252 réponses à ce sujet

[Legbiter]

The story about how Shepard defeated the Reapers had come to it's end so Bioware invited the player to headcanon subsequent events after Shepard woke up alive in the rubble on the Citadel. People who need more handholding should just stick with Oprah and daytime tv, because anything more challenging than that just puts them out of kilter.

[CommanderVyse]

IsaacShep wrote...

wwinters99 wrote...

However, in the third act, a god appears unprompted and unasked for. With a few words this god ends our hero's journey and renders all his actions until that point meaningless.[

I was unaware the Catalyst killed the Rachni I saved, Kaidan I saved, revied the old Council I killed in ME1 etc. He's just like a God indeed!

wwinters99 wrote...

Then, to twist the knife even more, we get no closure. Does he survive the destruction of the Citadel? Bioware wont say. Does he reunite with his friends and loved ones? Bioware wont say.

You get a breathe scene in only 1 ending coupled with exclusive version of the Memorial Scene in which Shape's nameplate ain't put on the wall and the LI smiles. Is it really so hard to guess what was Bioware's intention here, or do even the most banal symbolism have to be explained to the audience?

I started this thread requesting more closure with the Refund Guy. Shepard was the god in question. I think this entire thread is an example of how trying to guess the author's intent can back fire.

[Reorte]

Mcfly616 wrote...

 I'm fine with how it is now lol why in the world would I want a "few lines of text"? I have a "rational" mind and I perfectly understand what the scene is suggesting, therefore I have no doubts in the back of my mind.

They didn't show the breathe scene just to reiterate that he's dead. They didn't have your L.I. refuse to put your name on the memorial wall and look hopefully to the sky for no reason. Hmm I wonder where the Normandy is going....maybe on an intergalactic safari. Nope. All of it was intentionally directed to signify the fact that Shepard lives on. That's just common sense.

The only thing I wouldn't mind being added is seeing my Shepard stand up out of the rubble(like ME1) with that cocky smirk on his face. Anything more than that, and its just too much. I already know what my crew plans on doing after the war. No need for a Return of the King epilogue. I know how my Shepard lives his life. And only you know how your Shepard would live his life. I don't want Bioware showing me a picture of my Shepard telling me how he lived. And I don't think they wanted to do that either.

You're saying that it relies on exactly the sort of things that it shouldn't need to rely on, i.e. considering out-of-game facts such as the intention of the writers for putting that scene in. If it wouldn't leave you certain in real life it shouldn't in-game either, and the reasons for your certainty involve breaking suspension of disbelief (the "let's try to forget about reality and make this our reality for some time" part of immersion). My point about a rational, enquiring mind is that such a mind will generally not simply take things at face value and always be looking for problems which suggest that things aren't as good as they seem. That should be very obvious to people who write games (admittedly they aren't the same people as the ones writing the script) because by not having such a mindset all sorts of bugs creep in. There's a whole world between probably OK and definitely OK and all we got was probably, especially when there's nothing to suggest more than wishful thinking on the LI's part either.

The point about a bit of text was that it's at about the same level of effort. It contains the required information but is hardly rewarding.

As I've said in other posts I've no desire at all to have the rest of my Shepard's life spelled out for me. That's another story, well beyond the scope of the Mass Effect trilogy. But what we've got will always leave a nagging doubt at the back of my mind that he may not have a rest of his life, seeing as there's only second-guessing authorial intent and wishful thinking to confirm there's one even though I'm 99% sure he's not dead.

Modifié par Reorte, 30 septembre 2012 - 12:17 .

[Chardonney]

liggy002 wrote...

Iconoclaste wrote...

You can believe Shepard is alive after the "destroy" ending, because you have the "breath" scene. Search the threads a bit, it has been explained a few times now. If Shepard survived, then it answers you other question.

This is what Bioware doesn't get.  People want to see, not imagine it.  We would never have paid for a game if we knew that we had to imagine our ideal ending.

Exactly. Why didn't they just sell us the empty game box and tell us to imagine tho whole ME3 game. <_< They wanted me to pay to use my own imagination. How crazy is that? It's like going to the movies and then they stop the film close to the end and tell the audience to imagine the ending. Neat, eh?

Modifié par Chardonney, 30 septembre 2012 - 12:19 .

[Reorte]

Chardonney wrote...

liggy002 wrote...

Iconoclaste wrote...

You can believe Shepard is alive after the "destroy" ending, because you have the "breath" scene. Search the threads a bit, it has been explained a few times now. If Shepard survived, then it answers you other question.

This is what Bioware doesn't get.  People want to see, not imagine it.  We would never have paid for a game if we knew that we had to imagine our ideal ending.

Exactly. Why didn't they just sell us the empty game box and tell us to imagine tho whole ME3 game. <_< They wanted me to pay to use my own imagination. How crazy is that?

It's not challenging enough. People who play / read / watch other peoples' stories just want their hand holding.

[Legbiter]

Chardonney wrote...
Exactly. Why didn't they just sell us the empty game box and tell us to imagine tho whole ME3 game. <_< They wanted me to pay to use my own imagination. How crazy is that?

*shrug*

If I were that thinned-skinned I'd just stick with Oprah. Plenty of nauseating "closure" served up with a big helping of narcissistic emo pron.

[SpamBot2000]

"Closure" being a term injected into the ending debate by BW themselves, to deflect attention from general nonsense. Not that closure isn't a real need. It's just not what people were asking for. They were asking for an ending that made sense.

Modifié par SpamBot2000, 30 septembre 2012 - 12:22 .

[Chardonney]

Reorte wrote...

It's not challenging enough. People who play / read / watch other peoples' stories just want their hand holding.

Sorry but no. What a load of stereotyping.

Legbiter wrote...
*shrug*

If I were that
thinned-skinned I'd just stick with Oprah. Plenty of nauseating
"closure" served up with a big helping of narcissistic emo pron.

Sorry but I hate Oprah and I don't watch any daytime soap operas, either. Fail.

Modifié par Chardonney, 30 septembre 2012 - 12:24 .

[Reorte]

Chardonney wrote...

Reorte wrote...

It's not challenging enough. People who play / read / watch other peoples' stories just want their hand holding.

Sorry but no. What a load of stereotyping.

I was being sarcastic.

[Chardonney]

Reorte wrote...

Chardonney wrote...

Reorte wrote...

It's not challenging enough. People who play / read / watch other peoples' stories just want their hand holding.

Sorry but no. What a load of stereotyping.

I was being sarcastic.

Ah, sorry about that.  My bad.

[Davik Kang]

Chardonney wrote...

liggy002 wrote...

This is what Bioware doesn't get.  People want to see, not imagine it.  We would never have paid for a game if we knew that we had to imagine our ideal ending.

Exactly. Why didn't they just sell us the empty game box and tell us to imagine tho whole ME3 game. <_< They wanted me to pay to use my own imagination. How crazy is that? It's like going to the movies and then they stop the film close to the end and tell the audience to imagine the ending. Neat, eh?

They can't possibly show you your 'ideal ending'.  That would mean showing everybody their own individual ideal ending.

'Imagining the whole game...' it's such a redundant suggestion I can't be bothered to even start with it...

It's not stopping a film close to the end, it's where the film itself ends before you expected.  It means you have to think for a bit.  I know that's not what a lot of players wanted.  But a lot of other players enjoyed it.  In in the contect of ME, it made sense, because a lot of players would have wanted, or expected, their story to end differently to many other players.

Sometimes you want a happy ending.  Sometimes you want a really clear, cut and dry, fully explained ending.  But that's not how they ended ME3.  Some people are upset, for many reasons, including they wanted more closure as to what happens to the characters they came to care about.  But whatever endings they had produced, it would have upset some people.  

If there'd been a generic happy ending, with a Star Wars medal ceremony and a token scene with your chosen LI, some people would have been happier.  But others might have felt it was a fairly unimaginitive and unexciting way to end a massive space saga.  It wouldn't have been a very individual way to end it, and may even have left a bad taste in the mouth for those who thought the characters might have responded differently to the final battle against the Reapers.

Basically, they sacrificed an obvious, happy ending for a more thought-provoking, poignant ending.  Some people don't like it, and that's completely understandable.  And if you got the Shepard breath scene, that should give you something pretty awesome after assuming he/she had died... it gives you hope.  That's a pretty nice way to end the trilogy.

[Mastone]

I agree with the op, endings are bollocks, not because we don't get an exact ending we want, but just because the choices made during 3! installments are rendered pointless in the end...

[CommanderVyse]

Davik Kang wrote...

If there'd been a generic happy ending, with a Star Wars medal ceremony and a token scene with your chosen LI, some people would have been happier.  But others might have felt it was a fairly unimaginitive and unexciting way to end a massive space saga.

That is exactly how the light side KOTOR ending played out and people loved Bioware for it.

[Chardonney]

Davik Kang wrote...

If there'd been a generic happy ending, with a Star Wars medal ceremony and a token scene with your chosen LI, some people would have been happier.  But others might have felt it was a fairly unimaginitive and unexciting way to end a massive space saga.  It wouldn't have been a very individual way to end it, and may even have left a bad taste in the mouth for those who thought the characters might have responded differently to the final battle against the Reapers.

The point is that it should've been one of the options. If you wanted your Shep dead, fine, choose that but give something better for those who didn't want that. Now only one playerbase got what they wanted (the one you belong to) but not the other. That left a "bad taste" into our mouths. <_<

[Peranor]

SpamBot2000 wrote...

"Closure" being a term injected into the ending debate by BW themselves, to deflect attention from general nonsense. Not that closure isn't a real need. It's just not what people were asking for. They were asking for an ending that made sense.

True. But the high EMS Destroy ending is just fail. They should have either killed Shepard or not. But they chickened out and took the easy way out and left him/her in a either or state. For me that would have been fine as a cliffhanger for a sequel. But since we're not getting a sequel...

[CaIIisto]

CptBomBom00 wrote...

I just wish that BW would add few scenes in DLC to Destroy ending, confirming that Shepard lives and re-unites with Normandy's crew and his/hers LI.

That would appease a good number of people I would have thought. Myself included. 

[Chardonney]

Bester76 wrote...

CptBomBom00 wrote...

I just wish that BW would add few scenes in DLC to Destroy ending, confirming that Shepard lives and re-unites with Normandy's crew and his/hers LI.

That would appease a good number of people I would have thought. Myself included. 

Yes, that would be more than sufficient. I would be happy with that.

[Raging_Pulse]

They came close to something I'd almost call an acceptable closure, with gasping for breath and LI memorial wall hesitation scene in EC, but pointless and unavoidable sacrifice of EDI and geth (despite all that we've accomplished in their story arcs) that goes together with it is still a major bummer for me :-(

[Davik Kang]

wwinters99 wrote...
That is exactly how the light side KOTOR ending played out and people loved Bioware for it.

I absolutely loved KoToR.  It's the reason I bought Mass Effect, hoping to enjoy a game as much as that.  But I loved KoToR because of the journey.  The LS ending worked there, because it mirrored the feel-good ending of the SW films, but I don't think it was an especially good ending.  I'm not saying it was bad, just that what made KoToR great was the story, characters, and immersive world that sucked you in while playing.  The end didn't have much impact.
 
I certainly don't think that just copying the KoToR / Star Wars endings would have been a good way to end the ME trilogy.  That quite blatantly would have just been lazy.  That's the reason why I used the medal ceremony example (did you think it was coincidence?)

Chardonney wrote...
The point is that it should've been one of the options. If you wanted your Shep dead, fine, choose that but give something better for those who didn't want that. Now only one playerbase got what they wanted (the one you belong to) but not the other. That left a "bad taste" into our mouths. [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/angry.png[/smilie]

But who wants Shepard dead?  I certainly didn't.  For some reason in ME1, I was fairly convinced that Shepard would be killed, and though it was really cheesily done, I was honestly massively relieved when Shepard emerged from the rubble alive, to continue the fight.  Throughout the series I DESPERATELY didn't want Shepard to die, and that feeling remained throughout ME3 as well.

But I had to accept that she might die.  Bioware was writing a space opera, but they added lots of elements of realism throughout, to make the whole thing more meaningful.  The galaxy felt more real, and that made me want to save it all the more.  But that also meant that not all things end well, and it was always possible that people, including Anderson, Shepard, and any squadmates, could die too.  This was a massive part of ME2!

If the final choice was just 'happy ending, sad ending, inbetween endings', this really would have been a pretty lame choice.  That would have been 100% a lazy, try-to-please-everyone ending.

I understand that some people didn't like the endings, and they're not wrong.  I've said this over and over again.  But some people did like it.  There seems to be this entitlement amongst "anti-enders", as you call yoursleves, that your opinion in more valid and that Bioware should redo the endings as a matter of principle.

Modifié par Davik Kang, 30 septembre 2012 - 02:41 .

[Chardonney]

Davik Kang wrote...

I understand that some people didn't like the endings, and they're not wrong.  I've said this over and over again.  But some people did like it.  There seems to be this entitlement amongst "anti-enders", as you call yoursleves, that your opinion in more valid and that Bioware should redo the endings as a matter of principle.

No, we not ask them to redo the endings. Only to add something little to the Destroy ending, without compromising the other two ending choices. It is also well known, that there was conflict between the BW team about the ending. They wanted to do it differently but in the end, one person ignored them, steamrolled them and wrote it the way he alone wanted. 

[Davik Kang]

Chardonney wrote...
No, we not ask them to redo the endings. Only to add something little to the Destroy ending, without compromising the other two ending choices. It is also well known, that there was conflict between the BW team about the ending. They wanted to do it differently but in the end, one person ignored them, steamrolled them and wrote it the way he alone wanted.  

You are asking them to redo the endings.  Adding, changing, whatever, is redoing.  They already gave away free DLC content, adding to the endings, and people are still complaining.

You're right about the inner conflict.  However, afaik, we only have one writer's version of events.  That is important, I'm not discounting it, he was vocally critical of Hudson.  But that doesn't mean that all the other writers thought the ending was done wrong too.

Sion1138 wrote...
This is going to extremes and is also a redundant suggestion.

No one said it should be like that, just a slight bit more uplifting. Like I said before, an in-game cutscene of YOUR Shepard getting up from under the rubble and perhaps one last bit of dialogue, one sentence in response to a hail by Hackett or an Alliance rescue team before the credits roll.

Not too much, not to little. An appropriate reward.

Who decides how much more uplifting?  Why is my suggestion redundant and yours not?

Sion1138 wrote...
 You need to do end their journey on an unambiguosly positive note and you need to do that within the story. 

Oh, do you?  Says who?  You?  Why do you get to tell them what they 'need' to do?

Sion1138 wrote...
 You consciously designed your game to generate emotional responses, it's one of your main selling points, so take care.

They did generate emotional responses.  Lots of them.  There's no logical reason why these 'need' to be 'unambiguously happy'.  It will make some fans more satisfied, some less.  Why is your opinion so much more important than everyone else's that they 'need' to change the endings for you?

Sion1138 wrote...
Symbolism, however obvious, does not cut it. It might be enough for some people but not for others. By being a slight bit more direct you satisfy both these groups.

You are talking as if there are only 2 groups.  The range of opinions on the endings is massively diverse - it's not just people who like symbolism, and people who don't.  What about all the other groups who wouldn't be satisfied by your ending?

Modifié par Davik Kang, 30 septembre 2012 - 02:55 .

[CommanderVyse]

Davik Kang wrote...

You are asking them to redo the endings.  Adding, changing, whatever, is redoing.  They already gave away free DLC content, adding to the endings, and people are still complaining.

The EC was not a Get out of Jail Free Card. Releasing free content does not absolve Bioware of all guilt.

[Chardonney]

Davik Kang wrote...

You are asking them to redo the endings.  Adding, changing, whatever, is redoing.  They already gave away free DLC content, adding to the endings, and people are still complaining.

Wrong, not the endings, an ending, one of them. And if you wish to call it redoing, then go ahead but adding a clip or two to a one single ending choice, doesn't have to/wont change the other two ending choises in any way. Also, if you never choose the Destroy ending in your game, you wouldn't ever even see those few added clips anyway.