for what ever the case may be.

If they had done this in the first place. They wouldn't have dug themselves a hole that well are going to take years to crawl out of even if they did a good job reconstructing the end of the Mass Effect 3. There really is no excuse for what they did.

I am however happy that I can enjoy the trilogy as a whole once again. I still think what the Extended Cut delivered should have been there from the start. If they wanted to clain Artistic Integrity, well that is how you keep artistic integrity by doing the right thing from the start... a quick note about artistic integrity, from research I have done online, from actual artists and art critics, Artistic Integrity is an excuse because Artistic Integrity is not a real thing. It's a means for someone that is butt hurt or got their panties in a bunch because someone didn't like what they did, so they claim artistic integrity to say that is the way it is because it is what I envisioned.

Way I see it, not everyone is going to like the same thing that the artist things is amazing.

But I am glad BioWare did what they did. It will be some time before I can fully trust they will be the BioWare we have all come to love in the past, but I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt now. However, I will be cautious in the purchase of future games from BioWare. They have started the mending of a wound that is still not fully healed and it will take time before I can see BioWare in the same light that I once prior to ME3.

A very good point Peregrin 25. And I am happy that you can enjoy the endings now.

My problem at the moment isthe following though. While I hated the "speculation for everyone" situation, this was really the essence of the old endings. We had morally ambiguous choices and the result was left open. Now we have morally ambiguous choices but they all turn into a happily ever after without even touching on the more difficult issues embedded within them. In changing their stance, BW left this aspect squarely behind.
Of course, now we can refuse the catalyst but this only way to actually step back from the atrocities that we are offered by the perpetrator of aeons of mass genocide turns out to also be the only way to avoid a happy ending. What kind of message is that? Was this the intent or did BW let themselves be carried into that position? If you think about it, despite the new and added glamour, the new endings in the message the convey are even darker then what we got before. I cannot believe this was the intent but I don't see another way to interpret it. I am not sure what I like less, despising the writers for their apparent malevolent attitude or being baffled by the lack of thought they have put into this if it was all by accident. They didn't stick to the essence of the old endings, they changed it and they changed it to be even more nihilistic.
Thus I am left confused and depressed.

[M Hedonist]

Also, don't forget the retcons.
The "we wanted to keep our artistic vision" argument really doesn't make much sense.

[Kleli]

Peregrin25 wrote...

My personal opinion on the Extended Cut was while all choices had major alterations the basis of the original endings were there but altered in a means to make it better, and they did make them better. However to my opinion. I think it should have been the way it is now right from the beginning. I don't care if they had time constraints, being rushed by EA for what ever the case may be.

If they had done this in the first place. They wouldn't have dug themselves a hole that well are going to take years to crawl out of even if they did a good job reconstructing the end of the Mass Effect 3. There really is no excuse for what they did.

I am however happy that I can enjoy the trilogy as a whole once again. I still think what the Extended Cut delivered should have been there from the start. If they wanted to clain Artistic Integrity, well that is how you keep artistic integrity by doing the right thing from the start... a quick note about artistic integrity, from research I have done online, from actual artists and art critics, Artistic Integrity is an excuse because Artistic Integrity is not a real thing. It's a means for someone that is butt hurt or got their panties in a bunch because someone didn't like what they did, so they claim artistic integrity to say that is the way it is because it is what I envisioned.

Way I see it, not everyone is going to like the same thing that the artist things is amazing.

But I am glad BioWare did what they did. It will be some time before I can fully trust they will be the BioWare we have all come to love in the past, but I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt now. However, I will be cautious in the purchase of future games from BioWare. They have started the mending of a wound that is still not fully healed and it will take time before I can see BioWare in the same light that I once prior to ME3.

Great post! I feel pretty much the same thing.

[WindOverTuchanka]

MrFob wrote...

I am obviously and rather wildly speculating here but may I suggest that the ambiguity of the original cut was part of the artistic vision?
Was not “lots of speculation for everyone” even conceptualized by the lead writer?

What we were left with before the EC was a state of uncertainty.  It was a horrible state to leave the audience in for sure but that was - that must have been - the main impact of the endings.

 

Not just any uncertainty, but a particularily depressing flavor of uncertainty that left very little room for optimism.
The Stargazer scene strongly implied that galactic dark age lasted for millenia. The meta comments by the lead did not make it any better.

MrFob wrote...  

Does anyone honestly think this was what BW intended all along?

 

Nah, EC is a retcon, no questions about that. 

MrFob wrote... 

If I am right, then the whole argument of their artistic
integrity was exactly what most people here on the boards feared it was, a
bunch of PR hokum and in fact they didn’t give a damn about it in which case
they might as well have rewritten their endings altogether (probably with a
better result)..

Not necessarily. I hated the way PR handled this, but... From a corporate standpoint, they could not admit their mistake, and they did not. By calling EC 'clarifications'  they managed to save corporate face. By making EC an actual retcon instead of clarification, they managed to salvage the portion of fanbase who simply wanted a better future for the galaxy at the price of artistic integrity of certain Bioware employees (I bet these employees still feel the pain).

Integrity was, in fact, sacrificed, but this sacrifice was kept under wraps. 

And well, I don't mind. I don't really need nor want a public execution. I just hope everyone learns from it and does not repeat the same mistakes in the future.

And I do not believe rewriting the endings would help them much, because what was seen cannot be unseen. Leaving the image but changing the tone worked, though. 

[Peregrin25]

MrFob wrote...

Peregrin25 wrote...

My personal opinion on the Extended Cut was while all choices had major alterations the basis of the original endings were there but altered in a means to make it better, and they did make them better. However to my opinion. I think it should have been the way it is now right from the beginning. I don't care if they had time constraints, being rushed by EA for what ever the case may be.

If they had done this in the first place. They wouldn't have dug themselves a hole that well are going to take years to crawl out of even if they did a good job reconstructing the end of the Mass Effect 3. There really is no excuse for what they did.

I am however happy that I can enjoy the trilogy as a whole once again. I still think what the Extended Cut delivered should have been there from the start. If they wanted to clain Artistic Integrity, well that is how you keep artistic integrity by doing the right thing from the start... a quick note about artistic integrity, from research I have done online, from actual artists and art critics, Artistic Integrity is an excuse because Artistic Integrity is not a real thing. It's a means for someone that is butt hurt or got their panties in a bunch because someone didn't like what they did, so they claim artistic integrity to say that is the way it is because it is what I envisioned.

Way I see it, not everyone is going to like the same thing that the artist things is amazing.

But I am glad BioWare did what they did. It will be some time before I can fully trust they will be the BioWare we have all come to love in the past, but I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt now. However, I will be cautious in the purchase of future games from BioWare. They have started the mending of a wound that is still not fully healed and it will take time before I can see BioWare in the same light that I once prior to ME3.

A very good point Peregrin 25. And I am happy that you can enjoy the endings now.

My problem at the moment isthe following though. While I hated the "speculation for everyone" situation, this was really the essence of the old endings. We had morally ambiguous choices and the result was left open. Now we have morally ambiguous choices but they all turn into a happily ever after without even touching on the more difficult issues embedded within them. In changing their stance, BW left this aspect squarely behind.
Of course, now we can refuse the catalyst but this only way to actually step back from the atrocities that we are offered by the perpetrator of aeons of mass genocide turns out to also be the only way to avoid a happy ending. What kind of message is that? Was this the intent or did BW let themselves be carried into that position? If you think about it, despite the new and added glamour, the new endings in the message the convey are even darker then what we got before. I cannot believe this was the intent but I don't see another way to interpret it. I am not sure what I like less, despising the writers for their apparent malevolent attitude or being baffled by the lack of thought they have put into this if it was all by accident. They didn't stick to the essence of the old endings, they changed it and they changed it to be even more nihilistic.
Thus I am left confused and depressed.

I feel ya, I really do. There are things that I do wish were covered that were not, things that could have been but were not. There were lots of things even in the Extended Cut that could have been improved, things that could have been added to put the icing on the cake if you will. Technically BioWare didn't have to do a damn thing and they did and that to me is a + in my book. Just that alone is what makes me feel content with the Extended Cut. And the fact it did cover a lot of the questions that were not answered in the original. Not all, but most.

But overall even though I am not 100% extatic about the Extended Cut. I am content with it and will move on. I just pray that BioWare and every other video game publisher and developer learns from this horrid controversy that is the ME3 Ending and how the Press Release handled it. That is all we can do is just wait to see if it has had a sever enough impact.

I do however wish that they stuck by with the Dark Enery plot, but ya know what. We can't all get what we want and with what we got in March to what we got now, is ok. I can accept it. Doesn't mean I 100% agree with it, but it doesn't leave me banging my head against a wall and wanting BioWare's existance to cease lol. 

Modifié par Peregrin25, 28 juin 2012 - 02:55 .

[Zero132132]

The EC doesn't remove all ambiguity. That's why people are still arguing. Control may mean that Shepard ultimately loses his damned mind, or he may already be a terrifying galactic dictator. Synthesis is still a huge damned change with unpredictable long-term consequences. In 'Destroy' the geth and EDI were already destroyed in a pretty unambiguous sense (except for the IT people), the galaxy will ultimately be about as it was, when the relays are destroyed, with all of the same problems.

You get an epilogue sequence that hints at what the future holds, but it isn't entirely lacking in ambiguity. That's why people can still argue over which ending is the 'best'.

[WarBaby2]

Artistic vision my a**... first storytelling rule: KEEP IT SIMPLE!

[Fox In The Box]

I don't know what the message was. "The only way to survive a threat of destruction is by throwing all of your morals out the window, otherwise you die and someone else will step on your ashes to do it for you" maybe, if it's true that the next cycle also uses the Crucible. Perhaps they didn't want to have an ending where Shepard could walk away with her hands clean, but then the game subverts all of that when the endings ignore that there were any ethical difficulties in the first place. It really doesn't seem to fit with the theme of the rest of the series.

Modifié par Fox In The Box, 28 juin 2012 - 02:56 .

[shurryy]

Artistic Integrity?
We have dismissed that claim the moment it was uttered in text.

[savionen]

I love the whole artistic integrity argument.... and then they go ahead and completely remove the whole "Garden of Eden" aspect of the ending.

[LateNightSalami]

Yeah man. Spot on. You flesh out another problem with this controversy surprisingly well. It is so weird. The more I think about this whole thing (the endings and the controversy and Bioware's actions) the less sense it makes. Maybe they learned their lesson to do it right the first time? I don't know. Why was a conventional option nit explored? Why the need for the deus ex machina? The conventional endings could have been just as bittersweet, sad, or morally ambiguous with a minimum of creativity added and could have intergrated your squad and resources more in the climax. Imagine needing to make a coice for who defends the crucible with the knowledge that they will get wiped out. Who would you pick to soldier and lead that task? What about sending a small group on a rescue mission to save your LI? Perhaps STG would be the best at recovering them but did you even.managpe to recruit them? These are things that were completely missed...botched...real potential wasted.

[Peregrin25]

savionen wrote...

I love the whole artistic integrity argument.... and then they go ahead and completely remove the whole "Garden of Eden" aspect of the ending.

You do realise the artistic integrity was BS right? There is no such thing. That my friend is fact! Artistic Integrity is an though and a emotonal feeling from being attatched to what he likes and will defend his work when it is threatened. That is all it is. An emotional defense mechanism.

[Oni Changas]

"Not enough time" my black ass.

What's obvious is that they were making everything up as they went along. Nothing correlates or connects between Priority: London and afterwards to ME1 and 2. This is what happens when you create a trilogy without mapping out your beginning, middle, or end before actually tackling the endeavor. It's like reading a procrastinated thesis.

[Novate]

LateNightSalami wrote...

Yeah man. Spot on. You flesh out another problem with this controversy surprisingly well. It is so weird. The more I think about this whole thing (the endings and the controversy and Bioware's actions) the less sense it makes. Maybe they learned their lesson to do it right the first time? I don't know. Why was a conventional option nit explored? Why the need for the deus ex machina? The conventional endings could have been just as bittersweet, sad, or morally ambiguous with a minimum of creativity added and could have intergrated your squad and resources more in the climax. Imagine needing to make a coice for who defends the crucible with the knowledge that they will get wiped out. Who would you pick to soldier and lead that task? What about sending a small group on a rescue mission to save your LI? Perhaps STG would be the best at recovering them but did you even.managpe to recruit them? These are things that were completely missed...botched...real potential wasted.

I believe what you described was what every single player out there expected after finishing ME2.
The ability to send different people to different places based on whether or not you have acquired them for your war assets.

STG from ME1 , Rachni from ME1 and ME2, Cereberus from ME2 , Biotic Students that you saved and the position you placed them, Geth, Krogans ....etc

In Dragon Age Origins, I had the ability to call down strike teams based on whom I have befriended, In ME2 I had a team of specialists, so obviously in ME3 when I have the whole galaxy I assumed It would have become a huge epic scale of micromanaging of who to send to defend what position. 
 
Guess they decided that ME3 is a Shooter and a Shooter doesn't need any managing of resources. Too bad really, that would have been awesome. Especially when Rachni can burrow underground and STG is stealth and Krogans are head on agressors, very different but very fun alternatives. But that would also mean it would have been too Hard for the programmers.

Just look at what 3 month and 1.9 gb got us in the EC, and imagine putting all the War Assets and options available, it would take them another 2 years and another full disc just to make that happen. Too bad really, because that would be the only way I could have ended the Mass Effect trilogy. Not this current lackluster ending. But don't get me wrong, lackluster it is, but still an Meh ending that I can live with.
Atleast they got our money already and still milking it through Multiplayer.

[Razor1313]

I think BW's reach may have exceeded heir grasp. To have the ending that Novate and LaghtNightSalami (among others) describes, which I think is what we all expected, would've required too much at this time. Too much money, too much time. Would we all be happy if we had to wait another 3 years and pay $200 for the ending?

They created an amazing product...maybe the next great "Mass Effect" type game will evolve and stand on the work BW did with this. And learn from their mistakes.

[LateNightSalami]

@razor: It wouldn't have been that much harder than what we had in ME2. And the fact of thr matter is that not only was this type of ending implied in the games themselves but it was explicitly promised by Casey Hudson. Don't promise us something that you cannot deliver or at least take on and promise us something that is feasable. Yes, I woukd have paid upward of 120$ for that game if they put that much into it. If they had that much content and that much love. A product is worth its value and doesn't have to fit into the 60$ mold every game fits into now days. If the logostical difficulties were too much for every detail then stick to the major choices: did you save the rachni queen and cure the genophage. You can leave out if you recruited some random dude or forgot a loyalty mission from ME2 if necessary but at least give us the frame work of what we were both implicitly and explicitly promised.

[Razor1313]

@LNS: I agree completely. You make excellent points. I also would've waited longer and paid much more for what was promised.

The only thing I can figure is BW made a business choice: this way was higher profits, the "longer completion/higher price" didn't promise as much return.

[LateNightSalami]

Yeah, I do get the sense that on some level this was a (very short sighted) business decision. Imagine for a moment if the retaking of earth did not signify the end of the reaper war but the massive turning point. Imagine tue stories and battles that could have been expanded, on like the miracle of palavan, through dlc. Or maybe they do a two parter like with Harry Potter or how blizzard has been doing Starcraft 2. I caj think of a million better more long term decisions that would make better money in the long run. The whoke thing just smacks of shoddy decision making all around.