1199 réponses à ce sujet

[Miezul_Carpatin]

My opinion : a happy ending should have been included because I don't play games to feel sad in the end, I play them to win and be fulfilled. I get enough sadness everyday, that is why I play games and read books.
Why I am sad in the end :
-refusal -everyone dies
-control - the "best" imho, Shepard becomes the Catalyst and at some point he could start the cycle all over again.
-synthesis - forced homogenization
-destroy - had forgotten genocide

Modifié par Miezul_Carpatin, 29 juin 2012 - 05:17 .

[wantedman dan]

Y2Kevin wrote...

This isn't a Disney movie; I'm glad all of the endings require some level of sacrifice. In all honesty, the only ending that doesn't disappoint me is the "Refusal," as I don't believe the Reapers should have been defeated by any means, and certainly not conventional ones.

So we all should be subscribed to how you believe your Shepard should go.

Funny how everybody wants their opinion on how the story should have went with zero consideration as to how others play.

Modifié par wantedman dan, 29 juin 2012 - 05:16 .

[Kmead15]

Scolai wrote...

Because in the best stories, the timeless ones that are cherished for generations, the ones that matter to people and keep them warm when the real world goes cold and give a glimmer of light when the darkness closes in, end in such a way, realistic or not.

We live in a time plagued by a horrible, horrible fad that says to be "important" or "deep" you need to kill off the main character and wreck the world.  The theme always has to be sacrifice, and yet many authors seem to entirely forget that sacrifice isn't the only way to end a story. Why this is I don't know.  It flies in the face of the stories that people actually enjoy.  Real life has far too much doom and gloom as it is.  There is neither anything wrong with having a happier ending, nor are "sacrifice" endings somehow more poinent.  They're simply a sign of our times and a sad commentary on how little hope we collectively have.  If you can no longer believe in miracles, in overcoming the impossible, well...you don't really need heroes any more, just martyrs.

Look at the stories people consider to be classics of the fantasy and sci-fi genre.  Look at Star Wars or Lord of the Rings.  Do they end in darkness?  No.  They end with the hero conquering all, and receiving their just reward.  Want a more recent example?  Look at the Avengers.  Ants standing up to the boot, so to speak, and winning against impossible odds.  Why?  Because that's what heroes do.  It's what we need them to do, so that we can have that glimmer of hope in our own lives.  It's also, in the Star Wars case and somewhat in Mass Effect, the monomyth.  It's what we want as a people because it's our most basic of stories.

Ending on a sad note because it's trendy to do so means Mass Effect likely won't go on to have the sort of appeal that Star Wars does.  Sure, lots of people will like it...but consider this - which ending do you think people will remember most in 10 years...Mass Effect or Return of the Jedi?  Or Avengers?  Or Lord of the Rings?

Have you read a lot of our oldest works? The timeless ones that have been cherished for generations? There's some pretty grim stuff in there. I'm not saying that good stories with super-happy endings don't exist, but claiming that darker endings are some newfangled modern invention is just plain wrong.

Also, you should choose your examples better. I'll have to take your word on Avengers, but in both the other two stories the main character's victory didn't come without a major personal loss. It wasn't all that severe in Star Wars, just Luke succeeding in saving his father from the dark side only to have him die in his arms. Frodo has it much worse, as Lord of the Rings climaxes with him ultimately falling prey to the Ring at the very last second and failing to destroy it. Then, even after he was saved by a lucky break, he was left so wounded and weary from the experience that he left Middle Earth to find peace.

Modifié par Kmead15, 29 juin 2012 - 05:16 .

[Oransel]

This ending should be an option.

[Astartes Marine]

wantedman dan wrote...
I want this to be an option.

Allow the possibility of it, yes.  Make it require EVERY quest done, EVERY side mission, EVERY war asset gained, max Paragon, etc etc.  Make it possible, but the hardest of all to attain.

[Mystiq6]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Kerasth wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Because it would be a satisfying, happy ending. We would still have had to pay a high price for our victory, but the cost would not have been our soul and we'd actually win. In all the current endings we lose and in three of the four the Reapers win. Players should be rewarded for rejecting the logic of the monsters known as Reapers, not punished.

Just to be clear, you seem to be equating losing simply with whether or not Shepard survives? Am I correct in understanding this. What does it take to "win" this conflict then? Is the only "winning" condition one that has Shepard living, reapers defeated conventionally, Geth/EDI living, and Shepard walking off with love interest?

Wrong. I equate losing with the Reapers surviving. I would have been okay with Shepard dying to destroy the Reapers. Instead EDI and the geth die in the destroy ending and Shepard lives (if only for a few seconds). I went into ME3 accepting the fact that my Shep might not get to see the future she saved. I did not go into it accepting that the Reapers would survive in any of the alleged "win" scenarios.

If this was the case, you wouldn't have said that in all the current endings we lose.  Was that misspoken on your part?  The Reapers are definitively destroyed in the Destroy ending.  Yet you refer to the other endings as being the "win" scenarios.

I think I understand what he's saying and if I do, I agree. The reapers were insane monsters in Mass Effect 1 and 2. The justification for their existence just doesn't work for me because there are holes in it (see this thread of mine: http://social.biowar.../index/12854481). With those two things in mind, the reapers remaining alive just doesn't sit well with me. I want them dead because the Catalyst's explanation doesn't justify their existence in my mind.

[Ticonderoga117]

Y2Kevin wrote...

This isn't a Disney movie; I'm glad all of the endings require some level of sacrifice. In all honesty, the only ending that doesn't disappoint me is the "Refusal," as I don't believe the Reapers should have been defeated by any means, and certainly not conventional ones.

Why is happy a bad thing?  Dawn of War 2: Retribution had a happy ending... in the 40K universe! That place is the definition of grimdark. Yet, you can still get a happy end for, who I consider, the main characters. Yes, some sacrifice of live was in it... and it would still be in ME3. Billions have died along with all your squad members who died. Must more die for the pile of bodies to reach a certain height were a "happy" ending is acceptable?

[Miekkas]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

crimsontotem wrote...

Put us in your perspective... you put about god knows how many hours into the game... and you yourself has become Commander Shepard. Now you want to see how this story of YOU come to an end and you only get a speculative ending... what do you think? YOUR story ends abruptly witout any direct end. How woudl you feel?

I first played ME1 in 2008, before I even started at BioWare, and I have kept my saved games and played through the whole series with two different characters.  At no point have I ever worked on a Mass Effect game, so I've only ever played them as a fan, and have suck well over 100+ hours into the games myself.


Now, I had already heard crazy rumors about the awfulness of the ending, so that likely made me go into it with a much more open mind.  But I did NOT mind the open endedness of the original endings.  An advantage of the, I found, is that it places more emphasis on the choice and what I feel about the choice, rather than seeing the validation of said choice with a detailed description of the consequence of my choice.

When you provide a more detailed epilogue, you validate, or worse invalidate, whether or not the thought process they used to make the decision was correct.  I think part of this is why many people feel the current refusal ending is an insult, because they really wanted it to go down in another way.  Even though it's not actually illogical that the Reapers ultimately win, there are more than one several page threads that basically say "This is stupid, we should be able to win conventionally" because really, it's what they want.

So I didn't mind the original endings (I didn't think they were great, but I didn't think they were bad.  I was still able to enjoy them), but I could certainly understand (in part by asking) why many did want more details and whatnot.

I can name only two scenarios where ultimately Shepard did not overcome
the odds: Virmire with Ashley or Kaiden dying and the other being Kai
Lang stealing the Prothean VI on the Asari homeworld. In literally every
other scenario, the player has the ability to overcome the obstacles
based upon their efforts in the game. The past two games and a good portion of the third centers around reinforcing the theme of Shepard and his crew beating impossible odds whether it be storytelling or the direct efforts of the player in building up to that moment, so they naturally had come to expect and thus want it from Mass Effect 3 as well. This is the key source of the disgruntlement with the endings before, now, and with the new Refusal Ending in my opinion. When they were confronted with the opposite and radical change of themes, most of the players would respond with confusion at the change and later anger.

[wicked_being]

I want it. It should've been an option. And the "lolno this isn't a Disney movie" is becoming really old. You don't want a Disney movie but you'd rather have that illogical lol-worthy Synthesis? Really?

[Lili Dragunova]

Honestly OP, I would like it to be an option at least.

[CrutchCricket]

Hey Allan,

I won't try to compete with the walls of text in this thread but hopefully you read this.

In an ideal world a game like Mass Effect would have a whole spectrum of possible endings all the way from "you lose miserably, everyone dies, husks are teabagging you, you're efforts were bad and you should feel bad" to "you've discovered the land of happiness and chocolates and everyone is there dancing, you defeated your enemies without breaking a sweat and you and you LI are getting busy right about -cut to credits" and all of these endings would just flow naturally based on the choices you've made throughout the trilogy, to the point where you barely notice you made an endgame choice at all.

It's not an ideal world by far. It's understandable that there are deadlines, budget constraints, tech requirements and the like. I also get that the whole project was rushed for reasons outside the scope of this discussion.

Regardless it's clear that the whole spectrum of endings cannot be included. But why not sample evenly, get yourself a normalized distribution (it's late here and I'm forgetting my statistics but you know what I mean, the bell curve) of possibilities? A few terrible, a bunch of "bittersweet" ones and a few great ones? The feeling right now is that you've stuck only to the bittersweet zone and have not given a choice in the "great" (or even "terrible" though not many will argue for that) side.

As for why people still want a foray into that great side, I think it's just emotional. People want to feel happy when they're done.

To summarize: In general, for a game about choices like this you should try to cover all bases from supreme victory to total failure in order to maximize player satisfaction. And people will ask for the "great" endings more because they just want to feel happy.

[LadyMarisa]

Y2Kevin wrote...

This isn't a Disney movie; I'm glad all of the endings require some level of sacrifice. In all honesty, the only ending that doesn't disappoint me is the "Refusal," as I don't believe the Reapers should have been defeated by any means, and certainly not conventional ones.

There are a few choices made throughout the series that I wish carried a little more weight, the fate of the Rachni just to name one, but overall I was pleased with the ability to allow the cycle to continue at the expense of high-level galactic civilization.

See that's kind of the point we are making.  We wouldn't want you to be forced into a happy ending, we want it as an option. We don't want to tell you how to play your Shepard or how to end your story. You have your beliefs and opinions and that' awesome. We have ours and want an "option" that fits ours.

[The Irish Man]

This is almost what happens in the destroy ending but not quite. With the scenes that we are given we can predict that Shepard would be recovered alive but barely and eventually he would be reunited with his or her love interest. Just listen to Hackett's speech at the end.

[Kalyppso]

Astartes Marine wrote...

wantedman dan wrote...
I want this to be an option.

Allow the possibility of it, yes.  Make it require EVERY quest done, EVERY side mission, EVERY war asset gained, max Paragon, etc etc.  Make it possible, but the hardest of all to attain.

On this note: Make it require having achieved all achievements off all 3 games and only attainable through a final playthrough of ME3. =P
But then (almost) no one would see it, and it would not be worth the resources put into it, unless there was cost, which I think would have been fine with most of the audience.

Anyway, I'm not literally saying: MAKE THIS. Just adding what could (have) been done.

[jsar72]

comrade gando wrote...

LaughingDragon wrote...

You want to know the REAL truth Allan?

Here it is.... Because that's what we are paying you for. To give us what we want. Do you think millions of fans want to spend $60 and get something they don't like? Every poll taken shows that 70-80% of more of fans thought the endings were terrible. The most die hard fans, had problems with the whole game for reasons like how prior choices RE the rachni, geth/quarian etc etc etc etc don't matter at all in ME3. Casual fans who just like to shoot guns with blue and red lights obviously don't care. 

Do you know why we all bought ME2 and ME3? Because in ME1 Shepard walks out from under that rubble against all odds and triumphs over saren and sovereign.

Why did we buy ME3? Because shepard survives the suicide mission and takes down the collectors and walks away a hero.

Why do 80% of fans hate ME3 ending? Because there's no way to WIN, there's no way for Shepard to walk away a hero. Every scenario is epic failure. Green eyed zombies...wtf dude? Controlling the reapers? Yeah no. Destroying the reapers with red lightning space magic and dying or gasping for air in the rubble fade to black? 

so much THIS. you just described perfectly how I feel. There's no way to WIN.

Double down on this!!!

[zambot]

I agree. And you know what? Romeo should have never died. What a stupid ending. I paid good money to watch Romeo ride off with Juliet into the sunset. Screw you Shakespeare, I mean suicide? wtf, that's not even realistic. Shakespeare you're an f'in terrible writer, let's just hope you learn from this when you finish Hamlet, and not kill him off too. Unbelievable.

[mauro2222]

GamerrangerX wrote...

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? 

boring ending,the best ending is control,Shepard become immortal

He dies.

[EnvyTB075]

Y2Kevin wrote...

This isn't a Disney movie

Synthesis is pretty damned Disney.

mauro2222 wrote...

He dies.

 

He controls space cthulu.

Modifié par EnvyTB075, 29 juin 2012 - 05:23 .

[Reptilian Rob]

mauro2222 wrote...

GamerrangerX wrote...

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? 

boring ending,the best ending is control,Shepard become immortal

He dies.

Actually worse, he/she becomes a demi god who has lost everything he/she was. He/she is not Shepard anymore, he's the Catalyst. 

[KeraWildmane]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Kerasth wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Because it would be a satisfying, happy ending. We would still have had to pay a high price for our victory, but the cost would not have been our soul and we'd actually win. In all the current endings we lose and in three of the four the Reapers win. Players should be rewarded for rejecting the logic of the monsters known as Reapers, not punished.

Just to be clear, you seem to be equating losing simply with whether or not Shepard survives? Am I correct in understanding this. What does it take to "win" this conflict then? Is the only "winning" condition one that has Shepard living, reapers defeated conventionally, Geth/EDI living, and Shepard walking off with love interest?

Wrong. I equate losing with the Reapers surviving. I would have been okay with Shepard dying to destroy the Reapers. Instead EDI and the geth die in the destroy ending and Shepard lives (if only for a few seconds). I went into ME3 accepting the fact that my Shep might not get to see the future she saved. I did not go into it accepting that the Reapers would survive in any of the alleged "win" scenarios.

If this was the case, you wouldn't have said that in all the current endings we lose.  Was that misspoken on your part?  The Reapers are definitively destroyed in the Destroy ending.  Yet you refer to the other endings as being the "win" scenarios.

I forgot to mention that in destroy we lose our souls. Committing genocide and betraying one of my closest allies is NOT victory.

[shadey]

well they have 4 options now and shep dies in all of them

not counting the breath scene since it wasn't explained, and shep. was basically dead anyway at that point prior to meeting catalyst.

I think adding one where he clearly survived should have been planned.

what's done is done, meh

[Y2Kevin]

wantedman dan wrote...

Y2Kevin wrote...

This isn't a Disney movie; I'm glad all of the endings require some level of sacrifice. In all honesty, the only ending that doesn't disappoint me is the "Refusal," as I don't believe the Reapers should have been defeated by any means, and certainly not conventional ones.

So we all should be subscribed to how you believe your Shepard should go.

Funny how everybody wants their opinion on how the story should have went with zero consideration as to how others play.

I didn't mean to discount your Shepard, or anybody else's for that matter.  The Mass Effect series has always been about victory through sacrifice (you can find many examples in all 3 Mass Effect games).  I can understand wanting Shepard to live, or wanting something "happy" in the ending, but Shepard surviving, the Geth and EDI living, Reapers being defeated through conventional means, etc. seems like entirely too much being given without anything being taken away.

Again, I don't mean to upset you because I'm sure you're all as tied to your Sheps as I am to mine, but during that conversation with Sovereign on Virmire I pretty much had it in my head that no matter how hard the universe tried, we're not beating these things.  I'm glad I got the chance to play out that scenario, because without the Extended Cut I did not have that option.

[Udalango]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

crimsontotem wrote...

Put us in your perspective... you put about god knows how many hours into the game... and you yourself has become Commander Shepard. Now you want to see how this story of YOU come to an end and you only get a speculative ending... what do you think? YOUR story ends abruptly witout any direct end. How woudl you feel?

Now, I had already heard crazy rumors about the awfulness of the ending, so that likely made me go into it with a much more open mind.  But I did NOT mind the open endedness of the original endings.  An advantage of the, I found, is that it places more emphasis on the choice and what I feel about the choice, rather than seeing the validation of said choice with a detailed description of the consequence of my choice.

How can you decide how you feel on a choice if you dont know all the consequences of the choice though?  Ive read many threads of people hating Synthesis in the original endings and being ok with it in the EC...

[Y2Kevin]

Ticonderoga117 wrote...

Y2Kevin wrote...

This isn't a Disney movie; I'm glad all of the endings require some level of sacrifice. In all honesty, the only ending that doesn't disappoint me is the "Refusal," as I don't believe the Reapers should have been defeated by any means, and certainly not conventional ones.

Why is happy a bad thing?  Dawn of War 2: Retribution had a happy ending... in the 40K universe! That place is the definition of grimdark. Yet, you can still get a happy end for, who I consider, the main characters. Yes, some sacrifice of live was in it... and it would still be in ME3. Billions have died along with all your squad members who died. Must more die for the pile of bodies to reach a certain height were a "happy" ending is acceptable?

I didn't mean to imply that "happy" was a bad thing, only that in the universe of MY Shepard I had written-off victory years ago - and I'm glad I finally got to see it play out that way.