Allan Schumacher wrote...
ph34r-X wrote...
I mean look at the refusal ending. Why can't we have that in the refusal ending, but if you're readiness is too low you get the current refusal ending.
I'm just asking this to facilitate discussion, so I'm not trying to pour salt on the wound or anything (my that sounds ominous...).
I see your opinion come up, and I often state my opinion and perspective. I want to try something a bit different. Many feel "why can't we have that in the refusal ending?"
Which is a fair enough point. The writers/designers could have easily allowed that to be an option (what happens in the game is literally whatever they put in).
Just to be direct though: Why should this be an option for the refusal ending. Or even more generally, why should there be an ending that contains the following:
Shepard Lives, reapers defeated by conventional means, Geth/ EDI lives, Shepard walks off into the sunset with love interest.
I'm just asking to hear your thoughts on the subject. Open question to others that feel the same way.
This may have already been answered, but I haven't read through all of the posts yet. I'd just like to throw in my own opinion. I think it would work well as a high EMS alternative refusal ending also. I appreciate the EC, I really do, and I am really impressed by what was put together in such a short amount of time. But while the extra scenes do help make the ending slightly more palatable, the larger part of what truly bothered me about the original endings remains unchanged....unless you look at "Refusal."
The fact that the ending choices were done in almost the same way in another game a decade or so ago aside, all of the choices offered to Shepard as the "Solution" go against some of the fundamental beliefs Shepard has displayed in the previous games. Even Destroy does this, depending on how the player ran his/her Shepard (Did you spend the game saving the Geth? Did you treat EDI as an equal? Now murder them...). Now I understand that Shepard could be forced to make these decisions because there is no other viable option, but the problem with that is if a player has it in his/her head that her Shepard should behave like he/she has since ME1, all three of those choices can (and I'll argue that for many people, they actually have) tear that player right out of the narrative. Once that disconnect occurs, the player loses his/her investment in the story and that's a problem, both creatively and financially for a game developer. Adding scenes that soften the blow, but do not address the actual disconnect will solve the issue for some (not everyone was fully invested in the story to begin with), but not for all.
Now in the "Refusal" ending, it is the only time that Shepard is truly actiing like Shepard. He/she is not blithely following the word of a Reaper regardless of how desperate things seem. I was shocked by this when I opted for it, since in all the other endings I played "my" Shepard behaved in a way that made me feel like she was no longer my character any longer, a very jarring experience after having played the other games. So when I saw the conversation options that led to the "Refusal" ending I dove right in (hehehee) with a mental "Hooray, she's back!" only to get utterly spanked in the end, despite my EMS readiness messages indicating that conventional victory appeared possible. Now if I had an awful EMS, those final scenes would make sense. With a high EMS however, they don't.
Right now, a bunch of people who have taken the time to actually read this wall of text are about to hit reply and type something along the lines of "BioWare made the Reapers too powerful, there's no way for conventional victory; it doesn't make sense..." or the like. To that I reply, "So?" Considering the number of plotholes in the current endings, one more won't break the camel in my opinion. I mean, Harbinger just sat there and watched as the Normandy casually flew in, took Shepards crew, and then casually flew off to safetly. And it was an emotional scene so quite frankly I was willing to simply dismiss that plot hole. Give me a conventional victory option, and I'll do it again.
What Shepard should realize after the extended conversation with the Catalyst is that it is a rogue AI. It is doing -exactly- what it was created to prevent. Now Shepard, on the other hand, could possibly have united the Geth and the Quarians and might have treated EdI like a fellow human, depending on how the player ran the character. If that is the case, I argue that Shepard makes a better Catalyst than the Catalist itself...through simple common sense, acceptance and diplomacy. When the Catalyst offers Shepard the option of choosing genocide, slavery or physiological subversion as one of three possible "Solutions," with a high enough EMS (and depending on if the player united the Geth and answered all of EDI's questions, etc.), Shepard should be able to argue a 4th "refusal" option in the Refusal ending. Shepard should be able to point out that he/she has already ended conflict between Synthetics and Organics, with the exception of the conflict between organics and the Reapers themselves. Shepard should be allowed to argue that both Organics and Synthetics have earned the right to forge their own future, and should remind the Catalyst that it's current solution by it's own admission no longer works, and as such any other solution it presents is not viable, as Shepard has already completed it's function during this Cycle with out implementing any of those choices. So it makes sense for Shepard to dismiss those options as non-sensical.
Now, since the AI is clearly insane, is also clearly lying to Shepard, I expect in all versions of the Refusal ending, there would be the "SO BE IT!" freaky tantrum scene....and I expect the Catalyst would disable the relays in a fit of pique. And it would actually make sense to me based on it's behavior. But depending on how the player ran Shepard and how high the EMS is, the player should be able to see a conventional victory in that ending, and it would make sense in that ending only. If Shepard must die not matter what in the trilogy, then fine...he/she is seriously injured anyway and his/her last act can be to finish off the Catalyst or command the fleet to blow the tower...but a conventional victory should be allowed. I can't see it working in any ending but the Refusal ending.
I get the whole angsty art thing; but folks need to remember that Shepard is a heroic character for a lot of players. They want to see Star Wars, not Melancholia. Shepard for many players would not choose slavery, genocide or physiological subversion at the demand of a Reaper...not when common sense, acceptance and diplomacy have worked for him/her very well in the past...even the more recent past....and he/she has consistently refuted the Reapers' demands in the past.
While I appreciate the EC, it did not reconnect me to my Shepard and so the game, for me if no one else is depressing because "my Shepard" seems like a stranger, and if I play her the way I feel she should be played, the ending is tragic, not heroic. A conventional victory option would remove that disconnect, and the game would have the same uplifting, and rewarding feel that the previous two games left me with. I would pay for DLC that accomplished that.
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