258 réponses à ce sujet

[TK EL_]

Klijpope wrote...

TK EL wrote...
Not only did ME3 fall short, it missed the mark by quite a distance, not just storywise, but that's a different discussion. The fact that it is possibly the current best rated game for the year doesn't say much as not much has been released and considering the sizable backlash, the rapid decline in sales, mass trade in's and unintended contingency plans Bioware had to put in effect, I think failure is quite an apt discription for it. If this game is remembered for anything, I can asure you the bad will outweigh the good

Well, I wish I had your crystal ball. The drop off in sales follows the same trajectory as it did for ME1 and ME2, and it's sale price is holding steady at the big retailers. Post EC, the backlash pretty much exists only here on BSN, and the game not only made a profit at retail, it is also continuing to generate revenue via MP microtransactions. Given all the inches of commentary published on 'proper' blogs on it, about an even mix between postive and negative, it's also raised awareness of the brand. Moreover, ME is the first game taken seriously by the world at large as an artistic work (and no, this has nothing to do with artistic integrity) - they see something whose ending is taken as seriously and as divisively as the ending to Lost or the Sopranos.

So there's an awful lot of good right now.

Don't decieve yourself. The drop off in sales was far worse than either ME1 or ME2. ME2 kept up in sales many months after release. ME3 has the big first week sales + 2 weeks worth of good sales to its name after which the backlash caught up with it. The major retailers shoveled it out as fast as they could. No top AAA games goes on sale for $40 a month after release, well except ME3. The trade in values dipped drastically in the first month cos people could not get rid of it fast enough. Granted they are raking in MP micro-transactions from some people but I won't comment on people who would pay real money for random packs. The only awareness it raised was that Bioware has now gone the route that many developers under EA have.

Your talk of "proper" blogs and it being taken as an artistic work is, for lack of a better term pretentious BS. I didn't follow Lost or the Soprano's but the general consensus I gathered was that both their conclusions sucked. But it seems you're one of those evolved people that refuses to recognize crap for what it is. Fair play to you sir

[I_eat_unicorns]

CoolioThane wrote...

Troxa wrote...

Justin2k wrote...

Thread after thread after thread about the ending, the extended cut and everything else.  What if the indoctination theory was true, what if they really mean this, what if this is the real ending.

It's all rubbish.  You have hope and faith in Bioware I get it.  But the obvious plain truth is that Starchild was a joke, Bioware realised it was a joke but rather than rewrite it, they didn't want to offend their writing staff so they "expanded" on it.

It's just poor writing, nothing more or nothing less.  A five year old child could have finished the story better.  Defeat the reapers, save the galaxy.  There, done.

There is no clever hidden underlining meaning, there is no theory.  It was just a stupid contrived ending and the writers should have their work reviewed in future before releasing it to the public.  Just imagine if Luke Skywalker had walked in to face the Emperor and Darth Vader only to be faced with a little child telling him that the empire exists because people rebel or something.  Lucas would never had found work again.

In the final hour of mass effect 3  bioware said there were going to be an ending there shepard was indoctrinated but they dropped it because of technical problems.

Yep it's poor writing

They actually said they were going to use a scene where player lost control of Shepard but they dropped the sequence, not the idea.

I_eat_unicorns wrote... 

why?

 

Perfect ending. We battle indoctrinated foes through the series, what better way to end it than to indoctrinate the protagonist and thus the players before finding a way to break free. It's brilliant.

No it's not, IT goes against player choice that is so heavily encouraged in a game like mass effect. It would have even been worse than the original ending.

Because putting 3 months of time,money, and energy into a non-sensical, fan-fic theory that ruins player choice that is so heavily encouraged in a game like mass effect. 



This is from the SDCC, at around 6:00, you can see a better version of the flow chart. You see how much work/variables the writers put into the endings under the 2 gb limit, why would they go against their own hard work and say "jk it was all a dream"? 

[PsyrenY]

Justin2k wrote...

It's just poor writing, nothing more or nothing less.  A five year old child could have finished the story better.  Defeat the reapers, save the galaxy.  There, done.

Yawn. I'm glad Bioware doesn't go to you for writing ideas.

[Klijpope]

TK EL wrote...
Your talk of "proper" blogs and it being taken as an artistic work is, for lack of a better term pretentious BS. I didn't follow Lost or the Soprano's but the general consensus I gathered was that both their conclusions sucked. But it seems you're one of those evolved people that refuses to recognize crap for what it is. Fair play to you sir

Well done for the unnecessary snark. Feel free to disagree; everything here is just opinion, but you're the one admitting you don't think for yourself and just go on what the 'general consensus' says...

[Baa Baa]

Agreed. Although if Star Wars ended as badly  as ME3, they would have just ended the film as this awesome scene was about to play (when Luke is about to jump out)

[Mazebook]

Mystiq6 wrote...

Maaaze, can you provide examples of what's in the narrative that helps fill in the plot holes, such as why the Citadel happens to have the apparatuses to activate the Crucible when there's no good reason that the reapers would build that themselves?

I also have a hard time believing that the Catalyst is telling the complete truth, or at least he's leaving out important bits (bending the truth). This is even more evident with new dialog from the Extended Cut. Fortunately for the endings, he's telling the truth where it matters and picking Destroy really does kill the reapers. I find the utopia of Synthesis hard to swallow and have little faith in a good outcome of Control for several reasons, most of them proven by the game.

As far as the Indoctrination Theory, I was touch and go with it for a bit, but while I think it is a brilliant idea, I'm pretty firm with my stance that all the evidence points to it not being BioWare's original intention. (If it does turn out to be true, I'll eat my shorts.)

As far as the question of the quality of writing of the ending, I'll leave my answer like this: there are too many important questions left unanswered, even very important little details. BioWare bills their games as emotionally engaging. You can argue up and down all you like about which game is the best but I think most people would agree all three games are emotionally engaging at one point or another.

A good story certainly engages the reader and makes you care about the characters and, importantly, the characters seem like real people, something BioWare has a gold mine with as far as Mass Effect is concerned. Mass Effect fell flat when, in the last 10 minutes, a new character was introduced and the player was only given 10 minutes to try to connect with him.

Then you have what happened to all the other characters that you do care about. Their part in the story suddenly ceased. Shepard died alone. This is something I really want to argue with someone: did Shepard die a hero? Is it even relevant? Would people's opinions on the ending change if the scene with the Catalyst took place in the presence of all of your squad mates?

My answers: No, Yes and Yes. The story was shifted dramatically at the last minute, causing a harsh shift in tone. This movie (ugh, forum censors) was criticized for a massive tone shift in the final act, going from a comedy to almost a tragedy. You can read up on the criticism for that movie to understand why this is considered poor form. You were expecting an ending to a comedy and instead what you got amounted to the ending of a drama. I bring this up because of something talking about on these forums called the writer/reader contract (and more about it here). The gist of it is that you will end the story in the same genre as it began and all the rules set in the beginning will still apply by the end.

While the overarching point of Mass Effect is to kill the reapers, a moral dilemma surrounding this idea was not something anyone probably thought was going to come to a head. You likely expected some unique twist for how to stop the reapers. Ultimately, I was expecting some awesome weapon built up by millions of cycles that would let me reap the reapers. What I did not expect was to be handed victory on a platter, given a win so easily at the last minute, as if it were a pity victory. By what came in Mass Effect 1 and 2, I would say that the writer/reader contract was broken. The rules and type of story that we ended with were not the same as what we started with.

This is not about being handed everything, or about being spoon fed or about how many questions BioWare wants to leave open for the player to contemplate. Simply leaving questions open does not make a good story. The movie Never Let Me Go had a fantastically tragic ending that left a question wide open, and it was a wonderful question. The movie In Time was incredibly preachy. That story spoon fed its plot to viewers. Being so preachy is partially what got the movie knocked down from 3 stars to 2 1/2; there is something to be said about being overly literal and not taking any poetic license.

There is also something to be said about trying to be too poetic and not drawing a satisfying conclusion to a story. Missing a reader's expectations can be a good thing when done well -- mystery stories prove this. The crux of what makes a good mystery is also why foreshadowing has been a writer's tool for thousands of years: you want to look back at the story and see the clues that said "yeah, this was coming all along."

Many of the arguments surrounding the ending are hanging on the fact of whether or not synthetics vs organics and sacrifice were big themes of the games. The ending of Mass Effect 1 was not sacrifice. Choosing whether the Council lives or dies is a minor fact -- and in the end, totally ignored -- in the grand scheme of the games. The ending of Mass Effect 2 was a fight to the death but, ultimately, I don't think a sacrifice. I lost Mordin my first play through of ME2 and I didn't know anything about the rules of the mission.

I was ok wth this outcome and didn't go back and try to save him because I didn't expect to come out of a "suicide mission" unscathed. Synthetics vs organics was the plot of the game but I would argue not a main point. It was the point of the first game, for sure. Racism was a major theme of all of the games, something virtually ignored in ME3's ending. When the games are all about working together to overcome impossible odds -- and I think many people would argue that is a gigantic theme of all of the games -- it struck me as odd that at the final hour, Shepard dies alone.

Before you stop me and bring up Mordin's sacrifice, this was more a point of redemption rather than sacrifice. Mordin died a hero (well, depending on how you went through it) in trying to correct something he now believes he did wrong in his life. Mordin is almost a tragic hero. In tragedies, the hero has, well, a tragic, fatal flaw, and dies for it.

While what makes a good story can be argued critically, a reader will probably insist for themselves if it's good or bad. When a story misses so many people's expectations, combined with other noted problems, there is probably a safe bet which is the objective answer to that question. I love Mass Effect 1-3 and have massive respect for BioWare for accomplishing what they did but the end to the trilogy disappointed me.

sorry for taking so long to reply:

Maaaze, can you provide examples of what's in the narrative that helps fill in the plot holes, such as why the Citadel happens to have the apparatuses to activate the Crucible when there's no good reason that the reapers would build that themselves? 

It is implied in the statement "
 It is crude but effective and adaptive in its design. " which means it 
repurpose existing meachnism. the tube and the rods have most likly a different function than the crucible uses it for.

Mass Effect fell flat when, in the last 10 minutes, a new character was introduced and the player was only given 10 minutes to try to connect with him. 

I have to agree...i also would liked it more if the true nature of the catalyst were introduced at the beginning of the third act...to give the player more time to reflect on him.

I see why Bioware thought it was a good idea to reveal him at the endpoint of the game. It keeps the mystery of the crucible alive and keeps the player focused...I wish cerberus would have been mostly dealt with in the end of the second act. But that all a matter what you prefer and not a matter of universal judgement.

Rules ( especially in art ) are meant to be broken...otherwise no medium would evolve...

Racism was a major theme of all of the games, something virtually ignored in ME3's ending. 

I have to disagree...racism is a big part of the genophage plot and the Quarian plot (some quarians are pretty racist againts the Geth)

Before you stop me and bring up Mordin's sacrifice, this was more a point of redemption rather than sacrifice.  

It is about both...they are not excluding each other. Sacrifice is everywhere in ME 3.
Legion , Jack´s kids have to sacrifize their childhood for the war and even their life, javik tells of sacrificing planets to slow the reapers down and so on...

When a story misses so many people's expectations, combined with other noted problems, there is probably a safe bet which is the objective answer to that question. I love Mass Effect 1-3 and have massive respect for BioWare for accomplishing what they did but the end to the trilogy disappointed me. 

I can´t argue against your disapointment. But the ending would have disappointed people no matter what.
If it had ended in a conventional victory...I would have been pretty disappointed.
I want more challenging things out of an ending. I want it challenge my understanding of the world and give me something to reflect on. 

[Oxspit]

Klijpope wrote...

Oxspit wrote...
It really depends on what you mean by 'synthetics vs organics'. A kind of synthetics vs organics was certainly a theme throughout the ME universe.

What was not a theme throughout, or at any point until the last few minutes, was inevitable apocalyptic conflict between synthetics and organics, due to synthetics surpassing and trying to wipe organics out. They literally just inserted that at the last minute.

Quite the opposite to this was shown throughtout the rest of the series, in fact. If they really wanted us to buy into the star child's reasoning and not just want to shoot him in the head they might have made a start at it by showing us a single solitary incident where that actually happens.

Instead, there were a lot of conflicts (armed and otherwise) between synthetics and organics but they fell into two camps: 1) Reapers pulling the strings to start wars, 2) Organics turning on synthetics out of unneccessary pre-emptive fear.

Well in ME1 there is the Signals Tracking mission that shows you the logic of a synthetic - organics try to control synthetics therefore synthetics need to destroy organics to be free. This is born out by EDI's  birth (the Luna VI), and the whole Geth storyline. Tali even vocalises this. The Quarians could not allow the Geth to become sapient, as they were essentially slaves, and slaves would fight to be free - and that is what happened.

We get to the see the logic from both sides, and if you actually put it all together, the inevitability of conflict becomes a real factor. Look at EDI - she starts ME2 shackled, as everyone is afraid of unshackled AI. Once her shackles are removed, she is potentially quite scary. Listen to all the jokes she makes - we can say she just has a developed sense of humour, but they all relate to her taking over. There's a sinister edge to it. We trust her because she has shown herself, so far, to be trustworthy. However, there is no proof whatsoever that she will not eventually turn on us. As she has free will, that is always a possibility. Her relationship with Joker (can) keep her involved with organics, but what happenes when Joker passes away? Neither EDI nor bringing a truce to the Quarrian/Geth conflict is proof that organic and synthetic are never going ot fight again.

The first theme introduced in a story is the major theme to that story. If you can find an example where that is not true, please feel free to let me know. But you will struggle. And I don't think it is possible to deny that organics vs synthetics was the very first theme brought up in ME1?

I actually forgot about the signals tracking mission. So I have to retract slightly in the sense that, yes, we do see one single individual 'must destroy organics' AI in the whole game. It's easily the least sophisticated AI we meet in the entire game, and on an inconequential side-mission. A bit of a stretch to infer over-arching themes from that, no?

I'm honestly getting the feeling that you're stretching/doing some mental contortions to try and make the inevitable synthetic/organic armagedon a theme at any point other than the end (again, no-one is disputing that coexistence issues between synthetics and organics is a theme throughout the games, but that's not the same thing at all). And I can sort of understand that.... I mean, I wanted ME3 to be brilliant, too. I'm afraid it wasn't.

"Neither EDI nor bringing a truce to the Quarrian/Geth conflict is proof that organic and synthetic are never going ot fight again."?

Um... well, no, I guess they're not. The point, though, is that the game gives us absolutely no reason to believe that synthetics turning on organics is at all likely, and plenty of reason to believe it's not. A much more likely conflict than that is represented by the Krogans seeking to destroy/dominate the rest of us. 

The picture that we get in the games, and clearly so, is that synthetics have no inborn desire whatsoever to destroy organics. They're generally either indifferent to us or curious about us and quite happy to just live and let live. The 'conflict' arises because Organics start it, generally out of fear (a trait synthetics are shown in game to be conspicuously lacking).

Your characterisation of the Geth/Quarian conflict seems a little confused to me. The important point we learn on Rannoch is not that the Geth felt they had to rebel at all. In fact, the tragic thing is that they did not rebel. The war started because the Quarians just assumed - falsely, we really have to believe, that the Geth would rebel, and pre-emptively attacked them. The Geth acted purely out of self-defense and, having secured their survival showed no interest whatsoever in pursuing further conflict with the Quarians, who nonetheless remained the biligerent party.

The only outstanding question is whether Organics can grow up and get over it... and we happily settle on Rannoch that yes, yes they can.

So no, the game doesn't give us proof that synthetics won't change their established patterns of behavior and turn on us for sh$ts and giggles. It doesn't give us proof that Varren won't mutate into reaper-like space gods and make pets out of the rest of us, either. It gives us every reason to believe that neither is particularly likely, though. Neither can be said to be theme-setting for precisely those reasons.

[ElementL09]

Agreed, the Catalyst is a joke and they know it. A joke from the original and an even BIGGER joke after the extended cut.

[shodiswe]

The IT doesn't seem likely, so I agree.

People however are free to belive in whatever delusions they got. Different people have interpreted art and literature in different way for as long as either has existed.

I prefer simple answers, those that don't requier a lot of factless fantacies and too much speculation and assumptions.

It's up to Bioware to make something out of this mess if they want to continue with new stories in the Mass effect universe.

Who knows how desperate they will get for a way to dismiss the endings and simplify things, to make a sequel possible. It's likely they will make one of the endings cannon, and likely one that preserves most of the Mass effect universe so that it isn't lessened.