6432 réponses à ce sujet

[SpamBot2000]

Davik Kang wrote...

Bester76 wrote...

Davik Kang wrote...

Ah you mean all those people who love Mass Effect because of how well written it was?  And who now have come to vilify Bioware by deciding that suddenly they went from being brilliant writers to idiots?

No, obviously foregoing peer review and rushing it out was a stroke of genius.

Yeah, quite clearly they didn't bother reviewing it, they just rushed it out and said, "Ending?  Who cares? LOL!"  The fact that they'd spent 5 years crafting the trilogy, listening to everything the fans said, and incorporating loads of stuff to tailor the game to the fans' tastes, and written a story so engaging that millions loved it to death...

and now you think that, after all that, they decided to rush the ending?  And then when people said they didn't like the ending, instead of saying "you're right, we rushed it," they say "we're not changing the ending because we're proud of it" ?  And then, they go to the actual effort of producing additional sequences to fill out the endings, but still stand by the content and format of the original ending?

And you still think that the ending is the result of laziness????  Lack of peer review??? Rushing????

WHAT??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Nothing weird in that. Scenario being: BW have spent a lot of the development time of ME3 working on DLC for ME2 (Arrival must have been worked on past the halfway point of ME3, considering it was released 11 months prior to it, AND IT WAS WRITTEN BY THE LEAD WRITER OF ME3, not some support team) and crunch time was coming on. There was a lot of pressure to make the Best Game Evah! on the devs, and suddenly they realized they had all these plans that they could not hope to realize in the time left, like 'Suicide Mission on steroids'. They ask EA for more time, but EA put their foot down and say it's gonna have to be in time for 2011 accounting. The BW brand was already hurting EA's numbers with TOR, and John Riccitiello was rumored to be worried about his job, as EA stock was way, way down. JR needed a quick winner right there and then.

So Casey Hudson and Mac Walters locked themselves in meeting room B23 and commenced a furious brainstorming/folie a deux session with nothing but notepads and lots of stimulants (caffeine of course, anything else would be wrong and illegal and likely to produce symptoms of megalomania) to come up with something to WRAP THIS BEAST UP QUICKLIKE! To their dismay, it seemed that all the cool stuff would just have to go, leaving a pretty mundane ending for what was supposed to be their Magnum Opus. Major bummer. 

Now many creative types can be somewhat bipolar in their approach to their work, so despair sets in. "WTF, let's just trash this thing once and for all, so those EA guys won't be able to churn out sequels and make big $$$$ on our damn Universe! Throw out the continuity notebook and let's just IMMOLATE this SOB!" And right there, inspiration was born: "Robot DNA! HAHAHAHAHAAAA, LOVE IT, DUDEMEISTER! And let's have a holographic child played by little xxxxxxx (censored to protect the innocent) throw it at Shepard.... yeah, good luck following THAT up, EA." "Oh, and better make damn sure no one in the writing dept. sees this before it's implemented... poor bastards are still wedded to this project."

But somewhere along the line something happened. "What if... the players would somehow be made to think this **** was PROFOUND? What if we just POWER THROUGH on sheer chutzpah? Just brass ball it, make a stand that this is our Artistic Vision, not a deliberate act of vandalism at all. After all, inspiration works in mysterious ways..." And maybe they came to believe it themselves after all. Hubris is a heady drug. Or a side effect, at the very least. 

Modifié par SpamBot2000, 30 septembre 2012 - 09:43 .

[Verit]

SpamBot2000 wrote...
But somewhere along the line something happened. "What if... the players would somehow be made to think this **** was PROFOUND? What if we just POWER THROUGH on sheer chutzpah? Just brass ball it, make a stand that this is our Artistic Vision, not a deliberate act of vandalism at all. After all, inspiration works in mysterious ways..." And maybe they came to believe it themselves after all. Hubris is a heady drug. Or a side effect, at the very least.

I'm not sure what to think of it. I have difficulty believing this was an act of vandalism on their part, I'm guessing it was a mix of bad storytelling combined with rushing the ending to meet their deadline. 

I think their stand of their "artistic vision" was heavily influenced by the support they got from the gaming media. If it hadn't been for that, things might have looked differently. In any case, they decided to run with it and that limited their options. That and of course there's only so much they could do to fix the ending with free DLC.

The irony of course is that they did retcon the ending quite a bit: the Normandy Crash was changed and rendered irrelevant as they just fly away again, the Citadel isn't destroyed and of course there's that ridiculous Normandy evac in the final run). They got away with that, since they didn't retcon the most controversial aspect: the Catalyst. So their "artistic vision" argument doesn't hold here, but that point seems to have been mostly forgotten. I think Koobismo said it best by saying that Bioware are now "hostages of Mass Effect 3's ill-fitting and badly constructed finale". DLC like Leviathan tries to connect an ending that doesn't fit with the rest of storyline, but that's an impossible and pointless task. The fact that they even tried though, does heavily suggest that Bioware are now in the mindset where they've come to believe in the ending. In the same sense that some fans have gotten in that mindset as well.

It's understandable, I guess. It's difficult to let go of a franchise like this, so if you can't do that you either accept the ending for what it is or you create a thread like this. Hoping the impossible happens and Bioware's decides to add another ending, another choice that concludes Mass Effect in a fitting way. The reason so many "ending haters" are still posting here months after the release of ME3 is a testament to all the things Bioware did right with the franchise, they would have long moved on otherwise.

[CaIIisto]

-Draikin- wrote...

The reason so many "ending haters" are still posting here months after the release of ME3 is a testament to all the things Bioware did right with the franchise, they would have long moved on otherwise.

Must admit, I do find it ironic that we seem to be seen as 'the enemy' by pro-enders. 

I would wager that the only reason that most of the 'negative' brigade are still here, six months later, is due to their love of their franchise as a whole. Personally, whilst I feel that that endings disappointed me, and soured the overall experience of the franchise, there's still a lot of goodwill here, and it wouldn't take a great deal to bring me back on board. I live in hope that they do eventually. If they don't, then fair enough, at some point I'll bid adieu, but that day's some way off yet. 

It's a shame that so many of the pro-enders would like us to follow the example set by those who hated the game and the ending so much that they've left, probably never to return. 

[Davik Kang]

SpamBot2000 wrote...

Nothing weird in that. Scenario being: BW have spent a lot of the development time of ME3 working on DLC for ME2 (Arrival must have been worked on past the halfway point of ME3, considering it was released 11 months prior to it, AND IT WAS WRITTEN BY THE LEAD WRITER OF ME3, not some support team) and crunch time was coming on. There was a lot of pressure to make the Best Game Evah! on the devs, and suddenly they realized they had all these plans that they could not hope to realize in the time left, like 'Suicide Mission on steroids'. They ask EA for more time, but EA put their foot down and say it's gonna have to be in time for 2011 accounting. The BW brand was already hurting EA's numbers with TOR, and John Riccitiello was rumored to be worried about his job, as EA stock was way, way down. JR needed a quick winner right there and then.

So Casey Hudson and Mac Walters locked themselves in meeting room B23 and commenced a furious brainstorming/folie a deux session with nothing but notepads and lots of stimulants (caffeine of course, anything else would be wrong and illegal and likely to produce symptoms of megalomania) to come up with something to WRAP THIS BEAST UP QUICKLIKE! To their dismay, it seemed that all the cool stuff would just have to go, leaving a pretty mundane ending for what was supposed to be their Magnum Opus. Major bummer. 

Now many creative types can be somewhat bipolar in their approach to their work, so despair sets in. "WTF, let's just trash this thing once and for all, so those EA guys won't be able to churn out sequels and make big $$$$ on our damn Universe! Throw out the continuity notebook and let's just IMMOLATE this SOB!" And right there, inspiration was born: "Robot DNA! HAHAHAHAHAAAA, LOVE IT, DUDEMEISTER! And let's have a holographic child played by little xxxxxxx (censored to protect the innocent) throw it at Shepard.... yeah, good luck following THAT up, EA." "Oh, and better make damn sure no one in the writing dept. sees this before it's implemented... poor bastards are still wedded to this project."

But somewhere along the line something happened. "What if... the players would somehow be made to think this **** was PROFOUND? What if we just POWER THROUGH on sheer chutzpah? Just brass ball it, make a stand that this is our Artistic Vision, not a deliberate act of vandalism at all. After all, inspiration works in mysterious ways..." And maybe they came to believe it themselves after all. Hubris is a heady drug. Or a side effect, at the very least. 

I read your opening two paragraphs and was already on your side.  I was thinking: thank you, some one is going to make some contructive points rather than just say "ENDING SUCKED EVERY1 AGREES LULZ".  But the rest was just a rant.  Maybe try again?

-Draikin- wrote...
The irony of course is that they did retcon the ending quite a bit: the Normandy Crash was changed and rendered irrelevant as they just fly away again, the Citadel isn't destroyed and of course there's that ridiculous Normandy evac in the final run). They got away with that, since they didn't retcon the most controversial aspect: the Catalyst. So their "artistic vision" argument doesn't hold here, but that point seems to have been mostly forgotten. I think Koobismo said it best by saying that Bioware are now "hostages of Mass Effect 3's ill-fitting and badly constructed finale". DLC like Leviathan tries to connect an ending that doesn't fit with the rest of storyline, but that's an impossible and pointless task. The fact that they even tried though, does heavily suggest that Bioware are now in the mindset where they've come to believe in the ending. In the same sense that some fans have gotten in that mindset as well. 

Not convinced that their "artistic vision" is invalidated just because they amended the ending.  They added the Normandy evac because they had made a mistake, in that your squadmates completely randomly ended up on the Normandy and fled.  So they were listening to fan reaction and wanted to make improvements accordingly.  But the fact that they didn't change the content or implications of the final scenes, nor did the change the nature of the final choices, suggests the opposite: that they were committed to the ending of the game, in spite of what some fans thought about it.

Claiming that they've "come to believe the ending" is stretching things a bit far.  You may not like the ending, but that doesn't mean that they didn't.  I know at least one writer has distanced himslef from the ending, but that doesn't mean the others have.

[Chardonney]

Bester76 wrote...

-Draikin- wrote...

The reason so many "ending haters" are still posting here months after the release of ME3 is a testament to all the things Bioware did right with the franchise, they would have long moved on otherwise.

Must admit, I do find it ironic that we seem to be seen as 'the enemy' by pro-enders. 

I would wager that the only reason that most of the 'negative' brigade are still here, six months later, is due to their love of their franchise as a whole.

Very true. I might not like the horrible way Shep was treated in the ending but I do love the trilogy, every part of it, passionately. It is that love for the game that keeps me here, plain and simple.

[Redbelle]

-Draikin- wrote...

SpamBot2000 wrote...
But somewhere along the line something happened. "What if... the players would somehow be made to think this **** was PROFOUND? What if we just POWER THROUGH on sheer chutzpah? Just brass ball it, make a stand that this is our Artistic Vision, not a deliberate act of vandalism at all. After all, inspiration works in mysterious ways..." And maybe they came to believe it themselves after all. Hubris is a heady drug. Or a side effect, at the very least.

I'm not sure what to think of it. I have difficulty believing this was an act of vandalism on their part, I'm guessing it was a mix of bad storytelling combined with rushing the ending to meet their deadline. 

I think their stand of their "artistic vision" was heavily influenced by the support they got from the gaming media. If it hadn't been for that, things might have looked differently. In any case, they decided to run with it and that limited their options. That and of course there's only so much they could do to fix the ending with free DLC.

The irony of course is that they did retcon the ending quite a bit: the Normandy Crash was changed and rendered irrelevant as they just fly away again, the Citadel isn't destroyed and of course there's that ridiculous Normandy evac in the final run). They got away with that, since they didn't retcon the most controversial aspect: the Catalyst. So their "artistic vision" argument doesn't hold here, but that point seems to have been mostly forgotten. I think Koobismo said it best by saying that Bioware are now "hostages of Mass Effect 3's ill-fitting and badly constructed finale". DLC like Leviathan tries to connect an ending that doesn't fit with the rest of storyline, but that's an impossible and pointless task. The fact that they even tried though, does heavily suggest that Bioware are now in the mindset where they've come to believe in the ending. In the same sense that some fans have gotten in that mindset as well.

It's understandable, I guess. It's difficult to let go of a franchise like this, so if you can't do that you either accept the ending for what it is or you create a thread like this. Hoping the impossible happens and Bioware's decides to add another ending, another choice that concludes Mass Effect in a fitting way. The reason so many "ending haters" are still posting here months after the release of ME3 is a testament to all the things Bioware did right with the franchise, they would have long moved on otherwise.

If BW were influenced by the media then Mister Moriarty's anti, 'anti enders video', should probably be held up to scrutiny as what game media thinks the fans want. I admit that getting 100 fans from different backgrounds into a room and giving 100 different opinions is enough to make any journalist weep into their note book as a deadline looms. But Simply getting over this by attempting to control opinion by giving an opinion through the media with the headline. We know what you should be thinking........... isn't just sloppy. It isn't journalism. Sortof.

At it's heart journalism's start point is the reporting of news. Making information accessible to a wide audience. Comment and opinion may come into it. But Mister Moriearty's comment and opinion was soooooo ill informed......... In fact wait........... it wsn't ill informed. It wsn't informed at all. His presentation indicated no previous research into the issue of the endings. No facts that we were not aware of. If anything it felt like a vid from a strongly opinated person who was handing out heresay cause he just had to say something.

Are these the kind of people who are influencing our gaming media?

And @Davik.

I kinda get the argument that they made a mistake with the evac scene on Normandy. But here again is an example that may lend some weight to the 'lack of peer review' issue. If the ending had been written, coded as a beta or given basic playtesting they might have caught it and asked the same questions the fans did. The writers feed off each other. They all add to the point by coming at it with different POV's. 

Having written short stories I know that when your deep in the writing the blinders come on. It's only by putting it down and coming back to it that certain errors emerge. But since BW can't wait they use lots of writers to acheive the same effect.

Modifié par Redbelle, 30 septembre 2012 - 01:53 .

[Dilos01]

Apparently some people have trouble letting go of something good like Mass Effect.

I can understand the feeling. I spent two to-three-days writing a short story for a Shepard with a Earthling/War Hero background. If I can link up the story to the fan section, I'd do it in a heartbeat! Alas it's a microsoft word document, and I doubt it'll ever match up to the "professionals". I also wrote outlines for the trilogy and how the end ME3 properly on my notepad. I know these ideas won't change their minds, no matter how hard I try. We're only pixil dust struggling against the cosmic winds (cookie for anyone who gets the reference).

The latest DLC proves that Bioware will be sticking with their "artistic integrity". I say fine, I'll just go back to what I've already purchased, bask in some nostalgic memories, and forget about ME3 altogether. I won't waste my time fighting a lost cause. But I do wish everyone else good luck; maybe there is still hope for a miracle.

[Redbelle]

Bester76 wrote...

-Draikin- wrote...

The reason so many "ending haters" are still posting here months after the release of ME3 is a testament to all the things Bioware did right with the franchise, they would have long moved on otherwise.

Must admit, I do find it ironic that we seem to be seen as 'the enemy' by pro-enders. 

I would wager that the only reason that most of the 'negative' brigade are still here, six months later, is due to their love of their franchise as a whole. Personally, whilst I feel that that endings disappointed me, and soured the overall experience of the franchise, there's still a lot of goodwill here, and it wouldn't take a great deal to bring me back on board. I live in hope that they do eventually. If they don't, then fair enough, at some point I'll bid adieu, but that day's some way off yet. 

It's a shame that so many of the pro-enders would like us to follow the example set by those who hated the game and the ending so much that they've left, probably never to return. 

We're the enemy? Then let us settle this in MP mode! Mwahaha!

We need Twitch TV to set up a grudge match.

[Davik Kang]

Redbelle wrote...
...
And @Davik.

I kinda get the argument that they made a mistake with the evac scene on Normandy. But here again is an example that may lend some weight to the 'lack of peer review' issue. If the ending had been written, coded as a beta or given basic playtesting they might have caught it and asked the same questions the fans did. The writers feed off each other. They all add to the point by coming at it with different POV's. 

Having written short stories I know that when your deep in the writing the blinders come on. It's only by putting it down and coming back to it that certain errors emerge. But since BW can't wait they use lots of writers to acheive the same effect.

That's a pretty strong case.  Good stuff.

Bester76 wrote...
Must admit, I do find it ironic that we seem to be seen as 'the enemy' by pro-enders. 

I would wager that the only reason that most of the 'negative' brigade are still here, six months later, is due to their love of their franchise as a whole. 

You made a good point here.  Though I wonder if you find it a little ironic that, when you've been criticsing my opinions in other threads, you have in doing so openly criticised ME3 and the ME trilogy as a whole?  (I.e. not just the endings)

[darthoptimus003]

-Draikin- wrote...

SpamBot2000 wrote...
But somewhere along the line something happened. "What if... the players would somehow be made to think this **** was PROFOUND? What if we just POWER THROUGH on sheer chutzpah? Just brass ball it, make a stand that this is our Artistic Vision, not a deliberate act of vandalism at all. After all, inspiration works in mysterious ways..." And maybe they came to believe it themselves after all. Hubris is a heady drug. Or a side effect, at the very least.

I'm not sure what to think of it. I have difficulty believing this was an act of vandalism on their part, I'm guessing it was a mix of bad storytelling combined with rushing the ending to meet their deadline. 

I think their stand of their "artistic vision" was heavily influenced by the support they got from the gaming media. If it hadn't been for that, things might have looked differently. In any case, they decided to run with it and that limited their options. That and of course there's only so much they could do to fix the ending with free DLC.

The irony of course is that they did retcon the ending quite a bit: the Normandy Crash was changed and rendered irrelevant as they just fly away again, the Citadel isn't destroyed and of course there's that ridiculous Normandy evac in the final run). They got away with that, since they didn't retcon the most controversial aspect: the Catalyst. So their "artistic vision" argument doesn't hold here, but that point seems to have been mostly forgotten. I think Koobismo said it best by saying that Bioware are now "hostages of Mass Effect 3's ill-fitting and badly constructed finale". DLC like Leviathan tries to connect an ending that doesn't fit with the rest of storyline, but that's an impossible and pointless task. The fact that they even tried though, does heavily suggest that Bioware are now in the mindset where they've come to believe in the ending. In the same sense that some fans have gotten in that mindset as well.

It's understandable, I guess. It's difficult to let go of a franchise like this, so if you can't do that you either accept the ending for what it is or you create a thread like this. Hoping the impossible happens and Bioware's decides to add another ending, another choice that concludes Mass Effect in a fitting way. The reason so many "ending haters" are still posting here months after the release of ME3 is a testament to all the things Bioware did right with the franchise, they would have long moved on otherwise.

i agree with this
3 things can fix this whole thing
reunion after destroy ending with freinds and li pulling shep from rubble
destroy ending targets reapers only (be it high tms)and dosent force you to commit mass genocide
refusal acually win with high tms(be it with heavy losses) but we accually get to see all our assets in action
these three things people will pay for  and its not taking anything away from the other endings its just expanding on them. this would been concidered closure by alot of fans who still feel screwed over by this and
there have been alot of people who has said "id pay  $20 for this just to give the MEU a proper send off" this is all we want and we are willing to pay for it, just so we can get back that feeling we had when we first started to play this series.
if this were to happen we get our closure, and BW gets a payday, and the ones that are a happy stay happy cause they dont have to get it.(hints payed dlc) everyone gets happy (well there still might be a few that are gonna hate)
and to those that dont understand what this thread is about read the ops very first page

[CaIIisto]

Davik Kang wrote...
You made a good point here.  Though I wonder if you find it a little ironic that, when you've been criticsing my opinions in other threads, you have in doing so openly criticised ME3 and the ME trilogy as a whole?  (I.e. not just the endings)

In the heat of the moment, that probably wouldn't surprise me. 

For the avoidance of doubt though, let me reiterate my position here - I have problems with the ending(s) to ME3. This has certain ramifications back across the extent of the trilogy, however, in the cold light of day, I still adore the series, and most parts of ME3. 

If you took from my comments otherwise then I apologize, bad writing or frustration on my part.

Modifié par Bester76, 30 septembre 2012 - 02:19 .

[Fiannawolf]

3DandBeyond wrote...

Or maybe he'd like a list of all the other endings that BW already copied from in making this game's ending.  Babylon 5-chaos and order, the Matrix, Deus ex, and more.  There were even a couple of cartoons (a Transformers Beastmasters or whatever they were-with a synthesis choice lookalike) that were used for these endings.  They weren't used for inspiration, but were copied.  Babylon 5's speech by Sheridan is echoed eerily by Shepard in refuse.  And chaos and order was a debate between two factions in trying to get people to pick a side, but at least there they got to refuse and the Sheridan makes his refusal speech and people take back their own futures and fates, instead of just dying.

It would probably have been nice if someone at BW had tried to actually write their own, then maybe it would have fit with the stories that came before.  Seriously, the choices appear to have been written by someone directly copying Deus ex and then Human Revolution, and then trying to wedge that all in with a crowbar.  You want artistic integrity, well how about respecting other writers' IPs and making your own-endings that actually go with what's written before in all 3 games and that don't forget the things you already decided upon that would invalidate making any of these choices.  How about actually letting players play the freaking ending instead of watching a half hour's worth of commentary and occasionally pushing a button.

Perhaps you think making a choice at the end of a game which was supposedly about your choices having consequences - cause and effect reactions, was a super de dooper coolest thing ever way to end the game.  How many sporting events end with a choice?  By contrast, how many games end with you deciding the outcome by how you actually play the game and play during the ending?  How many end with a long drawn out nappy time conversation with the dullest, stupidest AI ever in existence?  How many stories feature protagonists and antagonists that are both equally neutered at the end in deference to some character manufactured in the last few minutes?  How many instead maintain the flow of the story by keeping true to its heart and spirit and by having the hero/player actually win and save it all-even if losing also happens frequently?

I've played more games than I care to remember, far more than those one regular nasty poster has listed in his tagline.  I've played everything from early text adventures to some real tough action RPGs and FPSs, simulations, strategy games, from Infocom to Cinemaware to early EA (not games, but applications) to Sierra to early Origin to early Activision, Starcraft, xwing, Joust, and so on.  As yet no other game has so disconnected the hero/player from actually creating the ending (winning the outcome) until now.  And why don't other games even after all these years go with the player losing or some big talkfest rather than actually playing the game, at the end of their games?  Because they aren't stupid.  People like to play the end of games.  In ME3, playing the game stops long before you get to the conduit.  Most of London and especially the conduit is at a pace and of the manner of one big epilog, not a fight to save the galaxy.  Why don't most game devs do things like this?  Because they want to keep selling games.


Babylon 5 order vs. chaos 

Babylon 5 get the hell out of our galaxy

Ive been looking for that C vs Order clip for quite a while. I really wish the catalyst talk was like that along with the avvy changing ala Leviathan conversation.....would have been glorious.

Bioware can still salvage this if they choose to.

[Chardonney]

Fiannawolf wrote...

Bioware can still salvage this if they choose to.

Yes. It's still not too late.

[GarvakD]

I'll wait a whole 'nother six months. After that, if no development is underway or already completed, it truly is safe to say there is no hope.

[DWH1982]

Chardonney wrote...

Very true. I might not like the horrible way Shep was treated in the ending but I do love the trilogy, every part of it, passionately. It is that love for the game that keeps me here, plain and simple.

I know I don't follow this thread very much, but I've more or less come to accept that this is how I feel.

The endings really hurt quite a bit of Mass Effect for me, but the fact remains - as a whole, the trilogy is better than most of the games out there. Even ME3, wich has plenty of flaws aside from the endings (autodialouge, scan and grab quests, etc) is better than most of the games on the market, and is full of well written and amazing moments (Tuchanka!). It's failures make it the weakest Mass Effect game in the trilogy, but, as it turns out, even the "worst" Mass Effect game is usually better than the "best" game in another franchise.

I would love for the endings to be changed. I'd prefer Star Brat to be removed, given how horribly out of place he seems. But, honestly, I might be willing to settle for a destroy ending where EDI and the geth survive too. One of the things that I always loved about Mass Effect was that the option for a truely triumphant ending was always there if you played your cards right - the ME1 ending is always triumphant, and in ME2, you can actually pull off a suicide mission without losing a single person in your squad. I loved that feeling in Mass Effect, and, honestly, I think what hurt most about the endings is that I couldn't get that again. Not even anything close to it. I didn't expect it to be easy to get, I expected I'd have to work for it and make the right decisions, but I thought it would at least be there.

I understand what they were trying to do with ME3, and it might have worked in another game. But it wasn't right for Mass Effect. At least, not for the endings. It's okay for the main body of the game to have its fair share of depressing moments, it's okay to lose people like Mordin and Legion, but there should at least be an option for a triumphant ending. If there isn't, it just doesn't feel like Mass Effect to me.

[Verit]

Davik Kang wrote...
Not convinced that their "artistic vision" is invalidated just because they amended the ending.  They added the Normandy evac because they had made a mistake, in that your squadmates completely randomly ended up on the Normandy and fled.  So they were listening to fan reaction and wanted to make improvements accordingly.  But the fact that they didn't change the content or implications of the final scenes, nor did the change the nature of the final choices, suggests the opposite: that they were committed to the ending of the game, in spite of what some fans thought about it.

You say they made a mistake, but not once have I seen Bioware admit that something about the ending was a "mistake". All I heard from them was that we were misinterpreting the ending. That we weren't seeing their vision. The EC proved that they were in fact mistakes. And I strongly disagree that they didn't change the implications of the final scenes. They were changed completely, even though  Bioware again would never admit it. In the original ending, it was clear that they were going for a galactic dark age. The Citadel explosion, the relay destruction, the Normandy crash are clear depictions of that. In the EC, this was retconned. The Citadel and the relays are rebuilt. The Normandy crashes, but is repaired and they just take off again, making the entire scene pointless to begin with. Why bother having them crash in the EC? Because it was in the original ending, and they didn't want to admit it had no place in the EC. So instead they kept the crash but rendered it irrelevant. This is clear as day to me, and shows that while publically they defended their ending and said we didn't understand their vision, they still modified it behind the scenes based on feedback from the fans.

I mean, is anyone really going to argue that after watching the relays explode in the original ending, that it wasn't meant to show that? That we were supposed to think that they were just going to be rebuilt? Let's not kid ourselves. Not that I disagree with retconning the ending in the EC. They didn't do enough retconning as far as I'm concerned.

Davik Kang wrote...
Claiming that they've "come to believe the ending" is stretching things a bit far.  You may not like the ending, but that doesn't mean that they didn't.  I know at least one writer has distanced himslef from the ending, but that doesn't mean the others have.

That's the way I see it, I can't say for sure of course. Maybe years from now we'll get to hear what really happened. As for now we can only try to piece together the facts.

[Davik Kang]

-Draikin- wrote...
You say they made a mistake, but not once have I seen Bioware admit that something about the ending was a "mistake". All I heard from them was that we were misinterpreting the ending. That we weren't seeing their vision.

The ending wasn't a mistake.  Just the bit about the crew members mysteriously being back on the Normandy.  So they fixed it.

And did they really say that people were misinterpreting the ending?  This does lend a lot of credance to the less literal interpretations of the endings.

-Draikin- wrote...
That's the way I see it, I can't say for sure of course. Maybe years from now we'll get to hear what really happened. As for now we can only try to piece together the facts.

Yeah you're right.  Totally agree.  It is possible that everyone except Casey hated it.  I won't deny that.

[Davik Kang]

Bester76 wrote...
...
If you took from my comments otherwise then I apologize, bad writing or frustration on my part.

Aaarghhh... don't... understand... you are... reasonable... intelligent person... after all... aaarghh.. brain... melting...

When you marrying me anyway?

[Rodia Driftwood]

Chris Priestly wrote...


 ME1 will now be coming to the PS3

WHAT?!

[hiraeth]

DWH1982 wrote...

I would love for the endings to be changed. I'd prefer Star Brat to be removed, given how horribly out of place he seems. But, honestly, I might be willing to settle for a destroy ending where EDI and the geth survive too. One of the things that I always loved about Mass Effect was that the option for a truely triumphant ending was always there if you played your cards right - the ME1 ending is always triumphant, and in ME2, you can actually pull off a suicide mission without losing a single person in your squad. I loved that feeling in Mass Effect, and, honestly, I think what hurt most about the endings is that I couldn't get that again. Not even anything close to it. I didn't expect it to be easy to get, I expected I'd have to work for it and make the right decisions, but I thought it would at least be there.

I understand what they were trying to do with ME3, and it might have worked in another game. But it wasn't right for Mass Effect. At least, not for the endings. It's okay for the main body of the game to have its fair share of depressing moments, it's okay to lose people like Mordin and Legion, but there should at least be an option for a triumphant ending. If there isn't, it just doesn't feel like Mass Effect to me.

^this. I've had several people tell me that the ending to ME3 is justified because "Well, that's just life! We try and and we try but sometimes no matter what you do, you simply cannot control the outcome of events and everything goes to s*it." OK, fair enough (though grossly oversimplified), but that's not Mass Effect. In Mass Effect, the rule is multifinality- your choices have discernable consequences and these consequences are diverse. What felt so wrong about the ME3 ending to me was that it forced me into this box along with every other Shepard out there, many of whom had completely different trajectories throughout Mass Effect and weren't anything like mine! Oh, and this box doesn't even make sense given the rest of the series. I was left feeling "Why I am here? Where did this box come from?" Shepard was forced into a wormhole at the last minute to some strange alternate universe (DE:HR, maybe?) and I didn't like any of it one bit. So yes, I completely agree with DWH1982- you couldn't get that sense of triumph or glory, even in the face of many painful sacrifices, at the end. I remember turning off the game after the ending and feeling disappointed/empty/helpess, which isn't what I thought  the ending to such an amazing and powerful series would feel like.

#endrant. Sorry guys, sometimes I just need to vent about the same stuff over and over again to cope with how completely shameful the ME3 ending is.

Modifié par MassEffectFShep, 30 septembre 2012 - 03:12 .

[GarvakD]

DWH1982 wrote...

Chardonney wrote...

Very true. I might not like the horrible way Shep was treated in the ending but I do love the trilogy, every part of it, passionately. It is that love for the game that keeps me here, plain and simple.

I know I don't follow this thread very much, but I've more or less come to accept that this is how I feel.

The endings really hurt quite a bit of Mass Effect for me, but the fact remains - as a whole, the trilogy is better than most of the games out there. Even ME3, wich has plenty of flaws aside from the endings (autodialouge, scan and grab quests, etc) is better than most of the games on the market, and is full of well written and amazing moments (Tuchanka!). It's failures make it the weakest Mass Effect game in the trilogy, but, as it turns out, even the "worst" Mass Effect game is usually better than the "best" game in another franchise.

I would love for the endings to be changed. I'd prefer Star Brat to be removed, given how horribly out of place he seems. But, honestly, I might be willing to settle for a destroy ending where EDI and the geth survive too. One of the things that I always loved about Mass Effect was that the option for a truely triumphant ending was always there if you played your cards right - the ME1 ending is always triumphant, and in ME2, you can actually pull off a suicide mission without losing a single person in your squad. I loved that feeling in Mass Effect, and, honestly, I think what hurt most about the endings is that I couldn't get that again. Not even anything close to it. I didn't expect it to be easy to get, I expected I'd have to work for it and make the right decisions, but I thought it would at least be there.

I understand what they were trying to do with ME3, and it might have worked in another game. But it wasn't right for Mass Effect. At least, not for the endings. It's okay for the main body of the game to have its fair share of depressing moments, it's okay to lose people like Mordin and Legion, but there should at least be an option for a triumphant ending. If there isn't, it just doesn't feel like Mass Effect to me.

2nd Paragraph concur (well, I agree with all of it but I want to make a quick adress to this).  After my first playthrough I immediately hopped into my second playthrough (whew, was that a rough week.  I had literally lost my apetite and hunger for a long while :/  ).  Upon completion, I got the best ending I could, at least in my eyes with Destroy.  Yet, it was not what I had expected.  I then took to the internet to research.  How in the hell can I get an amazing ending like the one you describe?  No geth destruction or EDI death.  No Shepard survival "implication" but a true Shepard gets picked up and has happy ending with crew and LI.  Apparently not.  I was a bit devastated.  

[Chardonney]

MassEffectFShep wrote...

#endrant. Sorry guys, sometimes I just need to vent about the same stuff over and over again to cope with how completely shameful the ME3 ending is.

Quite alright and understandable.

[DWH1982]

MassEffectFShep wrote...

^this. I've had several people tell me that the ending to ME3 is justified because "Well, that's just life! We try and and we try but sometimes no matter what you do, you simply cannot control the outcome of events and everything goes to s*it."

You're right, that is a grossly over simplified way of looking at it. More to the point, though: Mass Effect isn't real life. If I want real life, I can pick up newspaper or go out into the real world and do things.

Mass Effect is a form of escapism for me. I mean - it's cool that there are more "realistic" (and depressing) forms of fiction out there, and much of it is quite good. I enjoyed The Wire, and I don't think there's anyone who would call that triumphant or optimistic.

But... that stuff was never Mass Effect, and it's not right to try to turn Mass Effect into that. When you do, Mass Effect begins to lose much of its appeal, at least for me.

[Verit]

Davik Kang wrote...
The ending wasn't a mistake.  Just the bit about the crew members mysteriously being back on the Normandy.  So they fixed it.

That's only one of the many mistakes made. And their fix for that opened up even more plotholes, with Harbinger just sitting there politely waiting for the Normandy to take off. Also, how does it make any sense for Shepard to stop in the middle of what's supposed to be a "no retreat" charge towards the beam. Also, why didnt the Reapers just turn off the beam to the Citadel? Uh. The whole run is even more ridiculous now than it was before, all because Bioware AGAIN didn't think things through. Really, I could write pages and pages off stuff that didn't make sense in the ending and the EC but there's six months worth of threads on that anyway. Here's but one of those:

http://social.biowar...ndex/12770141/1

Davik Kang wrote...
And did they really say that people were misinterpreting the ending?  This does lend a lot of credance to the less literal interpretations of the endings.

I'd have to dig up all the quotes, but they repeadetly said they didn't think that we would interpret the endings the way we did (everything going to hell, basically). I don't believe them since all the evidence suggests otherwise. There's too much of a difference between the EC and the original endings for that argument to hold any credibility. There were too many subtle and not so subtle changes. Now to be honest that's not the big deal for me anyway, the big deal is what they didn't change: the Catalyst.

[irokeesi]

I support this thread. Have been waiting for one on the subject (reunion/closure) that manages to keep up with the fast-moving forums.

Like people have said; a DLC for reunion alone might not be something the developers would consider, but why not make it a part of another DLC. Plenty of fine ideas here and on other threads on what that might be.

From a business point of view I do not see this as such a big problem, failures have been noted, and people (consumers) are still hopeful / hungry for more. Many people admit they watched the EC and the other DLC on YouTube. People are hesitant. We all know watching game content on YouTube will not generate revenue, but making a relatively small gesture to people (consumers) would get a lot of them back to the pool. Making this gesture is not admitting a failure, it is simply adding more to the product. Many developers have done this.