98 réponses à ce sujet

[Hellmessenger]

First of all I will point out that this post is not meant to express my own expectations, nor deny or support what others are expecting about a Mass Effect 4. I am merely going to express my conclusions based upon neutrals observations and facts. I will also point out that I'll only talk about eventual sequel storylines so you can spare me the comments about prequel plots.

The obvious.

Everyone will agree that the ending of ME3 poses a serious problem for a sequel. In the previous Mass effect games the choices you made did have a lot of impacts on the course of the storyline. But these choices, though importants, had only an impact on precises elements of the plot. The ending of ME3 howerver, gives you a choice which lead to 3 entirely diffent futures.

Unfortunately the only way to include the 3 diffent paths into a Mass effect sequel would be to literally make 3 different games. Or at least include 3 largely different storylines in a single game. The plot no lies at an important crossroad and only one path can be taken.

The misconception of a "canon" storyline

Everyone has its own preference toward one of the 3 endings. Everyone want its favourite ending to become canon. But let me point out one thing. There has never been such thing as "canon" in Mass effect. The story in which Kaiden Alenko is alive is no more canon than the one in which Ashley Williams survived... A male Shepard is a much valid as a female shepard, and His/Her default appearance is as much valid as any custom ones. Shepard's LI is valid no matter who it might be. People may be acustomed to the concept of a "canon" storylines wich is part if most fiction universes but it cannot be applied to the mass effect universe.

Bioware could easily have made a ME3 telling the story in wich Shepard and his crew died in the suicide mission on the collector base... It would have been very diffenrant than the current story they picked for the game. What I want to point out here is, that the fact they decides to tell a storyline over an other does not deny the validity of the others possible plot; Nor does it deny the choices made by the player, even if they lead to a plot which is not continued in next game.

Most importantly, every players have its own unique Mass Effect story, and the only person for which this unique plot can be concidered as "canon", is the player himself.

Why Mass Effect 4 needs Shepard:

The 3 differents ME3 ending have become shackles for a sequel. The only way for Bioware to break those shackles is to decide: "Which storyline will we decide to tell in Mass Effect 4". The problem is, some player prefer the control ending, some others the destroy ending or even the syntesis. But Bioware can only pick one. May it be any of the 3 endings, people will want to know the reasons to why they decided to pick one ending over the others.

None of the endings is greater than the others. But the most reasonable choice would be to have Shepard as the main character for ME4. It's the most obvious and the best reason wich would explain their choice over the others. It's very unlikely people will riot over playing Shepard once more instead of a new character. And there is only one ending in wich Shepard lives, which is the destroy ending.

I am not saying the destroy ending is better than the others. But from a neutral point of view: It's the most easy way for Bioware to justify taking an ending over the others for a sequel. And its the one which leaves the most challenges for the galactic community to face, providing a wide array of plot matterial for writing a storyline. The fact that, for exemple, they are all stranded in the Local cluster and must rebuild the mass relays all by themselves.


My conclusions.

As I said before. This conclusion is based onlt upon neutral observations. But given the circumstances it would be a shame to never see a Mass Effect take place after the reaper war. Might it be with any of the 3 endings, the fact that they pick one does absolutely not make it more canon than the others. The only canon story is the one which you choose for yourself, independantely of how many Mass effect games that might cover this possible outcome.

Thanks for reading guys. If you want please give me you toughts, I'd be interested to read them...

[mumba]

Care to throw in a TLDR? I can't be bothered to read long lines of text atm...

[SeptimusMagistos]

Meh. I can kind of agree with this.

You could even say that in the Control and Synthesis endings things are already fine and it's only the Destroy Shepard that still has work to do.

[romeoblue]

I've never really understood why there was such a need by Bioware to "end Shepard's story". I guess I can see them possibly not wanting to be shackled to one character, but I think for most Shepard IS Mass Effect. It just seems strange trying to continue the Mass Effect universe with another protagonist.

[AlanC9]

Hellmessenger wrote...
None of the endings is greater than the others. But the most reasonable choice would be to have Shepard as the main character for ME4. It's the most obvious and the best reason wich would explain their choice over the others. It's very unlikely people will riot over playing Shepard once more instead of a new character. And there is only one ending in wich Shepard lives, which is the destroy ending.

What makes you think that a nice sounding explanation will matter to anyone? Either you want Destroy canon or you don't. If you do, the reason isn't important since you're happy anyway. If you don't, Bio saying that they're only doing it because they want Shep back won't help.

I wouldn't like or even respect this explanation. If they say "the universe is more interesting with Destroy" or even "78% of players picked Destroy" that would be better.

Modifié par AlanC9, 21 septembre 2012 - 06:21 .

[Hellmessenger]

Having Shepard as the main character is the best option they have for a sequel that making sense... After that if Bioware avoid giving choices which have too much impact the storyline, Mass Effect might have a future, and they could be free to introduce new characters after that.

Modifié par Hellmessenger, 21 septembre 2012 - 06:28 .

[AlanC9]

Oh, god.... are you pushing IT? If not, what does "making sense" mean there?

[shepskisaac]

Having Shep in ME4 would be the perfect excuse to pick Destroy to follow, but it's not gonna happen, not with changing console generation and save games transfer problem it creates

[Hellmessenger]

AlanC9 wrote...

What makes you think that a nice sounding explanation will matter to anyone? Either you want Destroy canon or you don't. If you do, the reason isn't important since you're happy anyway. If you don't, Bio saying that they're only doing it because they want Shep back won't help.

I wouldn't like or even respect this explanation. If they say "the universe is more interesting with Destroy" or even "78% of players picked Destroy" that would be better.

I have no real preferences. It just seems to me from a rational point of view that Destroy makes sense for a sequel....
The others are more like happy endings... I don't see the need to continue from an happy ending...

Modifié par Hellmessenger, 21 septembre 2012 - 06:36 .

[Deadlysyns]

IsaacShep wrote...

Having Shep in ME4 would be the perfect excuse to pick Destroy to follow, but it's not gonna happen, not with changing console generation and save games transfer problem it creates

lol New Consoles i doubt anyone will buy but w/e 

[AlanC9]

OK. But that doesn't mean they need Shepard back.

[BaladasDemnevanni]

Hell no. Even if Bioware goes with destroy as a canon ending, there is no need to continue the story of Commander Shepard in ME4. He did his part, stopped the Reaper cycles, etc. There is nothing wrong with the concept of an original protagonist to take over.

[shepskisaac]

Deadlysyns wrote...

 lol New Consoles i doubt anyone will buy but w/e 

? Of course people will buy PS4/720, just like it happened in every previous generation. I don't really get your point. ME4 will most likely not get released on PS360 anymore which means big save game transfer issues and the reason why Bioware won't want to have Shep again. They talked about it themselves during ME1/ME2 release, how they hope to finish the trilogy in one generation to avoid save game transfer problems

[Deadlysyns]

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

Hell no. Even if Bioware goes with destroy as a canon ending, there is no need to continue the story of Commander Shepard in ME4. He did his part, stopped the Reaper cycles, etc. There is nothing wrong with the concept of an original protagonist to take over.

Thats why Shepard should die in all the Endings he doesn't need to survive to make the story good news flash people who want Shepard to live. He's the kind of Soldier who always dies so he should die theres no Happy Endings in war

[Deadlysyns]

IsaacShep wrote...

Deadlysyns wrote...

 lol New Consoles i doubt anyone will buy but w/e 

? Of course people will buy PS4/720, just like it happened in every previous generation. I don't really get your point. ME4 will most likely not get released on PS360 anymore which means big save game transfer issues and the reason why Bioware won't want to have Shep again. They talked about it themselves during ME1/ME2 release, how they hope to finish the trilogy in one generation to avoid save game transfer problems

that depends on which way the Console developers decide to go i for one am happy with PS3 and will just keep buying games until i can't anymore even if it means buying them second hand .

[Hellmessenger]

Deadlysyns wrote...

IsaacShep wrote...

Having Shep in ME4 would be the perfect excuse to pick Destroy to follow, but it's not gonna happen, not with changing console generation and save games transfer problem it creates

lol New Consoles i doubt anyone will buy but w/e 

With assets like the gaming  networks of today, e.g. WindowsLive or  Playstation Online; its kinda easy to carry saved games over consoles actually. The IT industries is more and more headed toward cloud networking as it evolve.

Saved Games are merely a bunch of variables... it's not that heavy.

Modifié par Hellmessenger, 21 septembre 2012 - 06:48 .

[Hanako Ikezawa]

Or they can take the sequel a couple centuries in the future so all the endings blur together over the expanse of time. That way Synthesis/Control people are happy too and Destroy isn't forced on people who don't like it in order to continue the story.

[Hellmessenger]

LDS Darth Revan wrote...

Or they can take the sequel a couple centuries in the future so all the endings blur together over the expanse of time. That way Synthesis/Control people are happy too and Destroy isn't forced on people who don't like it in order to continue the story.

It's an interesting idea actually. I like it.
But there is no way the synthesis ending can blend with the other two as the reaper openly  share their knowledge with the other species. This would eventually speed up the developpment of technology and the gap would become too great compared to control or destroy, in which they can only study the reapers.

[dead_goon]

Hellmessenger wrote...

Everyone will agree that the ending of ME3 poses a serious problem for a sequel. In the previous Mass effect games the choices you made did have a lot of impacts on the course of the storyline. But these choices, though importants, had only an impact on precises elements of the plot. The ending of ME3 howerver, gives you a choice which lead to 3 entirely diffent futures.

Unfortunately the only way to include the 3 diffent paths into a Mass effect sequel would be to literally make 3 different games. Or at least include 3 largely different storylines in a single game. 

I'm going to have to disagree.
 
The ending of ME3 can be reduced to a footnote in the history of the ME universe if the next game is set far enough after the events of ME3.

For the purpose of my explanation, i'll set ME4 250 years after the events of ME3.

Control: 100 years after the conclusion of ME3, machine god Shep realises his presence is no longer needed or wanted for that matter, as his existence is just a constant reminder of the horrors of the war with the reapers, so he gathers up the reapers on mass, & dissapears thru the Omega 4 relay, deactivating it as he goes, never to be seen or heard from again. over the course of the following century & a half, machine god shep slips into the realm of myth & legend.

Destroy: Blank slate time, anything goes as the reapers are dead, so the next game can be written any way they see fit, once again, over the following 250 years, Sheps fight with the reapers slips into the realm of myth & legend.

Synthesis: Whilst at first Synthesis appears to work, within a matter of years problems start to arise, the enforced "melding" of Synthetic & Organic life starts to fail, until eventually the process fails completely, & synthetic & Organic life diverges to once again take there seperate paths. ultimatley, the cause of the failure is traced back to a rogue Salarian STG group, seeking to find a way to reverse engineer the Synthesis process as a method of speeding up the uplfting of lesser species.

Refuse: Blank slate time yet again, can be treated exactly the same way as Destroy.

So, if you saved your save game from ME3 & imported it into ME4, you would get a Codex entry along those lines, depending on what your chosen ending was from ME3. If you where an all new player, you would get a default canon ending pretty much along the same lines.

In short, ME4 could be treated like a whole new game & trilogy jump off point.

[Hellmessenger]

dead_goon wrote...

Hellmessenger wrote...

Everyone will agree that the ending of ME3 poses a serious problem for a sequel. In the previous Mass effect games the choices you made did have a lot of impacts on the course of the storyline. But these choices, though importants, had only an impact on precises elements of the plot. The ending of ME3 howerver, gives you a choice which lead to 3 entirely diffent futures.

Unfortunately the only way to include the 3 diffent paths into a Mass effect sequel would be to literally make 3 different games. Or at least include 3 largely different storylines in a single game. 

I'm going to have to disagree.
 
The ending of ME3 can be reduced to a footnote in the history of the ME universe if the next game is set far enough after the events of ME3.

For the purpose of my explanation, i'll set ME4 250 years after the events of ME3.

Control: 100 years after the conclusion of ME3, machine god Shep realises his presence is no longer needed or wanted for that matter, as his existence is just a constant reminder of the horrors of the war with the reapers, so he gathers up the reapers on mass, & dissapears thru the Omega 4 relay, deactivating it as he goes, never to be seen or heard from again. over the course of the following century & a half, machine god shep slips into the realm of myth & legend.

Destroy: Blank slate time, anything goes as the reapers are dead, so the next game can be written any way they see fit, once again, over the following 250 years, Sheps fight with the reapers slips into the realm of myth & legend.

Synthesis: Whilst at first Synthesis appears to work, within a matter of years problems start to arise, the enforced "melding" of Synthetic & Organic life starts to fail, until eventually the process fails completely, & synthetic & Organic life diverges to once again take there seperate paths. ultimatley, the cause of the failure is traced back to a rogue Salarian STG group, seeking to find a way to reverse engineer the Synthesis process as a method of speeding up the uplfting of lesser species.

Refuse: Blank slate time yet again, can be treated exactly the same way as Destroy.

So, if you saved your save game from ME3 & imported it into ME4, you would get a Codex entry along those lines, depending on what your chosen ending was from ME3. If you where an all new player, you would get a default canon ending pretty much along the same lines.

In short, ME4 could be treated like a whole new game & trilogy jump off point.

If you only concider that killing someone prevent the birth of millions of people which might have had a large effect on the galaxy, take only shepard for exemple, what do you make of a choice which affect en entire galaxy in 3 entirely different ways?

[BassStyles]

Not sure if it was mentioned, but ME is going to go the Pokemon route, Mass Effect: Synthesis, Mass Effect: Destroy, and Mass Effect: Control each with their proper GRB color background. Your mentioning of three separate games made me think of this.

[Hellmessenger]

BassStyles wrote...

Not sure if it was mentioned, but ME is going to go the Pokemon route, Mass Effect: Synthesis, Mass Effect: Destroy, and Mass Effect: Control each with their proper GRB color background. Your mentioning of three separate games made me think of this.

That would effectively be the solution that makes everyone happy... But how confused would be someone who never played a masseffect before and gets to buy one of these games?

[N7 Assass1n]

I completely agree. SHEPARD IS MASS EFFECT. Anything else wouldn't suffice and people are kidding themselves when not realizing that sales would be much worse without Shepard.

[Yeulia]

Well I know that PS3 support will continue into 2015. So if they decide to continue, save transfers shouldn't really be a problem. Plus we don't really know anything about the new consoles yet so who knows they may allow cloud transfer with previous generation since it's all tied to an account. I agree though, Shepard back could be interesting.

[Baa Baa]

As long as it's not a prequel I guess