1199 réponses à ce sujet

[dreman9999]

WhereEternityEnds wrote...

A trilogy should never end on a cliffhanger. Ever. That's basically the unwritten rule of story telling 101. 3 of the endings are entirely too bleak and the last one is a cliffhanger. That to me is completely outrageous.

What cliffhanger? Now nothing is left to say one EC came out.

[WhereEternityEnds]

giftfish wrote...

I would actually like to see this ending.  I have no problems losing squadmates that I care for along the way (Mordin, Legion, Ashley/Kaidan, etc), but what it feels like in this situation is that BW is specifically witholding this option from players.

I get that everyone is going to have a different opinion on this.  Some players need to have that "imperfect" ending for the game to feel realistic enough for them.  Others want to see the total annihilation of the galaxy by the Reapers.  And, others yet, want this "more perfect" ending to make playing all 3 games feel worthwhile to them. 

Because of this, nobody should be able to dictate to anyone else *how* they play their own game.  Everyone is right.  The ending that a player likes is the one that best fits them. 

My perspective is that the game was built upon player choice.  Players of Mass Effect are co-creators in a certain way.  To not have this option available to the community is a notable absence.  If there is an "everything goes to h*ll" option, the equal and opposite option is "everything comes out rainbows and bunnies".  We see happy endings like this in movies all the time.  A good proportion of the population likes happy endings.  There's no reason to think the player-base of Mass Effect is any different.

What I find interesting is that Bioware seems to be intentionally forcing our hand by witholding this option, thereby pigeonholing us into one of the other options that are presented.  This results in an exceedingly unpleasant ending for that proportion of players in the community that want the happy ending. 

What Bioware is really saying by doing this is that their interpretation of what should happen is more important that what their customers want.  This is why movies are generally tested before release and modified according to audience feedback.  The director is trying to adhere to his/her artistic vision, but if the audience has serious problems with it, the studio will make sure it is modified or they won't make any money on the film. 

There is a balance to be achieved between "artistic vision" and "pleasing the customer".

Why Bioware would withhold this option, when they could essentially make everyone happy by including it, is a bit confusing to me.  I'm all about "artistic vision", but they really are shooting themselves in the foot, just to make their point.

I for one would rather see this option presented.  That way it is up to the individual player to decide what ending they get, rather than having Bioware decide for them.

This is exactly what the problem is and I agree with everything you just stated.  If you're fine with open ended endings, then more power to you.  But it is completely unfair to those who actually want some closure to their journey. 

[dreman9999]

KevShep wrote...

Karolus_V wrote...

KevShep wrote...

Something that I just noticed...

the relays are there to stop us from using them AFTER the reapers shut down the relays by the citadel right! They do this so we will be stuck in our own systems since FTL is not fast enough to what the relays could. However, we see the whole galaxy back on there homeworlds...how is that possible? How also is it impossible for the normandy to not return to earth and reunite with shep?

Point is, The reapers use the relays as a trap so they can take over the galaxy (meaning that they CANT beat us united otherwise no need for relay trap).

One last thing I noticed...It took the reapers 200 or more years to kill all of the protheans and yet by magic they beat us in a matter of months with the relays STILL OPEN!

Imagine paranoid Turians ruling the galaxy. Now the reapers arrive and close the relays. What you got? Isolated forts. Not isolated civil worlds with some defense.  That was what happened with the protheans, the reapers were going slow, because it was the safe route. Overall the protheans were more advanced than our cycle, too.

The protheans were advanced but the reapers KNEW eveything about them from the citadel. They dont know everything about us so it still SHOULD take longer then that.

it still does not change the fact that it takes hundreds of years as mentioned by Vigil.

They do know everything about use. They been studing us via collecters for 100's of years.

[WhereEternityEnds]

dreman9999 wrote...

WhereEternityEnds wrote...

A trilogy should never end on a cliffhanger. Ever. That's basically the unwritten rule of story telling 101. 3 of the endings are entirely too bleak and the last one is a cliffhanger. That to me is completely outrageous.

What cliffhanger? Now nothing is left to say one EC came out.

You must not have been paying attention then.  Because if you have a high enough EMS and choose the "Destroy" option, it clearly ends on a cliffhanger. 

[dreman9999]

WhereEternityEnds wrote...

giftfish wrote...

I would actually like to see this ending.  I have no problems losing squadmates that I care for along the way (Mordin, Legion, Ashley/Kaidan, etc), but what it feels like in this situation is that BW is specifically witholding this option from players.

I get that everyone is going to have a different opinion on this.  Some players need to have that "imperfect" ending for the game to feel realistic enough for them.  Others want to see the total annihilation of the galaxy by the Reapers.  And, others yet, want this "more perfect" ending to make playing all 3 games feel worthwhile to them. 

Because of this, nobody should be able to dictate to anyone else *how* they play their own game.  Everyone is right.  The ending that a player likes is the one that best fits them. 

My perspective is that the game was built upon player choice.  Players of Mass Effect are co-creators in a certain way.  To not have this option available to the community is a notable absence.  If there is an "everything goes to h*ll" option, the equal and opposite option is "everything comes out rainbows and bunnies".  We see happy endings like this in movies all the time.  A good proportion of the population likes happy endings.  There's no reason to think the player-base of Mass Effect is any different.

What I find interesting is that Bioware seems to be intentionally forcing our hand by witholding this option, thereby pigeonholing us into one of the other options that are presented.  This results in an exceedingly unpleasant ending for that proportion of players in the community that want the happy ending. 

What Bioware is really saying by doing this is that their interpretation of what should happen is more important that what their customers want.  This is why movies are generally tested before release and modified according to audience feedback.  The director is trying to adhere to his/her artistic vision, but if the audience has serious problems with it, the studio will make sure it is modified or they won't make any money on the film. 

There is a balance to be achieved between "artistic vision" and "pleasing the customer".

Why Bioware would withhold this option, when they could essentially make everyone happy by including it, is a bit confusing to me.  I'm all about "artistic vision", but they really are shooting themselves in the foot, just to make their point.

I for one would rather see this option presented.  That way it is up to the individual player to decide what ending they get, rather than having Bioware decide for them.

This is exactly what the problem is and I agree with everything you just stated.  If you're fine with open ended endings, then more power to you.  But it is completely unfair to those who actually want some closure to their journey. 

But the endings are no longer open ended.

[dreman9999]

WhereEternityEnds wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

WhereEternityEnds wrote...

A trilogy should never end on a cliffhanger. Ever. That's basically the unwritten rule of story telling 101. 3 of the endings are entirely too bleak and the last one is a cliffhanger. That to me is completely outrageous.

What cliffhanger? Now nothing is left to say one EC came out.

You must not have been paying attention then.  Because if you have a high enough EMS and choose the "Destroy" option, it clearly ends on a cliffhanger. 

That's not a cliffhanger. Shepard is clearly alive. No other issue from the story is left to wonder over.

[Benrosan]

Indeed OP. An unnecessarily sad ending is just as contrived and arbitrary as a happy one. The only difference is that it doesn't shamelessly exploit your emotional ties to the characters under the guise of meaningful storytelling.

There is a simple elegance and honesty to the kind of resolution you and I wanted.

Bioware handled the ending in a very juvenile way. The idea of a protagonist overcoming impossible odds through personal sacrifice is both lazy and predictable. It would have been more edgy, at this point, to go with a Disney ending.

But alas, this franchise was left in the hands of a second rate writer who failed to reach beyond the limits of his own mediocrity.

[Karolus_V]

KevShep wrote...

Karolus_V wrote...

KevShep wrote...

Something that I just noticed...

the relays are there to stop us from using them AFTER the reapers shut down the relays by the citadel right! They do this so we will be stuck in our own systems since FTL is not fast enough to what the relays could. However, we see the whole galaxy back on there homeworlds...how is that possible? How also is it impossible for the normandy to not return to earth and reunite with shep?

Point is, The reapers use the relays as a trap so they can take over the galaxy (meaning that they CANT beat us united otherwise no need for relay trap).

One last thing I noticed...It took the reapers 200 or more years to kill all of the protheans and yet by magic they beat us in a matter of months with the relays STILL OPEN!

Imagine paranoid Turians ruling the galaxy. Now the reapers arrive and close the relays. What you got? Isolated forts. Not isolated civil worlds with some defense.  That was what happened with the protheans, the reapers were going slow, because it was the safe route. Overall the protheans were more advanced than our cycle, too.

The protheans were advanced but the reapers KNEW eveything about them from the citadel. They dont know everything about us so it still SHOULD take longer then that.

it still does not change the fact that it takes hundreds of years as mentioned by Vigil.

This reinforces my point. The protheans probably were a lot more powerful than our cycle, but they didnt have the luxuries our cycle had  thanks to them. If the previous race, the ¿Isannon? managed what the Protheans for our cycle, to negate the sealing of the relays...they could win, I think. Even with all that info, they were capable of mount considerable resistance.

[Uncle Jo]

Father_Jerusalem wrote...

But isn't that what makes it so great, though? That we can sit here and have these discussions about which endings we feel are the best, or justifiable, or which we would never be able to do? If there was ONE ending that was clearly the best, all we would do would be to talk about it instead of what makes the other endings so great, or so terrible.
By not putting one SUPER ending in, what BioWare has done is foster discussion. That's the true ending of the ME trilogy, to me. That we'll keep talking about it.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not for a super disney ending. While I do see your point, I'll tell you what really disturbs me about the endings:

- The starbrat's existence, undermining the Reapers to a point where they look like simple tools/slaves (I lol'd at the "fire analogy"). If he's right then Harbinger and Sovereign have some serious mental problems and suffer from severe schizophrenia:

"The forces of the Universe bends to me" - Harbinger
"You are bacteria"- Harbinger
"We're each a nation, independant and free of all weaknesses"  - Sovereign
"We have no beginning. We have no end" - Sovereign.

Let alone that the presence of Sovereign as vanguard in ME1 is now absolutlely pointless IMO. (Why didn't the Brat activate the Citadel himself ? Please don't tell me that he didn't have any power on it. He's the oldest, the most intelligent and the most powerful being in the galaxy. It's his home and he created the Reapers. I have posted this question countless times and still never got any satisfying answer)

- The reasons the brat gives to justify his pre-emptive genocides (I'll partly quote myself from another thread)

"He stated that his wanted to preserve organic life to be completely wiped out by the synthetics  and is the catalyst of the peace between organics and synthetics, overseer of their relations. Fine.

If he really wanted to ascend and preserve the organics into a Reaper form, why does he send them to war ? How many minds were lost when a Destroyer or a Capital ship was taken down ?

Why indoctrinate the Rachni and send them against the Galaxy ? Why mess with the Geth und turning them against the organics ? Why torture, enslave, indoctrinate, mutilate, kill trillions of lifes, destroy thousands of worlds ? Because the end justifies the means ? Because of an assumption ? That's his vision of peace ?

Why did he turn the Protheans into cannon fodder (Collectors) because he couldn't make a Reaper of them ? Is it his way to preserve a civilization from completly disappear?"

What do we know about the other races in the previous cycles ? Nothing. Not a single clue.

Why do I have first to become a Reaper or be "ascended" to get knowledge about them (as if it could even happen), learning from their mistakes and eventually try to not repeat them ?
Why doesn't he give us a chance to know what really happened to them, how they evolved, what they did achieve ?

Don't you think that not knowing your past is the best way to repeat history again, again and again ?

Who are the bad guys here, the Synthetics or the Reapers with their new boss ? Why shove me a forced hatred of the Synthetics down the throat, after showing me that they're not always evil ?


- I'll come to the tech singularity.

It could actually happen, however even if it was the case, we don't have any idea of its actual outcome. After what I learnt about the Geth and EDI, I have the right to suppose there is a reasonable possibility that it won't automatically turn out for the organics to be completely wiped out.
So sure, maybe it was always the case before (although when I see his methods, I'm not surprised that it always went wrong), but it justifies in no way, what he did to prevent it.


The worst of it is that Shep is forced to make a choice based on this assumption, since Refusal apparently leads to a complete failure (BW saying "Hi" to people who dare reject their vision of the endings).
So I'm sorry, no matter how much candy eye the endings are now warped with, it still doesn't change the fact that the pill still tastes bitter at face-value.

That's why I think that they should have gone from the beginning with a conventional victory/defeat over the Reapers according to our EMS. Instead of trying to explain what the Reapers are or giving them the good role.

And spare us and themselves the whole mess.

Modifié par Uncle Jo, 30 juin 2012 - 02:48 .

[KevShep]

dreman9999 wrote...

KevShep wrote...

dreman9999      

Also, during the whole time in ME1 and ME2 we were finding a way to stop the reapers and the way that we do that is some how not what we were after to begin with? The collector base should have played a roll in this as well should the relays have weakned the reapers ability to fight. Both together would have been a logical reason to fight them conventionaly!

ME1, We only faced one reaper and we only delayed them.
ME2, we only faced there forces and we still only delayed them. It a different thing when we are facing the full fleet and the entirity of there unlimited forces. And the collecter base did play a role in defeating the reapers in ME3, gave the main power source of the crucible.

 Iam also talking about the original story! The story that was cut when Drew K. left for SWTOR.

It had a different direction in the main story about what ME3 was going to be. By those two things mentioned we would be able to stop the reapers without a super-awesome-deathray-of-doom-micophone trainwreck called the crucible. 

The original stroy was about dark energy and the collector base played a part in it. Now ME2 means nothing. ME2 had nothing to add to anything other then offer a new enemy...TIM! The whole collector base mission thing, yeah, meaningless!

Modifié par KevShep, 30 juin 2012 - 02:41 .

[WhereEternityEnds]

One is. You know, the one that DOESN'T turn Shepard into a hypocrite?

[Karolus_V]

dreman9999 wrote...

KevShep wrote...

Karolus_V wrote...

KevShep wrote...

Something that I just noticed...

the relays are there to stop us from using them AFTER the reapers shut down the relays by the citadel right! They do this so we will be stuck in our own systems since FTL is not fast enough to what the relays could. However, we see the whole galaxy back on there homeworlds...how is that possible? How also is it impossible for the normandy to not return to earth and reunite with shep?

Point is, The reapers use the relays as a trap so they can take over the galaxy (meaning that they CANT beat us united otherwise no need for relay trap).

One last thing I noticed...It took the reapers 200 or more years to kill all of the protheans and yet by magic they beat us in a matter of months with the relays STILL OPEN!

Imagine paranoid Turians ruling the galaxy. Now the reapers arrive and close the relays. What you got? Isolated forts. Not isolated civil worlds with some defense.  That was what happened with the protheans, the reapers were going slow, because it was the safe route. Overall the protheans were more advanced than our cycle, too.

The protheans were advanced but the reapers KNEW eveything about them from the citadel. They dont know everything about us so it still SHOULD take longer then that.

it still does not change the fact that it takes hundreds of years as mentioned by Vigil.

They do know everything about use. They been studing us via collecters for 100's of years.

But our cycle didnt have maped EVERY inhabited planet of the galaxy, where the fleets were, all the intelligence you could imagine, because they hijacked the citadel,the very centre and capital of the Prothean Empire , after using it to enter the galaxy via the warp gate. Compared to that, the collectors info is nothing. Think about it,instant FULL intel about your enemy. FULL, like 99,99%. But the reapers neede to go the safe route, because of the strengh of Prothean military.

[Rencor2k]

ph34r-X wrote...

 Simple paragon ending. 

Shepard Lives, reapers defeated by conventional means, Geth/ EDI lives, Shepard walks off into the sunset with love interest.

Is this basicly what we all want? 

Pretty much yes.. i mean comon man only way for shepard to live is destroy and after that all geth and EDI dies, great so much for getting them all together.

[WhereEternityEnds]

Benrosan wrote...

Indeed OP. An unnecessarily sad ending is just as contrived and arbitrary as a happy one. The only difference is that it doesn't shamelessly exploit your emotional ties to the characters under the guise of meaningful storytelling.

There is a simple elegance and honesty to the kind of resolution you and I wanted.

Bioware handled the ending in a very juvenile way. The idea of a protagonist overcoming impossible odds through personal sacrifice is both lazy and predictable. It would have been more edgy, at this point, to go with a Disney ending.

But alas, this franchise was left in the hands of a second rate writer who failed to reach beyond the limits of his own mediocrity.

Exactly.  It's almost like they collapsed under the weight of their own brilliantly crafted universe and made things way too complicated to compensate.  When in doubt you keep things simple. 

[Benrosan]

 Just read this quote in the Wall Street Journal and I can't stop laughing:

"Mass Effect’s original ending was a bold and rude gesture of defiance against the compulsion towards arbitrary narrative tidiness"

seriously......

[WhereEternityEnds]

Rude isn't something you're supposed to use in a positive context. You know why there's so many endings which wrap things up at the end? Because it leaves the reader/viewer/player a feeling of satisfaction. If I walk out of the theater with an unsatisfied look on my face, the writers didn't do their damn job. End of story. (Hello Prometheus)

Honestly, to me, open ended endings are a plague. Equal to something like allegory in terms of pretentious story telling and for leaving a bad taste in your mouth.

[RogueBot]

I think that this sort of ending should be possible with the highest possible EMS. Do I think it's realistic considering how Bioware have presented the Reapers? No. Maybe it's not "artistic". But I think it's a suitable reward for players who have invested a lot into this series. Investment into a video game isn't the same as a book or movie, so artistic guidelines shouldn't be of the same concern, for better or worse.

Modifié par RogueBot, 30 juin 2012 - 02:50 .

[Krilleboy]

i think this(or a veriation of this) is possible, with up comming dlc's like the levinthian one and others not yeath made, there will be a grand final battle where you assets actually matter. Where you see the Geath,aricny( exusse my speling using phone), Leviathan and all the other know and unknown assets fighting on all fronts and then seeing the catalyst just stand there as our cycle ends it all.
think of it as a final cash in on EA and Bioware, one i would actually pay for.

[Benrosan]

WhereEternityEnds wrote...

Rude isn't something you're supposed to use in a positive context. You know why there's so many endings which wrap things up at the end? Because it leaves the reader/viewer/player a feeling of satisfaction. If I walk out of the theater with an unsatisfied look on my face, the writers didn't do their damn job. End of story. (Hello Prometheus)

 

I'm right there with you. There is a huge difference between an ending that makes you think and one that forces you to speculate. (Seriously, wtf Prometheus).

[dreman9999]

KevShep wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

KevShep wrote...

dreman9999      

Also, during the whole time in ME1 and ME2 we were finding a way to stop the reapers and the way that we do that is some how not what we were after to begin with? The collector base should have played a roll in this as well should the relays have weakned the reapers ability to fight. Both together would have been a logical reason to fight them conventionaly!

ME1, We only faced one reaper and we only delayed them.
ME2, we only faced there forces and we still only delayed them. It a different thing when we are facing the full fleet and the entirity of there unlimited forces. And the collecter base did play a role in defeating the reapers in ME3, gave the main power source of the crucible.

 Iam also talking about the original story! The story that was cut when Drew K. left for SWTOR.

It had a different direction in the main story about what ME3 was going to be. By those two things mentioned we would be able to stop the reapers without a super-awesome-deathray-of-doom-micophone trainwreck called the crucible. 

The original stroy was about dark energy and the collector base played a part in it. Now ME2 means nothing. ME2 had nothing to add to anything other then offer a new enemy...TIM! The whole collector base mission thing, yeah, meaningless!

So what? The theme of ME1 is still what lenghts would yu go to defeat an unbeatable force. In ME3, that did not change. Just because the direction of thestory did not go where it originally planned to does not negate the fact your facing an unbeatable force.

Modifié par dreman9999, 30 juin 2012 - 03:01 .

[dreman9999]

Karolus_V wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

KevShep wrote...

Karolus_V wrote...

KevShep wrote...

Something that I just noticed...

the relays are there to stop us from using them AFTER the reapers shut down the relays by the citadel right! They do this so we will be stuck in our own systems since FTL is not fast enough to what the relays could. However, we see the whole galaxy back on there homeworlds...how is that possible? How also is it impossible for the normandy to not return to earth and reunite with shep?

Point is, The reapers use the relays as a trap so they can take over the galaxy (meaning that they CANT beat us united otherwise no need for relay trap).

One last thing I noticed...It took the reapers 200 or more years to kill all of the protheans and yet by magic they beat us in a matter of months with the relays STILL OPEN!

Imagine paranoid Turians ruling the galaxy. Now the reapers arrive and close the relays. What you got? Isolated forts. Not isolated civil worlds with some defense.  That was what happened with the protheans, the reapers were going slow, because it was the safe route. Overall the protheans were more advanced than our cycle, too.

The protheans were advanced but the reapers KNEW eveything about them from the citadel. They dont know everything about us so it still SHOULD take longer then that.

it still does not change the fact that it takes hundreds of years as mentioned by Vigil.

They do know everything about use. They been studing us via collecters for 100's of years.

But our cycle didnt have maped EVERY inhabited planet of the galaxy, where the fleets were, all the intelligence you could imagine, because they hijacked the citadel,the very centre and capital of the Prothean Empire , after using it to enter the galaxy via the warp gate. Compared to that, the collectors info is nothing. Think about it,instant FULL intel about your enemy. FULL, like 99,99%. But the reapers neede to go the safe route, because of the strengh of Prothean military.

But we mapped all our colinized planets and any war we will have would still be there. And clearly, it'snot like the reapers can't find the fleets.

[cuzIMgood]

No, disagree 100%.

[KevShep]

dreman9999 wrote...

KevShep wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

KevShep wrote...

dreman9999      

Also, during the whole time in ME1 and ME2 we were finding a way to stop the reapers and the way that we do that is some how not what we were after to begin with? The collector base should have played a roll in this as well should the relays have weakned the reapers ability to fight. Both together would have been a logical reason to fight them conventionaly!

ME1, We only faced one reaper and we only delayed them.
ME2, we only faced there forces and we still only delayed them. It a different thing when we are facing the full fleet and the entirity of there unlimited forces. And the collecter base did play a role in defeating the reapers in ME3, gave the main power source of the crucible.

 Iam also talking about the original story! The story that was cut when Drew K. left for SWTOR.

It had a different direction in the main story about what ME3 was going to be. By those two things mentioned we would be able to stop the reapers without a super-awesome-deathray-of-doom-micophone trainwreck called the crucible. 

The original stroy was about dark energy and the collector base played a part in it. Now ME2 means nothing. ME2 had nothing to add to anything other then offer a new enemy...TIM! The whole collector base mission thing, yeah, meaningless!

So what? The theme of ME1 is still what lenghts would yu go to defeat an unbeatable force. In ME3, that did not change. Just because the direction of thestory did not go where it originally planned to does not negate the fact your facing an unbeatable force.

it was possible in the original story, however, Dark energy was the reapers weakness so I guess you could say that that is there crucible for the original. It still beats having the crucible thrown on our laps that was way to convenient timing and by that making a whole game (ME2) mean nothing at all.

Modifié par KevShep, 30 juin 2012 - 03:10 .

[ArchDuck]

ph34r-X wrote...

 Simple paragon ending. 

Shepard Lives, reapers defeated by conventional means, Geth/ EDI lives, Shepard walks off into the sunset with love interest.

Is this basicly what we all want? 

As an option it would have been great.

[BDelacroix]

Why should there be an ending where you work hard for a specific reward? Because you worked hard for a specific reward. Real life can be contrary and that's fine, but this is fiction and is enjoyed as escapism.

If you want to get into real life lessons, go volunteer to teach a scared straight session in the local juvie hall.

The everyone lives ending to the everyone loses ending and everything in between would have been great.

Modifié par BDelacroix, 30 juin 2012 - 03:12 .